T-Mobile introduces widgets in next-generation mobile Web experience

  • T-Mobile makes mobile surfing easier, faster and more convenient
  • Direct access to your most important and personal Internet services with one click on your mobile-phone display
  • Active widgets provide automatic notification of new information on personal Internet sites if required
  • Strategic partnership between T-Mobile and Opera for the creation of an open, standardized platform
  • web’n’walk widgets expected to be available by the end of the year
T-Mobile introduces widgets in next-generation mobile Web experience

web’n’walk is becoming even more intuitive, bringing users even closer to the World Wide Web. In future, you will be able to access your personal favorite sites more easily and quickly than ever from your mobile phone by simply selecting the corresponding widget, an active icon, from the standard display. The most important information from your chosen site is then shown – whether eBay, Amazon, Quelle, MyVideo.de, MySpace, Bild, billiger.de and various Yahoo! Services, such as Yahoo! oneSearch and Yahoo! Weather, or other popular Internet sites. In addition, in case of important information on a personalized Internet site, such as the arrival of an eBay notification, the widget indicates the new status, with users able to respond directly. You are thus informed of bids in online auctions or new news items as they occur, even on the move.

T-Mobile entered into a partnership with browser pioneer Opera Software ASA to develop the “Widget Internet”.

“T-Mobile ushered in a new era as the first global telecommunications operator to provide its customers with a complete mobile Web experience. Together with Opera, T-Mobile launched the pan-European success story called web’n’walk, enabling people to use all their favorite Web sites on nearly any device,” says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera Software. “Today, T-Mobile takes another industry-defining step forward. In web’n’walk 4.0, the mobile phone comes alive with widgets that deliver personalized services direct from the home screen, giving people more powerful tools to take full advantage of the mobile Web experience.”

“T-Mobile is striving towards offering its customers the best Internet experience at any time and in any place. To this end, we have introduced the iPhone into our markets in cooperation with Apple and are working on a new operating system, Android, in cooperation with Google, as a member of the Open Handset Alliance. The new web’n’walk is enabling us to push ahead with this strategy and introduce a new level of Internet quality to our other terminal devices and operating systems as well,” explained Rainer Deutschmann, Senior Vice President Mobile Internet, T-Mobile International AG. “We invite the industry to support the development and spread of this open, standards-based platform for the benefit of users and application developers.”

Large selection of widgets

The web’n’walk widgets can be quickly and easily set up according to personal preferences for mobile surfing. In order to enable this, T-Mobile is providing a gallery, initially with approximately 40 widgets for popular websites. It will soon be possible for other users and providers to create additional widgets via an open platform. These widgets will then be available to all web’n’walk widget users, regardless of which handset they use.

As was already possible with the Apple iPhone, T-Mobile customers can now put their preferred widgets on their mobile phone display with just a few clicks using web’n’walk. This provides them with an overview of their favorite services at all times upon request and enables them to access these services quickly. The familiar, personalizable web’n’walk homepage with the intelligent Yahoo! oneSearch function continues to be available for additional Internet use. The search is tailored to the specific requirements of mobile users and can also be set up as a widget.

The web’n’walk widgets thus complement the browser-based web’n’walk homepage, which T-Mobile updates on a continual basis. T-Mobile plans to launch the web’n’walk widgets by the end of the year, initially for touch-screen smartphones such as the MDA compact IV and MDA Vario IV.