Programming BREW Phones

jrmbadger writes "I just purchased a BREW enabled phone (a Motorola T720...very cool) from Verizon Wireless. BREW is sort of a competitor to J2ME, but I won't bore you with the details. I was very encouraged that Qualcomm (BREW's developer) has put the SDK on the web for free. However, to compile for the mobile, you need an ARM compiler, which runs $1,500. I think it would be really cool to be able to develop apps for my phone, but I'm not going to spend $1,500 on the compiler alone! Does anyone know how you can create BREW apps on the cheap?"

Comments

T720 A Bit Disappointing

[CritterNYC]

I've had the T720 for about 5 days, myself, and have been a bit disappointed with it. BREW is one of the reasons. Apparently, BREW apps can only be loaded through Verizon. And, it seems that Verizon only has apps that make them money in their Get It Now service. It also seems they disabled the ability to get ringtones into the phone through SMS... and instead you must use their Get It Now service and pay to load them (2 bucks each). Also, that handy color screen won't be able to display any of your own pictures... there's currently no way to load your own (Verizon says to use pictavision... but it doesn't support the T720).

In the end, you get this cool phone with a nice color screen, polyphonic ringtones and BREW app support... but no way to put any of your own stuff onto the phone. I checked this out with Verizon and Motorolla today. I'm going to check with Motorolla to see if the firmware is at least upgradeable tomorrow (to fix the bugs like custom rings on numbers locking up the phone). Most likely, this phone will be going back.