GPRS and 3G Wireless Applications (Professional Developer's Guide Series) [Paperback]

However, there is a hidden gem in this book, Chapter 8. This chapter delves into the theory of wireless application development and presents some good foundational strategy for dealing with packet loss, discontinuous service, security holes, and so on. It also provides a good overview of the proper use of caching, compression, and reducing overhead. There is a discussion on the right way to keep the user engaged through a difficult airlink connection, and that's information which is usually ignored in most texts.

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It begins with basic concepts of how wireless infrastructure works. Developers can safely ignore this section of the book. I liked it because it sorted out the "moving parts" as well as the technological underpinnings. It also answered a lot of questions I had regarding where standards and the industry as a whole were headed, and the strengths and weaknesses of existing technologies and why 3G is so important. As an aside, I learned one trivial fact that had been bothering me: where did the name "Bluetooth" come from? Answer: It was named after a Danish king, Harald Blatand who brought unity among different groups of people. Blatand means Bluetooth in English. Not only does the name capture the spirit of Bluetooth as a technology, but this piece of trivia might gain you "Alpha Geek" status at a seminar or convention :-)

From chapter 3 on, however, is of paramount interest to architects and developers because it gets into lower level details of GPRS, 3G and Bluetooth. The author provides all of the key characteristics of each technology from which a design and development strategy can be derived. Chapter 6 is where both developers and architects will gain information for performance aspects of their products. The author is meticulous in describing the issues and factors that will arise with protocols (the realities of TCP/IP over wireless in chapter 6 is priceless), and is supported with graphs and diagrams that a developer should carefully go over before writing a single line of code.

Because of my focus in QA and SQA I thought chapter 14 on testing was particularly strong. Again, this is something that developers need to fully understand (as well as the rest of a project team), and the information provided in this chapter fills a large gap in the testing body of knowledge.

In response to previous comments about this book: (1) Although the content on the CD ROM is out of date, the author's web site contains up-to-date artifacts and URLs. (2) I contacted the author directly (contact information is provided in the book) about the missing test documents cited on the cover of the book and found out that last minute copyright issues prevented their inclusion on the CD ROM. He sent me to where these documents could be obtained (for free) and they were well worth the effort. (3) The book is anything but basic - it gets into some low-level details such as timing and state diagrams that are essential for *properly* developing wireless applications.

The author has a talent for packing an incredible amount of information into a paragraph and still holding your interest. He also comes across as authoritative and manages to cover a wide spectrum of issues and facts without compromising on details needed by developers and architects (or anyone who wants to update their knowledge on the latest wireless technologies).