Russell Beattie

While I was writing my thoughts on mobile Flash, it dawned on me how screwed most people are when it comes to the Java Midlets they're going to buy. Okay, bear with me. You're a teenager. Your family might have a PC, and your school does, but you most likely don't. But you have a mobile phone and some extra cash so you download a few Java midlets to play on your phone for those times on the bus or what not - or maybe because all your friends have the game - or maybe, horrors upon horrors, someone actually comes up with a killer mobile Java app that you have to have.

Okay, great. So now you have your game or two, maybe three. But now you're running out of memory space and there's ANOTHER killer game you have to have. You have the cash for it - it only costs $6 after all - but you don't have the room on your phone. Oh well. Those other old games? Gone. You might be able to get those deleted games back again at the place you first downloaded them - if you held on to your receipt. Which you probably received by SMS. Which was probably deleted long ago because you ran out of room there too. Doesn't really matter anyways, since it's only six bucks, right? Man... you spend more than that on slurpy's and a Big Mac after school. And you're a teen and you have the common sense of glass of milk.

But wait, before you delete those games, maybe you can just "upload" the apps to some "Midlet Safe-T Box" on the web. Nope. Once those games are on your phone, they aren't coming off. By design. Save to your PC? Nope - not there either. Even my 7650 doesn't back up the midlets, says so right on the box. So even if you were some son of rich warmongering Microsoft shareholding Republican and had your own little iBook of your own to go to your fancy-shmancy prep school, you'd STILL be screwed.

Thus, disposable software. Just my random thought for this evening (and weekly slam against all those who oppose me. Bastards.)

-Russ