What's the WURFL? by Luca Passani passani at eunet dot no   WURFL = Wireless Universal Resource File The WURFL is an "ambitious" configuration file that contains info about all known Wireless devices on earth. Of course, new devices are created and released at all times. While this configuration file is bound to be out of date one day after each update, chances are that the WURFL lists all of the WAP devices you can purchase in the nearest shops. If you have browsed this site this far, you are probably looking for answers to the following questions: Why do WAP developers need a resource file like the WURFL? Why isn't someone providing WURFL like functionality for money? How do I use the WURFL? Which features of which phone are listed in the WURFL? Who endorses and supports the WURFL? ...and probably more. If you read on, you will find answers. WAP and the Need for Resource Files The WAP standard was a great idea. All the major players in the mobile telephony industry got together in 98 and created a consortium (WAP Forum, now OMA) to establish a worldwide standard called WAP, Wireless Application Protocol. While the protocol is supported by all device manufacturers and network operators, in practice phone and browser manufacturer have been eager to differentiate while abiding by the letter of the specs. The consequence of this is a plethora of devices which makes it real hard for developers to build WAP and Wireless services which work acceptably well for the owners of those devices. The message from the WAP Forum is to wait for implementations to converge and deliver developers from the problem. Thank you, honey...but we can't wait. As developers, we need solutions, we need them quick, we need them good and, sometimes, we need them cheap too! What developers need are means to: programmatically abstract away devices differences avoid that we need to modify applications whenever a new device ships avoid that we need to track new devices that ship (particularly those in uninteresting markets) the WURFL is the starting point to fix all of that. You can think of the WURFL as a global database of all devices and their capabilities. Of course, the wurfl is not all that there is to it. What you also need is a way to efficiently read the info from the database and use it in your applications to dynamically customize your apps for families of devices. For this reason, this project is on the lookout for programmers who can provide new smart utilities that exploit the WURFL and for porting existing utilities to different platforms. So what can the WURFL do for me?  >>

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