Porting J2ME Applications and Games

Most developers in our competitive market selected J2ME and BREW platforms over more powerful platforms, such as Symbian, C++, and .Net Compact Framework, to develop their wireless applications and games.
Java was designed with vision "Write once, run anywhere". However this is not the case for J2ME applications for wireless phones. Applications developed for one Java handset don't always run without modification on all wireless phones supporting the same APIs.

What are the reasons of these challenges?

• The mobile market is changing rapidly and mobile phones are changed very fast also. Each year hundreds of new phones released out on the consumers market. Many of them have different J2ME support and set of API packages. As of now devices with MIDP 1 create majority of the phones while more and more new MIDP 2 phones take over the consumers wallets.
• The phone manufacturers face a very tough competition on the wireless market. They try to separate their handsets from other the competitors. Each device in most cases has a different Memory, OS version, UI support, Java extensions.
• Wireless carriers try to market different services by customizing supported devices and their software. It requires much more work in customization of of J2ME applications for each carrier as well as device.

Java applications need to be tested, modified and possible ported for each supported device from the list. Each wireless phone may have completely different screen sizes, memory and CPU.

It's a good approach in wireless application development to start from high-end devices with big CPU and less API constraints. It would allow to develop proper API usage and application (game) workflows first. As a next phase of development a more advanced porting can be requested to perform memory optimizations and GUI supports

For example most wireless games are supported by low-end phones as Nokia series 40 which take most of the market. To port graphic-intensive applications from high-end handsets to Series 40 it requires modifying the GUI and changing the application workflow or game play for games.

Wireless carriers determine what phones they will support and what type of services to be offered (data, voice, multimedia, etc). They also provide mCommerce and billing services for mobile content providers and game development companies.

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