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Feature Phones Make Java ME, Not Android, the #2 Mobile Internet OS
bonch writes "According to a report from NetApplications, which has measured browser usage data since 2004, Oracle's Java Mobile Edition has surpassed Android as the #2 mobile OS on the internet at 26.80%, with iOS at 46.57% and Android at 13.44%. And the trend appears to be growing. Java ME powers hundreds of millions of low-end 'feature phones' for budget buyers. In 2011, feature phones made up 60% of the install base in the U.S." Looking at the linked chart, it looks Java ME's been ahead of Android for all of 2011, too, except for the month of October.
I wonder how much Christmas played into those little bumps. It's almost like people head off buying expensive new phones during that period, possibly in hopes in getting them for gifts. Possibly to afford more gifts. Would have been nice to see back one more year. Because otherwise looks like JavaME is steadily losing share, but had a bump the last two months.
Six months now.
With these statistics, it's just damn clear that the average Android user isn't using their phones for anything but "dumb phone with nice screen+keyboard" activities.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Is there a standard way to get MIDlets (Java ME applications) onto feature phones without having to get them approved by the phone's manufacturer or the carrier?
Duh, since when was Java ME an OS?
Because people routinely use Java applications on their feature-phones, rather than phone-dialing and call-taking features? Really?
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
... is that people are a) paying for data plans for relatively dumb phones or b) surfing that much without a good data plan.
(I've had an iPhone since late 2007, but before that my (%$#@#$&%) kid ran up multi-hundred-dollar phone bills with a basic phone* and data costs of, I think, 20 cents per kilobyte. What does pay-as-you-go data run these days?)
* Nokia 6800, 128x128 color screen.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I have access to a great deal of actual and current mobile usage data, and this is just completely at odds with reality. "Feature phone" owners in the United States typically do not have data plans and do not use the Internet.
Actual measured usage of mobile Web services by "feature phones" is slightly above that of Windows Mobile, which is to say "irrelevant noise at the bottom of the chart" in the range of 1 to 2 percent.
Grandpa's Jitterbug may in fact run J2ME, but Grandpa doesn't use it.
Unashamed Java fanboy here. Yes!
This must really burn up the haters.
J2ME is not an OS. It's a runtime environment that runs on top of an OS (like Blackberry OS), just like normal Java.
End of line..
Very few J2ME devices impose limits on installing apps, unless the device is sold through a carrier who enabled such restrictions.
Among Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile USA, which impose and which do not impose such restrictions?
I would have thought slashdotters would know the difference between an OS and a platform.
Honesty might let you get away with calling them custom linux phones but Java is a platform not an OS.
Java ME is an operating environment and a platform, even if it does not necessarily include a kernel (the program that multiplexes access to hardware among multiple processes). Please allow me to rephrase: "More phones are capable of running MIDlets than APKs."
20 cents per kilobyte
Even AOL was only 1 cent per kilobyte back in the 2400 bps modem era. Did you really mean 20 cents per kilobyte and not per megabyte?
These stats are completely fictional. Even the quoted summary is contradictory. If 60% of all phones are feature phones and 46.57% of phones are running iOS, that would mean that at least 6.57% of phones are iPhones that aren't smartphones. Considering that I can count on a single hand the number of people that I know that have iPhones, and far more people who have Android, and even more who have feature phones, and that in the US there are only a few carriers who have the iPhone, I find it hard to believe that iOS could be nearly half of the market.
Perhaps, since they are measuring based on browser usage, any webkit-based browser is counting as iOS (which would also include Safari and Chrome).
Sorry, but Java ME is not an operating system.
Kriston
The upturn for java ME is matched by a drop in iOs, with adroid being rather flat.
I would love to see more information about how the statistics were gathered. How would using Firefox, Opera or Skyfire impact this? Does this really only mean that the majority of Android users don't use their built in browser when using the web? I know I frequently use either Firefox or Skyfire, though I've started to use the built in browser with ICS more. Comparatively, my impression at least is that the vast majority of users on iPhone/iPad use Safari.
AJ Henderson
So now a Java platform counts as an operating system? If that was a valid assertion then we would include other Java interpreters, or any interpreter for what is worth, in comparisons against Windows, Mac OS X and Linux market share.
Is this bullshit paid by Oracle? It appears a desperate propaganda attempt to keep Java ME relevant.
These numbers seem odd. Android has the lion's share of the smartphone market but is getting only a fraction of the browser usage. I do wonder though, i've used about:debug on both my phone and my Nook to set the ID flag thing to "Desktop" (because so many sites of mobile views that are absolute crap.) Does that mean that i wouldn't show up in their numbers at all? I wonder how many other geeks, the people who are probably the heaviest users of the web on smartphones, have also done the same thing?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
The fact of J2ME being widely available, is quite distinct from the issue of it being widely targeted. I can think of several reasons for why J2ME is irrelevant.
1. Feature phones aren't really suitable for sophisticated apps. Most power users have already migrated to the next gen touch phones (Android, IOS) or at the very least, Symbian. Those who stick on with feature phones probably don't use custom apps in the first place.
2. There is no proper marketplace for apps comparable to Android or Apple. This makes it difficult for the average user to obtain new apps, even if he/she were to actually want to use an app on their feature phone (which they probably don't).
3. Ultimately, the J2ME support may be relevant only to the phone manufacturer, in order to provide some bundled apps, like a calculator or something. Without a market place and given the hurdles (lack of user interest, severe incapability of phones) there's little incentive for developers to program for it.
Therefore, why would J2ME's wide availability be relevant?
Apparently, some of their clients are: Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, Opera...
If you monitor Apple.com your sample might overestimate the number of iOS browsers, maybe even count iPods and iPads as phones...
I'd rather trust the Nilsen analysis (Android 40%, Apple 28%, RIM 19%, MS 8% of the smartphone market)
Then Google screwed itself by not initially allowing Android Market on devices with no 3G radio, in effect giving the whole market to Apple.
I'd rather trust the Nilsen analysis (Android 40%, Apple 28%, RIM 19%, MS 8% of the smartphone market)
If you consider only smartphones, you're leaving out Wi-Fi tablets, at least if MightyYar is right. Apple sells a 3.5" tablet (iPod touch) and a 9.7" tablet (iPad), and apparently those far outsell their closest Android-powered substitutes.
I upgraded from a feature phone to a real smart phone about four months ago. As more users make this migration, this statistic is going to change.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
There is basically no common API, compatibility with different versions is totally unpredictable, and the development tools are across the board awful. JavaME is crap and it should be ignored and forgotten.
What about pay as you go phones?
The affordable pay as you go plans tend to be available only for feature phones. For example, Virgin Mobile USA's "payLo" plans starting at $7/mo appear available only for feature phones, and Android phones have to use a $35/mo "Beyond Talk" plan that has as many voice minutes in a month as I'll use in a year.
If they're talking about traffic VOLUME, how can you possibly compare internet access by Android when all those iPads are being lumped in here with the mobile phones?
Why wouldn't Archos, Acer Iconia, ASUS Eee Pad, Motorola Xoom, B&N Nook Color, Amazon Kindle Fire, and other tablets running Android be lumped in with Android traffic volume?
I avoid web browsing like the plague even on my 4.3" phone as the screen is just too small for anything beyond the basics or q&d.
OTOH I make heavy use of many info, utility, and network info apps.
so you are correct except that Europe alone is larger in each count
How much larger is Europe in count per spoken language? English is official only in two countries that I'm aware of: 1. Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and 2. Ireland. To target a European market, for example, you need to hire people to translate your application into the 23 different languages of the European Union.
just buy the sim
Virgin Mobile USA doesn't use a SIM. It's CDMA2000, not GSM.
in practice you just translate into the top six or seven languages and call it a day.
But I imagine that's still a lot more work for a small ISV than publishing a single app for the United States market and getting Canada, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand for free.
Oh it's that low life POS bonch. The day wouldn't be complete without this unemployed Windows shill submitting an anti-Google story.
Thankfully not for much longer. Both carriers are moving over to LTE
True for those people with enough money to move their family to a Major City(TM). But do you remember Verizon's "There's a map for that" TV commercials that slammed AT&T's lack of UMTS coverage? How long will it take for LTE coverage to expand to the level of, say, Sprint's current CDMA2000 coverage?
So you have to have a plan for all phones?
Yes. As I understand it, the Virgin "payLo" (dumbphone) top-ups, starting at $20 for three months of service (hence $7/mo), don't work in Virgin smartphones, which need higher-value top-ups.
They state right on their web site in the FAQs that the data may be fabricated... http://www.netmarketshare.com/faq.aspx
In practice it isn't a problem. If your app is internationalised, then you email your English file to a translator and get back the translation strings, time depends on size obviously but typically a simple app translation is less than 20 minutes work. The cost and time of translators is insignificant compared to cost and time of programmers. Some companies use students for translations, paying minimum wage.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
s/Saphari/Safari/
How did this happen, I don't even.
I still don't get how apple can be ahead of feature phones, unless they lump the ipods in
Globally, BREW, generally on top of *Tron, wipes the floor with iOS, JME and Android combined, but who cares about those teeming billions of yellow devils, right? I mean, they only use their phones as their primary computing device, what do they know?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
There have been way too many of these studies that didn't indicate the measurement technique or what market they referred to. I get the feeling that marketing reports are scams.
Their figures for Java ME are precisely their figures for Opera Mini (when categorised as "browser" rather than "operating system")
4/5 of the groups surveyed want their next device to be running Android instead of Windows, IOS or RIM.
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I bought an Archos 43 Internet Tablet a year ago
Samsung has a direct Android competitor to iTouch.
A year ago, there was no Galaxy Player. The Galaxy Player didn't come out until the fourth quarter of 2011, which gave the second-generation iPod touch a three-year head start among pocket-size tablets with access to the platform's largest app store.
Most things made for the US get sold in Mexico and Canada so there will be 3 languages you need to translate to. Granted most app makers don't have to that but they don't have to do it in Europe either. But if you are selling software through other channels then yes you have to translate into some other languages but it's not that expensive at all unless your app is effectively an ebook.
I'm keeping all my cellphones that I used before getting a smartphone instead of throwing them away, so this must be the reason for such statistics :-/
English, French and Spanish are needed to effectively cover the US and Canada.
if you read the chain you would realize "Europe alone is larger in each" was meant to be quoted from the person i replied to, i just failed to put "" around it and there for it looks odd.. but any reasonable person should be able to under stand it..
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
A statistical error, a Sample of Convenience is when data is used that is "easily acquired" instead of "equally acquired." Network Applications is able to detect which browser is used by those who went to the pages Network Applications chose to monitor.
Here's an edge case. Let's say that all users of X-OS are stupid people who love celebrities. Someone observing the X-Kardashian web site might note that lots more people use X-OS. This is a sample of convenience. It doesn't take into account the source of the traffic.
Another example: go to an upscale shopping mall. Watch phones. The convenience sample is NOT of "phones" but rather "phones used by people in public who shop at an upscale mall." Perhaps I, a discriminating polite person, will not pull my phone out in a mall for no reason. Perhaps I will pull out my Nokia N900 and not the Android phone. In either case, there are other factors, but it's "convenient" to do NOTHING to remove the bias.
I sure hope Java ME and IOS and Android continue to dominate. I also hope SURVEY TAKERS who do a piss-poor job of removing bias GO OUT OF BUSINESS.
Mobile Web. J2ME is a walking ghost at this point due to the fact that fragmentation has made it a nightmare to even target anymore.
Why go through the hassle of having multiple builds to target dozens of devices (fun fact: the shittiest feature phone per carrier is usually the top priority phone that Java ME devs must target), and having to water down said app for the lowest common denominator phone? Mobile Web keeps most of the business logic on the backend with scripts taking care of that stuff, all they have to do is make it look nice on the feature phone's browser.
That and the fact that the carrier's testing requirements are notorious for being harder than Chinese Algebra, since I started my career working on J2ME apps, where at times, we would target up to 60 phone per carrier for each app, so there was a lot of corner cutting and scaling down to the point where we were trying to polish a turd.
With Android and iOS, the scope of fragmentation is very narrow since the OS is very consistent across the board, in other words, no half-assed implementations. The point is moot for iOS since it's rock solid.
Bottom line, J2ME won't be number two for that long, lots of folks' contracts will be up this year and with smartphones being offered for next to nothing, they'll start bleeding profusely by year's end.
Feature phones ar3e NOT smart phones. iOS Shouldn't eve be in this comarison since it isn't on any feature phones.
Another post where people don't understand iOS or Androids position in the market.
Yes, the cheapest knockoff flip phones that surf the web or mostly J2ME.
there a billions of low end feature phones out there; which makes me suspicious of the size of the iOS market share in the graphic. 46% of high end smart phones? sure. 46% of every phones that can do 1 other thing besides make phones calls? nope.
I mean, there a 4.6 billion cell phones in use, and nearly all of them can do 1 more thing them make phone calls; which is all you need to do to be a feature phone.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I use an Android phone with T-Mobile pay as you go and I only spend about $25 every three months or so on it.
Until very recently, it appeared that T-Mobile was going to go away, its network to be acquired by AT&T. Now that AT&T's nonsense is over, perhaps my own nonsense can be over. I'll ask about plans like yours next time I'm by a T-Mobile store.
And in case you have more inquiries to make I kindly suggest you to have a look at the current hype, these fancy new internet phenomenons which label themselves as "search engines".
In which case each question becomes "I tried these queries x, y, and z, and I didn't get any relevant results. Which query should I have used instead?"
I tried the first two links you gave, and on each page, inside "General", under "Regional Availability", neither included United States or North America. Nor did the "browsing through some specs" page let me filter by models available in my home market.
In the second link (6260 Slide specs), there was a link to Java API Access Permissions. From there, click MIDP 2.1 access rights. Based on what I've read in other comments to this story, "Ask always" means every time you do something, the operating system will put up a box asking whether you are sure you want to do something, a setting that cannot be saved from one session in the application to the next. Worse yet, both GSM carriers (AT&T and T-Mobile) appear to allow no "connectivity" or "multimedia" at all to "untrusted" (self-signed) applications.
Here in Australia, cheap Android phones are pushing into the space (and price point) that would have previously have been occupied by featurephones.
I suspect featurephones are more popular in the US where even the cheapest Android handset generally requires an expensive data plan but a featurephone generally does not.
I have a ZTE little java phone got it for 30 euro slide out keyboard(all I really wanted) and like 7 days of battery life. Its amazing and works great for exactly what its meant to do be a phone. My android dev device barely gets a day of battery life.
On Symbian that works perfectly. But wait Symbian is a SmartPhone OS. But the OP thinks JavaME is an OS. Strange...
PS: Of course I know perfectly well what your point is. And you are right: Outside Symbianb JavaME is a pain in the arse.