WHERE™ Developer Program Overview
Rapidly create mobile GPS applications.
The WHERE Developer Program provides an easy way to widely distribute your mobile location-based content. WHERE eliminates the need to go through an extensive porting and certification cycles to access GPS and launch on-deck with the mobile operators.
Development on WHERE.
Anyone building a WHERE application should be comfortable with HTML and Javascript and be able to write code in a web programming language such as PHP, Cold Fusion, Ruby, etc. A WHERE Developer will also need to have the ability to host pages of mark-up text on a server which is accessible to the public Internet.
Building a WHERE application requires the following steps:
- Use a text editor to create pages of WHERE mark-up text that correspond to each page of your WHERE application. This is analogous to designing HTML pages and Javascript.
- Upload your WHERE mark-up text to a server that is connected to the Internet. Your server must have a consistent URL or IP address.
- Log into your WHERE Developer account and provide the URL of your WHERE application's 'home page'.
- View your application in the WHERE phone emulator or, if you have a supported phone model, on your phone.
Launching on carrier decks.
All applications must be certified by WHERE before becoming accessible to the WHERE user base. The certification process takes into account several factors:
- QA and design standards.
- Appropriate content.
- Adherence to consumer privacy guidelines.
Since launching in Spring of 2007, WHERE has become available on dozens of handsets on most of the major carriers. Currently this list includes Alltel, AT&T, Boost, Helio, metroPCS and Sprint. WHERE also has phone-specific availability on Nokia, BlackBerry and the iPhone. A full list of supported devices is available at http://www.where.com.
Cost and monetization.
The WHERE Developer Program is free for developers to build and distribute your application.
The WHERE consumer application is free on some carriers and on others there is a $2.99 subscription charge. In addition, the subscriber may pay additional data fees depending on their carrier and data plan.
WHERE Developers can make money through a revenue share program set up on an individual basis. If you're interested in having someone contact you regarding WHERE monetization programs, please send an email to create@where.com.
Testing your application.
Since WHERE is a mobile application, there is no way to view your WHERE application in a web browser. For this reason, we provide two ways to view your WHERE application during development.
Phone Emulator Testing:
Any registered WHERE developer can use the WHERE phone emulator to view their application. This emulator runs as a Java applet and works on most PCs and Macs.
Handset Testing:
If you have a supported handset that runs the WHERE application, you can test directly on your phone.
Note that these options are for standard handset development. For development on the iPhone, the process is a bit different. Contact us at create@where.com for further details.
Getting started.
It takes just a minute to sign up for a developer account.
You can also use our phone emulator to see what WHERE looks like. Click here, then log in as 'sample' / 'sample' to view the source code of existing applications.
For iPhone developers, see here or contact us for more info.
