Rants And Ramblings About Mobile Technology

Is OSGi the Solution for Mobile Java? hints that JSR 232 Mobile Operational Management could fix some of the issues with Java ME (or rather specifically CLDC/MIDP). OSGi is a Java-based framework for dynamic loading of classes, when needed and when updated.

The article provides a list of issues that I don't think JSR 232 will solve in itself, except the third one...

• Fragmentation of the Java ME platform
• The absence of mobile runtime environments that adequately leverage the capabilities of advanced "smartphone" devices
• The difficulty of managing mobile applications and configurations once the device has left the building
• The architectural chasm that separates common Java web development skills and APIs from the specialized rich client practices employed when developing for mobile devices.

...and I add some more (equally non-solved by OSGi, mostly):

• Not trivial to re-use the massive amount of desktop-adapted Java code. There's not much code examples and complete open source projects for MIDlet developers.
• Lack of a graphically/multimedia focused UI (compare with Flash Lite).
• Lack of a widget-like RAD-like programming environment (a la "make an app in a snap" (TM)).

What OSGi can provide though is a more transparent application behavior, where the user doesn't have to deal with updates and such. It could potentially also lead to class sharing as well as "DLL hell" (the issue of different applications using different versions of shared classes).

Nokia is supposedly a pioneer in this field. I like how Nokia seems to be early on with new technology that matters. They were early with GPS and early with functionality for transferring mobile content (Smart Messaging). They might not be first with 3G and such base technologies, but based on sales figures, consumers are more concerned with useful and "tactile" features than necessarily the highest performance.