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Mac OS and Java Me SDK 3.0

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Sun have released not too long ago a Java ME SDK 3.0 that finally brings an official Wireless Toolkit Emulator to the Mac platform.

I have been dealing with SUN software for a while now and I was not expecting this to be a smooth ride. Those who’d dealt with the WTK on Windows/Linux platform are well aware of the limitations of these emulators. What I was not prepared for was to get so much clutter that would just not work more than a couple of times.

First impression: this wtk looks like the most polished emulator ever released by Sun.

Sadly, after using the thing for a few days I discovered that the old habits had not changed:

  • there is no menu entry to run an existing jad/jar pair. You have to right click on an emulator instance and then run it…
  • you cannot set-up a project starting from a jad/jar pair. There used to be an option to do this back in wtk 2.2…
  • after running a couple of apps the whole thing crashes an burns
  • when closing down the wtk a process is left lingering. Run this in a terminal:  ps aux | grep device-manager.app
  • switching the verbose mode when launching the emulator kills the whole thing dead!
  • they bundled ant 1.7.1 with the distro although ant is built in Mac OS
  • Permgen errors are thrown if you try to launch the app too often. LOL

Here’s what happened when I created a new project and tried to run it:

*** Error ***

Failed to connect to device 0!

Reason:

Emulator 0 terminated while waiting for it to register!

The same thing happens with Emulator 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and … you get the picture.

Googling did return lots of forum posts, but hardly any answers…

So after wasting more than 2 hours on this issue I did the unthinkable: rebooted my mac! To my surprise the miracle happened during the reboot: I was finally able to run the project again.

Needless to say I am very disappointed but not surprised by the quality of this, early access, Java ME SDK.

Cheers…

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Posted in Java, Mobile, Rant, Tutorial | 2 Comments »

JATA – Java Application Terminal Alignment

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

The Sun JavaOne conference is now in progress and one of the interesting things that have been announced so far is the JATA.

Together with France Telecom and Orange, Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Vodafone, Sun announced the Java Application Terminal Alignment (JATA), which they promised would reduce the number of tests application developers would need to go through to ensure their applications run on different networks and handsets.

Also promised are a publisher ID digital certificate to authenticate a person and application, and R&D signing for developers to test their applications.
I am looking forward to learning more about it… in the mean time there is always j2mepolish :)


Cheers…

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Posted in Java | No Comments »

The Java Store – Project Vector

Monday, May 25th, 2009
So Jonathan Schwartz’s blog is alive again. This time we get to learn about the new Java Store. 
Here are the facts (extracted from the Jonathan’s blog):
Project Vector: 
“[...] is a network service to connect companies of all sizes and types to the roughly one billion Java users all over the world. Vector (which we’ll likely rename the Java Store), has the potential to deliver the world’s largest audience to developers and businesses leveraging Java and JavaFX.”
How will it work:
“Candidate applications will be submitted via a simple web site, evaluated by Sun for safety and content, then presented under free or fee terms to the broad Java audience via our update mechanism. Over time, developers will bid for position on our storefront, and the relationships won’t be exclusive (as they have been for search). As with other app stores, Sun will charge for distribution – but unlike other app stores, whose audiences are tiny, measured in the millions or tens of millions, ours will have what we estimate to be approximately a billion users. That’s clearly a lot of traffic, and will position the Java App Store as having just about the world’s largest audience.”
More details:
“For details on how Vector will work, when it’ll be available, how to submit your content or application – alongside insights into Project Vector’s technology, roadmap, features and business model, come see us at JavaOne…”
And here are my biased comments:
1. The Java Store will annoy developers: if the storefront is taken by the developers that pay the big bucks rather than the developers that write awesome apps then this Java Store will be one store I won’t develop for.
2. If deploying the apps will require Netbeans (why do I sense that it will?) then this will annoy even more developers. Unlike Microsoft or Apple’s environments (where you know form the beginning that you kind of have to use their tools since the whole environment is closed) the Java environment is supposed to be open. Forcing Netbeans down the throats of thousands of developers would be a mistake as it will alienate them…
3. Windows only: Jonathan is talking about an audience of billions. I wonder how many of those though sport a recent version of the java runtime. Just consider the countless computers which still run java 1.4, all the Macs and the *nix systems out there. 
What do you think?
Cheers…

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Posted in Java, The Wonderful Internet | 3 Comments »