iMail: a WAP mail retrieving system

This paper proposes iMail, a WAP mail retrieving system designed for wireless handheld devices to access Internet email service. In mobile data networks, the communication bandwidth is limited and the wireless handsets are constrained by small display, powerless CPU, limited memory, and unhandy input/output interface. To support mail retrieving in a mobile environment, we implement several features for iMail: mail filtering, two-phase fetch and pre-defined list reordering. Based on the user s filter options, mail filtering eliminates non-necessary mails sent to a wireless handheld device. Two-phase fetch is used to reduce transmission overhead of message delivery. We use pre-defined list reordering to speed up text typing in the wireless handheld devices. We also propose three mail notification mechanisms for iMail. When a new mail arrives, the mail notification mechanism informs iMail users immediately. Through the descriptions of the iMail features, this paper provides design and implementation guidelines for WAP applications. 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.