Open J2ME Development Options?

loganb asks: "I'm currently holding in my hand a brand new Samsung A900 cell phone with a brand new EVDO data plan. I was initially excited about the OSS/free application development possibilities, as the J2ME stack on this phone supports the new Media, Location, and Messaging APIs. Much to my dismay, however, Sprint (my carrier) locks all the interesting APIs up tighter than a drum, and makes it nearly impossible to get an app to market. You need a $400/yr Verisign certificate just to download an app to a developer-enabled phone and you need a contract with Sprint to receive the certificate necessary to distribute the app (solely through Sprint's online store) to regular users. Of course that is not really an option for free/OSS programs, 'vertical' applications, or anything that doesn't neatly fit into Sprint's business plan. Thus, do any of the other national domestic cell providers allow unfettered access to the Java APIs on their phones? Is there any sort of hackery (such as buying an unlocked phone from Europe and using it on a domestic GSM network) that has an equivalent result?"

Comments

You can still return your phone and cancel Sprint

[antifoidulus]

if you got the thing less than 14 days ago. The law gives you 14 days to cancel if you don't like your service. As for unlocked phones, you don't have to import one from Europe, amazon sells them, as do a lot of other places.
Personally i would recommend T-mobile(since they are actually a European company!) and have fun!

buy a unlocked phone

[johnjones]

plain and simple buy an unlocked gsm phone and buy a sim card

dont put up with suppliers that will not allow you to run your app's you should at least be able to download your app to the phone via a usb cable

the location and photo API's do seem very fun I have not tried them out and wonder how much is cross platform...

regards

John Jones

This is what we keep warning about

[Anonymous Coward]

A few of us keep saying users and developers should be concerned about things like Palladium and so called trusted computing. This is an example of the real-world effects. Today cell phones, tomorrow PCs.