Foreword

It has been roughly twenty-five years now since the mobile technology era began. Can it be just a coincidence that it is almost exactly the same amount of time that I have known John Wargo, the author of this book? In 1988, the mobile technology landscape consisted of mobile phones the size of a carry-on suitcase and personal organizers that looked like glorified financial calculators. Wireless networks and widespread access to resources like the Internet were distant dreams. Unless you were a science fiction writer, it would have been hard to imagine the connected world that we take for granted today. If you knew John Wargo as I do, though, it would not have been very far-fetched at all to predict that he would turn out to be the author of four books.

Looking ahead another twenty-five years, I imagine it’s safe to say that our ability to accurately predict the advance of technology will continue to fall short. Powerful development tools like Cordova and the combined creativity of millions of application developers around the world virtually guarantee that we won’t be able to guess what indispensable capabilities will appear on our mobile devices tomorrow or the next day. Will tomorrow’s devices interface directly to our human nervous systems? Will they assemble themselves from organic compounds and heal themselves if they become damaged? Who knows.

Whatever the future of mobile technology holds for us, as long as there is a means to program or control it in some way, I hope that John will put together a collection of words to point others in the right direction.

—David M. Via
AT&T