Java ME Add-Ons
Yesterday, a non-work friend asked me why there isn’t one programming language that covers all phones. They thought that it would have been in everyone’s interest to have a standard way of programming phones.
I explained how phone OEM and network operator selfish self-interest has resulted in the situation where each has tried to differentiate their offering by providing a different and competing solution. I also explained how, even with Java ME, the most common programming platform, companies provide add-ons just for their phones rather than championing something (a JSR) that might be used by everyone. Again, the thinking is that if it can be done on their phones but noone else’s then they have an advantage. Unfortunately, most developers ignore these specialised Java add-ons because they cause even more phone specific versions of their application.
Coincidentally, I returned home to read about yet another new Java ME add-on. The J2ME API bridge allows access to location, call logs and files related to sounds, images and video. The catch is that this only works on S60. It also requires the API Bridge to be provided as part of a .sis (Symbian) install.
In addition to the issues of fragmenting the Java ME development space, I question how many people will actually use the Java ME API bridge. First of all it won’t work on phones other than Nokia S60 where these things can be done natively anyway. Ok, there might be people who can only program Java. However, would they bother getting into Symbian territory to create a SIS file? How many of them would want their app working on S60 but not S40? How many of them would like to include a native component that might not work (who knows?) on future versions of S60? The resulting SIS has to be Symbian Signed if distributed, for example, via Ovi. Would Java developers really do (or even want to understand) this in addition to Java Signing?
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