AvantGo 4.0 Increases Speed and Wireless Capabilities

Posted By: Ed Monday, March 26, 2001 5:36:19 PM

AvantGo announced today that version 4.0 of their mobile Internet service would be available soon. For non-corporate users, the new client offers 30% faster browsing over wired and wireless connections and a new user interface so individuals can more easily and transition between wireless and offline connectivity modes. This will be available April 10. For corporate users, the new version adds wireless infrastructure enhancements to the company’s M-Business Server and its Mobile Engines for the Web, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Exchange. It will be available March 30.

Additional Channels
"With AvantGo's next-generation wireless platform we are looking forward to complementing our current AvantGo channel offering to provide users with online access to Yahoo! Mail anytime, anywhere," said Anurag Mendhekar, Director, Yahoo! Everywhere.

"By working with AvantGo, we are empowering Amazon.com customers to purchase products from their mobile devices, providing them convenient and safe shopping anytime, anywhere," added John Garrison, Director of Carrier Relations at Amazon.com. "With one application we can bring Amazon Anywhere to many more mobile device platforms using AvantGo's mobile Internet service."

Beginning April 19 and in partnership with Sundial Marketplace Corporation, individuals will be able to purchase wireless service and hardware directly from the AvantGo website.

Wireless Support
AvantGo 4.0 now supports all of today's wireless protocols, including GSM, GPRS, CDPD, CDMA, Mobitex and 802.11(b) wireless local area networks. In addition, they are ready to support new technologies, including Bluetooth and 3G, as they become widely available.

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Size matters...

GregGaub @ 3/26/2001 6:12:13 PM #

What about the size of the damn application? Isn't AvantGo pretty much THE BIGGEST application in terms of RAM required that doesn't *include* content? For chrissakes, it starts out at like 600k+, then you tack on all the content.
My guess is that this new version will be EVEN BIGGER, and for what? A feature it already has? It's ALREADY capable of wireless web browsing. Is there any information that says or even implies that they've streamlined their bloated code?
If it's even bigger, let's hope they don't force people to upgrade. If it is, and they do, you can bet I'll be finding something else to do that job.

RE: Size matters...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/26/2001 7:18:12 PM #

Huh? I tot that the AvantGo client only weighs in abt 200+k? (Can't remember though)

The only missing features that I hope will be included in the new release are:

- ability to copy and paste text!!! (this is perhaps one of the single most impt feature that is missing)
- support of proxy servers in the wireless mobilelink

RE: Size matters...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/26/2001 9:08:56 PM #

As for the copy/paste feature, from what I can recall of a conversation I had a year ago with one of the employees, the reason they require the connection to the internet to do offline web browsing was because web content providers did not want to have their content available on anyone's computer. This goes towards the fact that they probably don't want to have you copy their content and paste it, regardless of if it is on a Palm or not.

RE: Size matters...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/26/2001 9:55:24 PM #

Copy and paste will be supported.

GregGaub - Are you sure you are not running mulitple servers? Take a look in the MobileLink application and see if your server has been duplicated. If that is the case, you should be able to delete at least one server and reduce the size.

RE: Size matters...

GregGaub @ 3/27/2001 12:29:00 AM #

Ok, I'll admit that I exaggerated slightly about the size of the app. It's not 600k, but it sure as heck isn't any 200k. I won't even bother looking on my device. Instead, I'll look at the .PRC files in the AvantGo folder that is stored on the hard drive:

avantgo.prc = 289k
libmal.prc = 119k
MobileLink.prc = 17k
TOTAL = 425k. That's with no preferences, no "servers" and definitely no content.

Unfortunately, no one mentioned whether they thought the new version would streamline some of that code, or if it's just going to be more functions tacked on to the application.

So, Mr. Anonymous who speaks as if he works for AvantGo, how big is the new version, eh? I don't want to read "oh, it's only slightly larger" or "the core application is such and such". I want to know how much total RAM will I be required to have on my device just to run your software. Include the size of any and all libraries that must be installed for the program to function as advertised (you know, libmal and MobileLink, et al.).

Something tells me I'm right.

Also, other than being able to copy text, what does this new "wireless" functionality give us that we don't already have in the current version? Yes, a speed increase will be nice, and I'll probably upgrade to the new version even if it's bigger, since I've got room.

Alas...

RE: Size matters...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/27/2001 9:32:06 AM #

the enterprise version already supports copy/paste. bumped into that a few days ago. select copy from the page, and it prompts if you want to save this into memo pad. very slick. now let's get integration into the other big 4.

As for the size, 425k is only the beginning.
Add another 252.3k for JavaScript support
I have 317.7k for AvantGo itself
59.1k for AvGoDocsMTI (?)

Good stuff though. with an 8mb device these sizes aren't a worry. time to upgrade 2mb'ers...

RE: Size matters...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/27/2001 11:56:27 AM #

What about channel limit? I have 8MB and I have many channels that I want to subscribe to. Right now Avantgo won't let me exceed over 2MB.

And, what about the slow HotSync speed? Any improvement?

RE: Size matters...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/28/2001 12:34:11 AM #

Hey guys, looks like AvantGo 4.0 is going to START at 780KB...=) Check the white paper

http://avantgo.com/enterprise/products/whitepapers/ago4_0.pdf

RE: Size matters...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/28/2001 10:50:15 AM #

You can get beyond the 2mb limit by setting up another account with AvantGo. After you do that and sync, go to AvantGo on your Palm, then tap Options-Choose server, and you'll see your new login ID, which will lead you to the new channels. One other thing - I expect the new AvantGo version to support not only cutting and pasting, but 16 bit color - AvantGo told me by email about six weeks ago it was getting ready to implement both. Cutting and pasting has already been implemented for WinCE PDAs.

RE: Size matters...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/28/2001 12:54:37 PM #

AvantGo Enterprise is VERY different than AvantGo Mobile Internet. The public product (Mobile Internet) is always smaller than their Enterprise product so the white paper you reference does not apply to most of us.

RE: Size matters...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/31/2001 1:15:23 PM #

GregGaub,

You don't have to use Avantgo you know. I'm not sure what you're doing with it but I can tell you it doesn't take up that much memory on my Palm. Given the content I can pull down it's worth the resources to me.

Next time check your palm and see what Avantgo is really using before you complain.

Just a thought

Displaying B&W on P 3s

Simon Jacobs @ 3/26/2001 8:59:34 PM #

I hope in this version the contrast issues associated with adjusting the contrast levels on the 3 series screens up for Avantgo & then back to normal for all other apps is finally solved!!!

Damn slow website !

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/27/2001 3:28:12 PM #

It's true that Avantgo is huge, and us 2mb users shouldn't be forced to upgrade. There are more of us than 8mb users. After installing the app and then 3 channels, I was at almost 800-900k, that's almost half full. That's ridiculous. It's unfortunate that I don't use it anymore, I really like it alot. But I could never try any other software without uninstalling first. It's true that eventually we'll all need more memory, but Avantgo can't assume that we only want their app on our device, and nothing else. 8mb helps, but one day that won't be enough either with programmers like these. First MS, now Avantgo.

And for this site, what is up with the loading of pages? It is so slow, it kills me even on a T3 line. Shit, this is horrible. I love visiting, but I need more than 30 minutes just to read today's new stories. Do something, man.

mobile proxy setting

sm @ 3/27/2001 8:06:30 PM #

if there any setting in version 4.0 on handheld to specify proxy server for the ISP login ¡H

choice

mike gesmundo @ 3/28/2001 4:07:03 AM #

i hope avant go will give us the option to upgrade or not

Whiners

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/28/2001 5:45:27 PM #

If you are still on a 2mb palm, you need to shut-up & upgrade. This technology moves @ lightspeed. If you can't keep up, that's your problem - don't blame AvantGo for advancing beyond your limitations.

RE: Whiners

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/29/2001 4:19:18 AM #

They're not really advancing beyond our limits are they... They're writing bloatware. PLENTY of other programs do as much as AvantGo without needing as much space. Someone explain to me why they, with their zillions of dollars budget, can't create channels which compress as well as iSilo documents (which have hyperlinks, formatting, images etc.). Not even close.

Nope, something is not going well with Avantgo and I think it's quite realistic for 2MB users to expect to be able to view one or two news pages with nuking 700K+ on their Palm devices.

Of course, this is all being provided free to us, but Avantgo makes plenty from its member sites.

It's absolutely scary of course that the offline functionality of Avantgo is so close to being replaced by services and software like iSilo and Sitescooper, which have minimal budgets.

You people....

alfredog @ 3/29/2001 1:22:46 PM #

There are more serious things to worry about other than about how pathetic your 2mb Palm is. Quit your bitchin', nobody should have to hear your sour stories. Maybe you just should have just springed an extra 50 bucks for a 8mb version, as for portability a iiic is not much bulkier than a V.

Copy from AvantGo

Ed @ 3/29/2001 3:11:48 PM #

I just learned of a hack that will let you copy text from AvantGo. It is a little kludgy but it works.
http://lthaler.free.fr/clipstring.htm

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