Flash Lite & J2ME

J2ME or Java Micro Edition (also known as JavaME) can be said to be phenomenally successful. It has been shipped across major manufacturers’ devices (100+million I think). It has enjoyed popularity for almost 3 years now, in existence for around 5 years.

But J2ME doesn’t exactly reflect the vision of the Java Platform in the true sense .As someone said, Write once, compile once, run anywhere is anything but a bad joke in J2ME. And for those who tried writing J2ME applications, tool support, productivity and user interfaces that get generated isn’t exactly even close to exciting. Most rich mobile applications are built on custom UI’s that are built specifically for applications. Mophun & BREW 3D apps are overshadowing J2ME’s own JSR 184 API for Mobile 3D graphics.
Once an application is written, it has to be ported onto various devices, tested, sometimes but not always certified to be published, making a the product development lifecycle a long process. This isn’t exactly the time to market of what most media and business imagine it to be.

Adobe recently released Flash 2.0 a follow up to Flash Lite1.1. Flash Lite1.1 was good but had limited features, where as Flash 2.0 seems to be playing catch-up with J2ME, but still got a long way to go. In features, functionality and it seems to be ahead of J2ME in rich mobile applications development.

Also to note, one of the biggest advantages will be the fact that Flash Lite being proprietary technology is a subject of frequent reviews, upgrades and will consequently add more features to it in comparison to J2ME, whose’ development has slowed down and the features aren’t exactly moving in pace with the industry. With Sun at helm, many within the industry feel that J2ME & Sun are loosing or lack leadership and will soon loose its dominant position in the mobile solutions market.

The PC based Flash player, has massive uptake with presence on 98% + of all computers connected to the Internet, across major OS’es & Operating systems.

Taking that trend down to mobile phones isn’t exactly going to be easy. These are the challenges
· Matching features with J2ME (this will increase the memory footprint of the player)
· Larger device compatibility - is still the biggest issue.
· Lack of great click and drag GUI environment for designing good applications (like the new Adobe Flex for RIA) - This should also be available for Flash Lite which can accelerate application development and increase acceptance in developer community.

If Adobe can address these issues, it will can see an upward trend in the adoption of Flash Lite and this might just overshadow J2ME at least in infotainment segment, which - which also happens to be the largest.

Asif Ali