Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news

Death Knell for Wi-Fi Phones? presents a report from Juniper Research that estimates Wi-Fi/WLAN-only phones will be all but extinct in 5 years. Cost-wise I think this is sensible, as there will not be much of a cost penalty for having both e.g. GSM and Wi-Fi. The major reason mentioned is though that it's expected people don't want to carry several devices.

Interestingly it also mentions a possibility that Wi-Fi-based mesh networks might come into broader use. As telecom operators don't want anything to do with mesh networks they are neither likely to adopt them any time soon, but it's a good way to overcome the issue of very spotty Wi-Fi coverage.

Another trend I've noted, that few speak of, is that by moving away from DECT phones and fixed line phones, phones become individual rather than shared in a household or (less usual) in an office setting. If each individual has its own number for voice and messages, there's no need for family members to act manual switchboard operators. Of course there's less possibility for parents to know when the youngsters are on the phone, but I don't think the latter complain about that.

Here are three patents related to mobile phones that are of arguable value, practicality or technical complexity, but interesting all the same. It seems anything can be patented these days. You judge what might become really useful.

Method for simulating an incoming call on a mobile phone
This simply makes your own phone "call" you (at least that's the impression your audience will get), so that you can get out of boring, embarrassing etc moments. The described method is using a timer, but it would have been better if there was a button on your phone that would cause the simulated call, so whenever you see a need to "hide", you can just press that button while your phone is in your pocket. All that is needed is a small application that plays the ringtone. The rest is left to your acting skills and your audience's imagination.

Driver-attentive notification system
(the link is broken, so I point to the textually entry) Why need to press a button to return a message that I can't be disturbed? If I'm so attentive I can actually press a button then I'm probably not very busy. I'd rather like a profile setting called "very busy" or similar that would return a voice or SMS message about my status, e.g. advicing the person to send an e-mail instead. Some phones already have the SMS variety.

Neochroma mobile projector blows up cellphone screens
It seems all misunderstand what this is about, but based on the overexaggerated arguments for this solution and maybe that they say it will take two years to "productify" it (why two years? it's just some plastic and metal), it seems more complicated than it is. It's just a set of mirrors making you able to view the display like those old stereoscopic gizmos. It's all mechanical, and the only really unique thing about this is that it can be used for viewing real stereoscopic imagery by the phone's display showing two such images. Whether the gizmo will be able to change between "both eyes see the same thing" and "one part of the display per eye" is not mentioned. It all sounds bigger than life, but it's not.

EclipseME is to Eclipse what Mobility Pack is to NetBeans, a plugin that adds the development features needed for Java ME development. EclipseME only supports MIDP (as far as I can see), while there are Mobility Packs for both CLDC/MIDP and CDC. CDC is not of much importance right now, so the other major difference is that EclipseMe doesn't support anything similar to Visual Mobile Designer (UI design tool).

The main features of EclipseMe are:

• Wireless toolkit preferences
• Create new J2ME Midlet Suite Project
• Create new Midlet
• Java Application Descriptor (JAD) editor
• Incremental/automatic preverification of class files
• Eclipse launch support for running within J2ME emulators
• Packaging and deployment including Over The Air deployment testing and obfuscated output via ProGuard

For my own development I don't see any reason to switch from NetBeans just yet, as all the above is covered by NetBeans Mobility Pack as well.

BenQ Mobile To Be Sold Off As Last-Ditch Salvation Effort Fails is truly a sign of the times: If you can't sell the unsellable anywhere else, try eBay.

On a more serious note: I still don't understand why BenQ acquired the already suffering Siemens Mobile. Mobile phones should not be designed and produced in Europe anymore. Sony Ericsson will have to change too, as new markets are entered and prices go down. Most ODMs have already disappeared from Europe, and Nokia is already heavily depending on Asian ODMs for low-cost phones.

Mobile Monday Global Peer Awards 2007 at 3GSM World Congress was a an occasion awarding companies that have stood out with unique services and products during 2006. The audio is not very good. Note the geo-tagging of the video. Not so exciting, as we already know it's in Barcelona.

Java ME Testing - Debugging Test Failures goes through different methods for debugging issues that might not be found until the application is running on the device, and that might not even be casued by the application itself.

As all Java ME developers know the emulator in Java Wireless Toolkit can't be trusted for actual device compatibility and device-specific "features", even if manufacturer-specific profiles are used.

So Long to Stand-Alone GPS Units? argues that the life expectancy of stand-alone GPS devices is short, as mobile phones with integrated GPS will take over. Not many GPS devices are sold today, so mobile phones could easily take over volume-wise, but I still sense there will continue to be a need for large screen rugged mapping/navigation devices. Yet, the overall use of GPS will increase very fast. Not the least as phones in US have to have GPS due to the E-911 rules.

Porting J2ME games to Flash Lite describes the basics of such porting.

A noticeable difference in the graphics department is that Flash Lite can render vector graphics in higher quality by using anti-aliasing and sub-pixel positioning, and you can also predefine graphics. You get the same in Java via SVG, but few phones support that yet. Also font handling seems more powerful.

For broadest possible phone compatibility, Java ME still shines, and almost all mobile games are still made for Java ME, but there are no doubt also Flash Lite games being made, yet way fewer.

My conclusion is no (except for getting standard mobile subscriptions, and at least for Europe), but Daniel Taylor thinks otherwise in Can Enterprises Bypass The Carrier?.

In my opinion it shouldn't (and doesn't) matter what operator is being used for the user-to-enterprise communication, as the only thing the operator supplies in this case is a wireless link to the Internet. It doesn't even matter if different users have signed up to different operators, as long as phone/service compatibility is achieved, either via browser-based services or via a client application interfacing with the enterprise service (typically developed in Java, Symbian OS or Windows Mobile).

Daniel points out that if operators don't provide the mobility (again beyond pure communication links) then enterprises need this competence inhouse, but in my opinion operators don't understand enterprise mobility at all. Rather I see a big opportunity for third-party service providers to step in and provide both the phone compatibility and service "mobilization".

Of course involving operators is still necessary, but in the role as communication providers (similar to how enterprises subscribe to broadband ISPs).

Botanicalls offers another interesting use of phone technology (not mobile in this case, but with such implications): Flowers will make a call when they need water. Of course not literally. Rather the solution contains sensors placed on each plant that trigger a call when out of water. You can also "call the plants" to get information about them. It's all experimental for now.

(via Textually)

Waleli offers a doorbell/doorphone that serves as a link between the person at the door and you at your mobile phone. You can unlock the door from your phone, including for yourself, if you lose your keys. A very nice and useful concept, but I won't comment the design.

Yahoo commentary: Wireless Doorbell Rings You In
I love how Yahoo always explains GSM and SIM, while they don't explain CDMA. If not already clear: CDMA is losing ground to GSM also in the States, and many smartphones are only available for GSM, so I believe most business people already know what GSM and SIM mean (at least conceptually).

Sorry for the Monty Python reference, but Young, mobile, but not yet online is a rather confusing piece. From the text:

1. "have started to use their phones for a whole range of functions — buying ringtones, downloading computer games, social networking"

2. "But young mobile phone customers are still relatively slow to embrace internet-based services"

Do you spot the contradiction here? The right answer is: Everything mentioned in 1. are Internet services. Say no more... (another lame Monty Python reference)

The problem is that the article considers accessing Internet services and browsing the Internet as equal. Few are interested in casually browsing the Internet on a small phone display, rather people access Internet services directly, and often via client applications, e.g. for chat, blogging etc. We are certainly still talking Internet services.

It's clear we "elderly" need to change our mindset and realize that the very use of the Internet is changing as access is moving over to phones.

The traditional web browser might actually be the worst means possible to access Internet services from a mobile phone.

Update 20070301: The link is now correct.

The Secrets of Creating Great Connected Java ME Applications outlines that it's important to make use of the client and server capabilities in the best way possible, and is very much in line with the thoughts I have about the Mobilizer concept:

• Client: user interaction, look-n-feel, etc
• Server: Number and data crunching, storage, etc

Interestingly it also mentions that SOAP and REST are too heavy-weight for Java ME applications. I've only used HTTP GET/POST so far for client/server communication, and relying on Web Services (the JSR, that is) makes the application work with too few phones.

Update: I just read in the documentation for Visual Basic 2005 that also non-mobile enterprise applications are moving this way, where the pure web browser interface is considered too limited and not utilizing local PC resources, hence is replaced by local Windows applications (the way it was before, actually). I have to take Microsoft's word for it, but it makes sense: Enterprise applications that are completely browser-based tend to have terrible user interfaces. AJAX might fix some of that, but you are still at the mercy of the solution provider to make a consistent user interface across services. Something you get for free in Windows.

(via Mobility Weblog)

That might seem like an apples and oranges comparison, but if you are a mobile game developer it indicates that the most viable platforms for game development are Java ME (1.5 billion units), Flash (200 million) and Symbian OS (100 million), or any of the abstracting gaming platforms that are available for Java ME and Symbian OS.

Whether Flash is really useful for other applications than games remains to be seen, but e.g. mapping applications should be possible to do, provided location features of the phone can be accessed.

Adobe press release: Flash Enabled Mobile Devices Pass 200 Million

Another collection of links to info about what GPS can be used for:

Finding Fido With GPS
PETsCELL is a device with 2-way voice capability and GPS for locating primarily dogs; maybe cows too

MainNav MW-705: Rugged GPS Watch
Mainnav MW-705 - GPS Watch with Optional Bluetooth
Mainnav kicks out Bluetooth-enabled MW-705 GPS watch
I've seen smaller watches; it has a number of other adventurer features

GPS to Track Truant Kids?
Affordable GPS-tracking available for over-anxious parents, scary.
Different ways to make children think you don't trust them

Garmin GPS-based Edge cycling computer touring California
Not just GPS, but everything a biker (bicycler?) needs, including a digital personal trainer

The press release Bluestreak establishes industry leadership as MachBlue now available in Java to run Flash®-formatted* files on mobile describes that MachBlue, a platform for mobile applications, now supports Java ME phones as well, making it even broader in its support of phone independent applications.

Interestingly it says MachBlue supports a subset of Flash.

Here's a mashup of sorts of my own recent writings on the topics of GPS and location in general.

To say that this mobile service area is hot is an understatement. As always there's a question what types and providers of services will actually survive, but there seems to be nothing stopping entrepreneurs from jumping onto the bandwagon.

GPS, a true service enabler

ShoZu now offers geotaggning

Navteq awards indicate what's hot in LBS

GPS, coming to a phone near you

Nokia providing mobile mapping for free

Mobile phone + GPS module: 3 times wireless

Fun with GPS

2007, the year of location based services? (it's already clear the question mark shouldn't be there)

GPS + Galileo means better location

Locate your foot

News about GPS

While most location services completely depending on mobile network functionality have failed, it seems GPS (and A-GPS) with its much higher precision, and now much lowered cost, seems to generate a slew of new services. What services will actually generate money is another story, but this is clearly an area of innovation right now. Here are a few new examples:

Rogers Wireless Launches GPS Navigator Service

Hemisphere GPS Innovation Wins FinOvation Award and Establishes Two New Patents

Using GPS to track those cheatin' hearts

New GPS Software Designed for Use at Ski Resorts

Garmin Gains on GPS Growth

Weapons and mobile phones 'worst inventions' according to the man (and woman) on the street, and it came well before nuclear power. You'll see the complete list at the site.

Mobile phones are interesting in that most people only use voice and possibly SMS, but they buy them (possibly by upgrading) for the advanced features, that often make even the most basic functions hard to use. Things like coverage, costs, operator CRM etc are likely to also play a role here.

(via Textually)

Here are a couple of news from around 3GSM World Congress, regarding mobile phones and mobile services in emerging markets:

3GSM: Ignore Cheaper Phones At Your Peril, Says Motorola - noting that if manufacturers don't go in now, they might not be able to get in there later; also it indicates emerging markets is more information-intensive than established markets, which should favor service providers

Global profit hunt sends phone operators to emerging world - "The areas representing the most opportunity are Asia, Africa and the Middle East, he said.", which would indicate China and India are already starting to get saturated? I doubt that; Rather maybe they think in terms of competition between operators, considering how established e.g. China Mobile is in China

Low-Cost Not Full Story In Developing Regions - There's a need for also advanced phones and advanced services in those regions

CEOs: Emerging markets will pave the way - again points to the fact that emerging markets adopt new forms of information services more quickly than established markets; hence the phone is immediately seen as more than a voice device

WiMax likely choice for 'Net access in emerging markets - I agree: What users need is voice/SMS + wireless broadband; 3G can achieve that too, but likely for a much higher cost, and with a lot of irrelevant legacy in the backpack

FlashLite vs J2ME on-line seminar is March 13, and is free. I expect it to be a bit Flash Lite biased, as Adobe is mentioned a bit too many times on the site :).

ShoZu adds geotagging for Flickr, YouTube explains that phones with GPS (external also, I hope) can be used for geotagging photos and videos, and the service will (somehow) represent the location from where the information was sent (as a link to a map maybe).

More than Flickr and YouTube are supported: Kodak EasyShare Gallery, MSN's Windows Live Spaces and Webshots, personal blogging sites such as Blogger, TypePad and WordPress and citizen-contributed photojournalism sites such as CNN, the BBC and Scoopt.

NAVTEQ Announces European Winners of Global LBS Challenge(TM), Drives Location and Navigation on Wireless Devices lists the winners of the Navteq LBS Challenge award. They should all have made use of Navteq's map service.

The service types provide examples of what mapping and location are used for right now, for anyone to "me-too":

• Smarter Agent provides search and information about real estate
• Jentro Technologies provides a navigation service for consumers
• AtlasCT's relive! is a social network service for informing about trips, with photos etc

Another collection of news. This time about GPS:

GPS steals the show at 3GSM - "GPS is definitely one of the key themes of the 3GSM show," said David Wood, head of Symbian.

RIM unveils first GPS BlackBerry for Europe - "It also comes with built-in GPS and uses 'assisted mode' to save battery life and speed up location searches."

Nokia introduces 6110 Navigator with integrated GPS - "The Nokia 6110 Navigator features full personal navigation experience with integrated maps, routing and navigation." It also sports HSDPA.

Assisted mode = Assisted GPS, a combination of GPS and mobile network functionality for faster and less power-consuming location

A collection of recent Symbian news:

Sony Ericsson to outline UIQ plans - New direction for UIQ will be revealed during the 3GSM week

The Problem with Symbian OS - Why Java could take over from Symbian OS as the mobile application platform of choice. Oops! It already has...

Nokia hopes to push mobile e-mail in enterprise - For Nokia's Symbian OS / Series 60/80 phones

Nokia also releases new Symbian phones with DVB-H, HSDPA and GPS at the 3GSM show.

At least the process has been started, as described in W3C draws up widgets wish-list. A very important development, to broaden the applicability of widgets on different browsers and different platforms.

Here's the most important info regarding use in mobile phones:

The Working Group hopes that by standardizing widgets, developers will be able to deploy them on a variety of platforms and devices in a manner that is both easy to use and device independent. This is particularly relevant for mobile devices, where the diversity of platforms does not sit well with the current fragmented approach to widget development.

There are also Java (J2ME) based implementations for mobile devices. However the very fact that competing technologies are proliferating suggests that the W3C is right to at least look at the possibility of establishing a common approach.

Content is key at Barcelona cell phone convention states that a new category of companies are exhibiting and conferencing at this year's 3GSM World Congress, mentioning companies like Yahoo, MTV, Disney, Warner Music etc.

I've seen this previous years as well to a certain degree, but it's probably much more targeted now. After all, for mobile data to be successful there needs to be something to use it for, and even though generic Web browsing might provide some extra traffic, it's nothing compared to what e.g. music and video downloads could generate. Even mapping services are fairly download intensive, when you move around.

I mentioned conferencing: During the week there's also a conference taking place for the industry. I was at the conference 4 years ago, and I was surprised by the lack of innovative thought then. Operators were mainly concerned about protecting existing revenue streams. It was at the time when operators shunned IM for that reason (supposedly threatening SMS). I hope this has changed now, and that there's a more open-minded attitude towards new, and maybe much more profitable and consumer-friendly revenue streams.

The collaboration between a number of European operators about mobile search is mentioned as a way to generate revenue from advertizing, that otherwise goes to Google, Yahoo etc. I'm not too optimistic about the outcome, unless they simply lock out those services.

Cell Phone with Rollable Screen Planned describes a new technology from Polymer Vision that enables displays to be rollable (to minimize size while stowed away, yet create a large display while rolled out) and that supposedly has a much higher readability factor and lower power consumption than LCD displays.

It sounds like an excellent fit also for ebook readers. From pictures at Polymer Vision's site it seems the display is so thin it's almost like plastic film, similar to the displays used in the movie Red Planet.

Reading books on mobile phones hasn't caught on in Europe and USA, but is fairly popular in Korea and Japan. This kind of display makes it much more convenient, yet it should be noted that the technology currently doesn't support fast-changing pictures, so it can't be used for e.g. videos at the moment.

Operators to take on Apple's iPhone has some good news for people that want to download music to their mobiles: Twenty-three mobile phone operators with a collective subscriber base of 690m, including Norway's Telenor and Vodafone's South African partner network Vodacom, are backing the plan.

Unfortunately this flatrate offering is related only to the new MusicStation service (provided by Omnifone), and not generic Internet access.

3GSM World Congress in Barcelona starts on Monday and lasts for 4 days. Rest assured, media will be flooded by press releases and commentary on the exhibit during next week.

I'm not there, and I'm not sure I'm sad about it. Two years ago I stood in a booth for a whole week, constantly talking about the products we offered (people stood in line), and were in maybe 10 customer meetings at hotels. At least I think they were customers meetings. It's all a bit blurry.

I figure there will be lots of buzz about the Apple iPhone, arguably deserved. I also expect there to be a lot said about location based services and phones with GPS, mobile advertizing, user generated content, IP Multimedia Subsystem (and what it might be useful for; see below), mobile TV, music and video downloads, mobile e-mail and IM, higher speed 3G (but probably not that much about real 4G), flatrate data (hopefully), emerging markets and lowcost phones, among other things.

Regarding IMS: The use cases I've seen so far have all been a bit lame, like push-to-talk (who cares really?) , push-video, push-file etc. Why not go for useful stuff, like multimedia blogging to popular services, real telephone-like voice-over-IP (not just PoC), user generated multimedia uploads and downloads, IMPS for established services etc?

Here's some information about things to expect to see at 3GSM World Congress:

Wireless industry heads to Spain meeting

3GSM: Wireless Industry To Focus On Growth

3GSM World Congress 2007, Mobile Monday Peer Awards

JME C64 is an emulator of the once very popular home computer / game console Commodore 64 for use on mobile phones.

The speed of the original C64 is emulated, so that games don't run too fast. Note that the C64 had a 1 megahertz CPU, so even though emulating the 65xx processor in Java takes many cycles, any mobile phone should be able to run it at the right speed.

It even scales the C64 screen to fit the phone display, and it emulates the external floppy drive etc, so it's very close to the real thing, yet much smaller of course.

As JME C64 fully emulates the CPU and other hardware of the C64, the original system software is used, with permission from Commodore. Emulating the audio chip (at the time quite advanced) can't have been very simple, but it does that too.

The reason this at all makes sense is the vast amount of C64 games. You can easily find many openly advertized sites that provide such games.

The "Reader's Digest" version:

• Social Networking Gets Mobilized
• Mobile TV—Now Showing for Early Adopters
• Multi-Function Devices Become Cheaper and More Versatile
• Location-Based Services: And the Winner Is. . . GPS
• AOL, Yahoo! and Google Multimedia Platforms Challenge IMS
• China and India Tilt Equipment Market
• Mobile Advertising Breaks Loose
• Wireless Providers Move into Home Entertainment
• Wireless Security Moves to the Forefront
• Enterprise Mobility—It’s for Real Now

inCode also wants operators to go back to basics and focus on their core services, and make them work well.

Regarding location, I agree with what is said: Only GPS provides enough precision, but I don't see that a critical mass of phones will get GPS this year. Yet, there are ways to get a reasonable precision via the mobile network, but operators don't seem to see any opportunity there, despite the hype about LBS, so I don't expect much better offerings from operators during 2007. Rather , phone manufacturers control the short term fate of LBS.

Like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask, among others, also Nokia now offers the Smart2Go service to consumers, claimed to cover 150 countries. It's not just supporting mapping but can also serve as a simple navigation service.

It initially comes for a few Series 60 and Windows Mobile phones. MIDP is not mentioned at all. Not even for the future, which is odd.

Smart2Go supports location via GPS, and it's a strategic move as it's well in line with Nokia's intention to launch several phones with integrated GPS this year.

Press release:

Nokia Delivers Free Downloadable Maps to the Mobile World

Commentary:

Nokia gives away Smart2go mapping software starting now

Nokia to roll out free mobile map service

Flash is the devil is a comical spin on the fact that also Flash Lite has some issues when it comes to compatibility, by not existing in enough phones (read: in way less phones that Java ME).

As I mentioned in Java ME CLDC/MIDP, the choice for mobile widget platforms mobile widget platforms and ditto mobile widgets are in an interesting competitive situation with Flash Lite, which sooner or later Adobe will have to face: By being based on Java ME they can potentially run on many more phones than Flash Lite, as Flash Lite is embedded and not endorsed as broadly as Java ME, the latter being everywhere.

Certainly, making a Java ME based mobile widget platform that's compatible with almost all phones is very far from easy.

Just a geek's observation that a GPS setup with a GPS module with Bluetooth and a mobile phone all in all encompasses 3 wireless links:

• The GPS satellite communication (in the case of the Nokia LD-3W on up to 20 channels)
• The Bluetooth communication between the phone and the module
• The phone's communication with the mobile network; optional in this scenario, but needed for downloading of maps, POIs etc, as well as for uploading geotagged blog entries, photos etc

You might think there would be some interference here, but they are all on different frequencies.

I need to get a life...

This is a bit surprising at first, but after all Apple had to accept a walled garden approach (iTunes + iPod) to at all get agreements to distribute music via iTunes. Apple itself should be more open-minded, and Steve Jobs now tries to push the music industry to accept a DRM-free world. My 2007, not the year of DRM thereby sounds easier to accept: If not even the distributor that's been most successful in deploying DRM en masse wants it, then things will not look good for DRM overall. No doubt both the music industry and telecom operators want DRM, but they are also similar in another area: They don't understand the consumer market of today.

Music industry group fires back at Apple

Can Apple convince recording industry?

Steve Jobs urges record companies to set online music free

Norway agency questions Apple music move

I haven't had time to read much about the technology this foundation will specify, but Foundation Platform: Linux-based Mobile Applications Standard? indicates there will only be one choice for UI Widgets (GTK+), which is a very good thing for simplifying application porting (ideally not requiring any porting at all), yet my experience is that also more abstract UI Widgets are used, but as long as that added functionality runs on top of the base LiMo architecture/"sandbox" there should still be application compatibility.

There's an interesting continuous discussion at Opera Community about new features for Opera Mini. It was started early 2006, but at the end you'll find recent suggestions as well.

Anyone can register, so just jump in and propose things like local Javascript, J2SE and Flash support (Javascript should be possible, turning Opera Mini into a mobile widget platform, but J2SE and full Flash, no), 2D mode that's useful on a phone etc.

Update: I rewrote the note when I got it working.

I bought the Nokia LD-3W (a GPS/Bluetooth module) to location-enable a few of my existing MIDlets, and as an idea generator for new applications and services.

It supports NMEA over Bluetooth Serial Port, so it can be used with most mobile phones, and also with most location/mapping applications for Java, Symbian or Windows Mobile. I intend to access it directly via Bluetooth from Java, as there are yet hardly any phones with the Location API. The same implementation should in theory work with all similar GPS modules.

It works flawlessly with Mobile GMaps, an excellent (and free) mapping application, but the example code I found hardly worked at all and contained lots of obvious bugs, including such provided by phone manufacturers (I won't name names).

GPS is not intended for indoor use (the satellite signals are too weak), but it could actually track position to a certain extent, yet sometimes it lost the satellite link completely.

Outdoors it tracked my position very exactly while walking around, and Mobile GMaps updated the display every few seconds.

The module only communicates with one phone at a time, so once an application starts communicating it's invisible to other phones.

If you plan to buy this module (that's certainly one of the smaller, better and less expensive ones around), note that it only comes with a car charger. If you don't have a Nokia phone you can of course buy a separate charger for something like $15 over the Internet. Don't buy the charger in a shop. They'll rob you blind (more than double the price, where I checked).

Wireless Toolkit 2.5 is Final! describes that the new version supports Mobile Service Architecture, that you can read more about on my MSA page.

Memory Management in J2ME gives an introduction to how memory is managed in Java ME (or at least CLDC/MIDP). This is the most technical note for today. I promise.

Here's some advice of my own for mobile application developers, partly contradicting the note. Some are blatantly obvious:

• Don't use System.gc(), as you never know when/if it will kick in.
• Minimize the amount and size of objects you instantiate. Obviously!
• Re-use larger instantiated object, e.g. arrays. Objects can always be 'relinked' to other object variables, so setting up e.g. reusable round-robin buffers etc is simple and recommended.
• De-reference objects (set associated object variables to null) that you know you will never use again. Of course perform any closing etc before you de-reference, and watch out for possible threads that are still using those 'nulled' object variables, or you might be in for some nasty surprises.

Remember:

• Objects are always allocated on the heap. Java has no notion of stack-allocated objects like in C/C++ (except for primitive types).
• Object variables are simply pointers to allocated objects. They are typed and managed, but they are still just pointers. That also makes handling of objects incredibly flexible, 'aesthetic' (for lack of a better word) and consistent.
• You can't explicitly de-allocate objects. That's done for you (in most cases gracefully) by the system.

Enrique Ortiz at Mobility Weblog asks the development community to provide feedback to the MIDP 3.0 specification team, and also tells you how. I've contributed some.

You can also see J2ME Forums for a thread about MIDP 3.0.

I read Java ME as middleware to Mobile Ajax? with interest, yet with some concern about the logic. This is not intended to flame Ajit's note. Rather it shows reality from a slightly different point of view.

To clarify the acronym mumbo jumbo: CLDC/MIDP is the configuration/profile combination of Java ME that's completely dominating on mobile phones. Java ME is Java Micro Edition, intended for smaller and/or mobile devices.

Regarding "rather curious development", about using CLDC/MIDP as middleware for widget platforms: Not at all...

What after-market application platform exists in most mainstream phones? CLDC/MIDP. 1.5 billion according to Sun.

What after-market application platform does most phones only have? Again, CLDC/MIDP. There are less than 200 million phones that run any other such platform. The only serious alternative is Symbian OS / Series 60 with 100 million phones.

If mFoundry instead would have gone embedded they would have had to convince phone manufacturers to integrate mojax despite no operator has requested it. Close to impossible (not even a giant like Adobe can convince them to integrate Flash Lite on all phones), and it takes a long time to get phones on the market, hence mFoundry would be outcompeted in a jiffy. Again an argument for CLDC/MIDP.

This same reasoning applies to other mobile widget platform providers.

Regarding "CTO and co-Founder of mFoundry (creator of mojax) counters this argument saying that it is too technical": It's strange to argue that it's too technical, and it indicates the CTO thereby agrees that it's not AJAX compatible. Hidden under this is of course that people think they understand what AJAX is and it's of course hyped, hence the value of using that term for describing mojax is very high, even if it's wrong. Marketing 101 ;).

See also my 2007, the year of mobile widgets.

Wireless World Japan hosts this week's Carnival of the Mobilists. Not surprisingly the pictures are from Japan. For some reason my entry is under 'food stalls'. Maybe because my diagram looks like two pizzas. You figure it out.

Often analysts and industry folks talk about mobile phones as limited devices. They mean not the least the more limited user interface, CPU power etc, compared to a PC. In the following diagram I try to show that it's a matter of perspective, and that a laptop computer could be considered limited in other areas, crucial to e.g. user generated content.

Interestingly I read somewhere that mobile phones are considered to be mainly used for output from rather than input to UGC services in the future. I believe that's a fundamentally wrong notion. Again it seems people think about the hazzle of entering text. See how much text there is at e.g. Flickr and YouTube, and you'll realize that mobile phones are ideal for generating UGC, provided you don't have to sell your house to afford transferring it.

I'm actually a bit kind to the laptop computer saying it's got a wireless connection. Sure, all laptops have Wi-Fi now, but when you are at an arbitrary place it's not very likely you have Wi-Fi coverage, and pulling out the laptop just for sending an interesting photo is not realistic anyway.

Click on the diagram for a larger version. It's also available in the Introduction presentations on the Mobilizer page.

Sage, RIM Say Mobile CRM Is Ready for Prime Time says that "mobile CRM adoption now outpaces the growth of the core CRM market" (CRM as in Customer Relationship Management).

Quote: companies are compressing business processes by pushing information back [from the field to the home office] to book business and create invoices or by having headquarters send approved quotes back to salespeople while they're still on sales call."
This speeds up the process of handling customer requests, business deals etc, and centrally there's a possibility to track all that happens in real time, and also act to situations much quicker and more orderly.

Quote: Gartner expects strong annual growth in mobile CRM, predicting sales increases of 40 percent to 60 percent over the next two years

Quote: many deployment challenges have also been resolved now that software updates and changes to custom apps can be delivered over the network rather than requiring devices to be recalled and physically reprogrammed

Update 20070202: Added Inilex


More on the '2007, the year of...(?)' theme.

Here are three examples of new services that show that things are abrewing. Hardly any mobile phone has integrated GPS as of yet, and most network methods for location are too coarse to be really useful, so an external GPS module is typically needed for these kinds of mapping and location-based search services.

Inilex focuses on location/tracking rather than navigation. The installed device is self-contained, so there's no need for a mobile phone as well.
See also Tracking Your Car by Cell and E-Mail.
Quote: With this service, you can be notified within minutes that your parked car has been moved, presumably by a thief, and shown where it is in real time - fruitful information to pass on to police.

Macrom Cruiser is a location service that utilizes a mobile phone as map terminal.
Appello Systems provides some information in English.

amAze seems to be a bit more consumer-oriented, but otherwise not that different from Macrom Cruiser.

Both services rely on mobile phones and GPS modules (but supposedly Macrom Cruiser can also be used without GPS), that nowadays come with Bluetooth connection.

Some Nokia phones support the Java ME Location API, but e.g. no Sony Ericsson phone does, yet nowadays most new phones support the Java ME Bluetooth API, hence MIDlet developers that want to utilize GPS modules should go for direct communication via Bluetooth in the short term, which involves handling the NMEA protocol and the Bluetooth API. In the future the Location API will take care of the nasty stuff.

So:

• Will GPS be integrated in most phones or will most consumers get GPS modules during 2007? No way! Not even next year.
• Will network methods for location be good enough for consumer services? Arguably. Outside of cities, absolutely not. In USA it's a different story due to the location requirements, but in Europe, no.

Hence I don't see 2007 as the year of LBS, despite the hype it's created over the years. Technically we are not quite there yet, not saying that there won't be several LBSs launched this year, and some will find customers too, but most likely niched.