Java on Handheld Devices?

superfred queries: "I work for a Java-based software company, and have been tasked with researching Java on handhelds...I've managed to dig up information on which handhelds support Java (most of the major ones do), but what puzzles me, is if any company is actually *using* this for any reason (besides Java-based handhelds/phones). The Palm OS has apparently supported Java since the Palm V, but has anyone written any software to take advantage of it? Are there any major software developers working on Java applications for handhelds? It seems like a great deal of effort has been used in getting Java on these platforms, but nothing's really utilizing it."

Comments

Realistic uses of Java in Handheld Devices

[AlaskanUnderachiever]

I've seen a few programs on Palm OS (3.5 and higher) that utilize Java but they all seem to be (comparatively speaking we are talking Palm here) to be a bit bloated and resource needy for what they did (one was a game and as I recall the other one I used for a bit was a training log of some sort for sports). I am not a programmer myself, nor claim to have any experience with Java, but based on personal experience with Palm and Java it seems to me that it's just another added layer of unneeded complexity on what is a relatively tightly coded device. I think we might see more Palm "ports" of java in the future, but for now I doubt it's going to be very usefull in it's current form.

Re:how much pain does your customers deserve .....

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Starting java..." has always been Netscape's problem, even since the beginning. Their implementation inside their browser has always sucked, even back to the 1.0alpha3 days.

"No one's using it". Know why?

[dmorin]

I was at JavaONE when they gave out hugely discounted Palm V's as a way to promote Java on the Palm. That was years ago. People still aren't writing lots of apps for it (I have heard about some dedicated, internal applications where you can give your people a pre-configured Palm w/Java). Know why I think that is? Why hasn't Palm managed to put the JVM into the machine by default? If the device was inherently able to run Java, and I could just send out JAR files, I think it would be a huge win because your typical customer doesn't really care about the difference between an executable, a data file, an interpreted bytecode, etc... But if for any application I want to make I have to include a whole lot of junk that is just going to confuse them, that stinks. Also, it makes my app smaller. Imagine the subliminal message that's sent out when you say "In order to run my 100k program you need to download and install this 5 meg program." (sizes made up, of course). It makes people think that your program is tiny, and that this other "support" code thingie is going to be wasting all of your precious memory.

I wonder if the introduction of Java as a supported development platform for Palm would help them with market share? I mean it's not like there's a shortage of applications for the Palm now. What's the big hook from Palm's perspective to do this? I can understand why I as a Java programmer want it, but why would Palm care?

Ack!!

[MrBandersnatch]

Im not a major developer by anymeans but for what its worth I've been writting a Java application that works on both handhelds and PCs for the last year.

And let me tell you it is a pain in the arse.

The JREs that are available tend to be commercial and on WinCE certainly - far slower than the (free) beta JRE that Sun (silently) dropped support and development for last year. Add to the speed problems the fact that the supported JREs (if they are not embedded already into ROM) add SERIOUS bloat to memory (3-6 MB ) and being tied (realistically) to 1.1.8 (if not 1.0.2 in some case) in order to obtain wide portability and you have some major hassles in store if you want to develop a single codebase for multiple platforms.

I would STRONLY advise anyone considering developing any substantial application for handhelds to avoid Java like the plague and instead concentrate on writting efficient portable C or C++ code.

Re:Is this the PC circa 1985?

[bubbha]

I think this discussion illustrates the effect of IBM opening up the PC architecture. Even then, I still remember the TI PC, the tandy 2000, etc. They had incompatible graphics and sound etc. and writing software that ran on all of them was pretty difficult and expensive.

Around 1989 I started working with Smalltalk 80. It had a IDE, robust object model for application development, and could be deployed on MSDOS (with a mouse), Windows, Macintosh, Unix (Sun, Apollo, etc)

If history had been a little different, Smalltalk could have enabled us to maintain more hardware and OS diversity than we have now. I wonder how these hand held devices will go? .