Russell Beattie

The announcement a month or so ago that PalmOne was going to put Java on its upcoming Tungsten's is finally coming to reality. Anil has this info:

palmOne and IBM launch MIDP 2.0 for Palm devices

Anil de Mello | September 07, 2003

"Create Java applications on the world's leading handheld!
Palm has licensed IBM's WebSphere Micro Environment (WME), a fully compliant J2ME runtime. WME will be available for all future Palm Tungsten handhelds."

The WME should be available as a download for Palm Zire 7 and current Tugsten models.

"... included is support for Palm's five-way navigation control, keyboard, and stylus , as well as all other hardware buttons on the device. The Forms implementation provides for a look and feel that is compatible with the standard Palm OS user interface, leveraging its proven usability and functionality."

"Although the initial focus of our Java efforts will be on the core configurations and profiles, Palm will continue to add implementations for new Java Specification Requests. A number of useful extensions to J2ME have been released or are currently under development through the Java Community Process. Palm will actively monitor these developments and announce relevant commercial or reference implementations as they are available."

Other API's are on there way, the Bluetooth API JSR 82 is already alailable as an SDK from Rococo Software, JSR 172 (Web Services) is in development by Palm and Mobile Media, Wireless Messaging and PDA Optional Extension, are in the works.

Let's hope that the announced Treo 600 has this as a standard when it is released. The Treo 600 smartphone will be powered by TI's OMAP310 processor, a power- efficient TI-enhanced ARM925 applications processor for 2.5 and 3G handsets.

Check out the live webcast on September 8th 2003.

palmOne - Developers - PluggedIn Program

"Java Developers can use their existing development environment. Palm will make available a free standalone developer toolkit for use with any J2ME-compatible development environment. "

Very interesting... I'm with Anil - I want to know what's happening with the Treos... I can't imagine those phones *not* having J2ME on them, so I'm sure they'll make an additional announcement when those phones are closer to shipping.

Again, it's odd to me that PalmSource isn't making these types of announcements. However, they may have talked to PalmOne (i.e. popped their heads up over the cube) and Sony and asked them what they wanted in terms of Java support. The answer could have been "you guys stick to the OS, we'll worry about the Java stuff." But I think that's a bit unlikely, more likely PalmSource is still pouting because they didn't get their way when working with Sun on the PDA Profile. In my opinion, Palm needs to support Java as an integrated part of their OS, similar to Symbian. For PalmOne to be tacking on IBM's J9 stuff before shipping isn't the right idea at all.

-Russ