WAP Definition
WAP is short for the Wireless Application Protocol, a secure specification which allows people to access information instantly, via handheld wireless devices. Such handheld devices include mobile phones, pagers, two-way radios, smart phones and communicators.
WAP is supported by most wireless networks, for instance CDPD, CDMA, GSM are three examples.
WAP is supported by all existing operating systems. Three operating systems specifically engineered for handheld devices include PalmOS, EPOC, Windows CE.
Wireless Application Protocols that use screens and access the internet use what is know as a microbrowser. Opera Mobile Browser is specially made to handle low memory constraints of handheld devices and the low bandwidth constraints with a wireless handheld device.
WAP can support XML, HTML and now more recently XHTML languages. As mobile technology advances, we expect in the future languages such as JavaScript and Flash elements based within web pages will be supported too. At the moment, these languages could be support, but not within a browser and only via external software such as a mobile phone version of Macromedia Flash.
Because WAP is fairly new, it is not a formal standard yet. It is still an initiative that was started by Unwired Planet, Motorola, Nokia, and Ericsson.
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