Java ME

[dvlchd3]

Hello. I'm a software developer and looking to purchase the Palm Pre. This will not wavier my decision to buy, however, does anyone know if Java ME applications will run on the Pre? I don't care to greatly for JavaScript, and would much prefer to develop applications in a low-level language.

I have searched around, however, I've been unable to find very many answers. It seems my search results render applets and JavaScript answers...which, obviously, is not what I'm looking for.

[errade]

I've never seen a Java ME app running on a Pre - I don't think it's supported sorry

[dvlchd3]

Thank you for your reply. As far as Java ME apps, I believe EA mobile games are developed in ME. The description on their site includes:

Produces games for J2ME-equipped mobile handsets and iPods.

I was under the impression these games were supported on the pre. Am I jumping to a conclusion when I assume J2ME is supported in webOS?

[errade]

As I understand it the EA games for the Pre are built using Palm's new PDK - in which case you could probably wrap a J2ME app in the PDK & run it natively. I'm not a developer so I'm not entirely sure of the mechanism, but you can't install .jar/.jad files directly like Symbian & BlackBerry OS allow. So perhaps there is a way but it will take some research

[dvlchd3]

I see. Thank you very much for your time. Now I at least have a slightly better grasp on it!

I wouldn't have thought Palm would have locked their applications to restrictions of high-level languages and markup languages like JavaScript and HTML...but then again, weirder things have happened...

[Sethiathome]

The PDK is C/C++, not Java. EA and Gameloft games for iPhone/palm pre are all C-based games.

The J2ME games are for the "dumbphones".

[Jason Robitaille]

There is java on the webOS, but it's only used for system services and not allowed for official 3rd party usage.

For now, it's only html/css/javascript.

Soon, Flash will be supported, as well as PDK (C/C++).

[dvlchd3]

Originally Posted by Jason Robitaille

There is java on the webOS, but it's only used for system services and not allowed for official 3rd party usage.

For now, it's only html/css/javascript.

Soon, Flash will be supported, as well as PDK (C/C++).

Perhaps someone could enlighten me on how EA games are "supported" for the Pre when they run J2ME? OR has someone gotten the KVM (JVM for mobile devices) to run on the Pre?

[japomani]

WebOS is a platform based on web technologies and methodologies. For simple display html, css, and javascript are fine. Just like in a web environment, there are situations where these tools are too weak. For those situations, the web standard is to employ plugins, like java, flash, quicktime, etc. This is the same for webOS. However, at this time, the only plugin available is C and C++ (for a closed set of developers at this tiem). In Feb, the Flash plug in is available. Just like on the web, these plugins can be set with in a body of html information, or fill the entire screen, making the html invisible.

I suspect that as time goes on, plugins for other technologies will come available. Java is a good candidate because Java is already baked in to the OS for behind the scenes functionality.

The EA games were originally created for the iphone in Apple's Objective C language, not Java. EA was quickly able to convert them into C and use the C plugin to port them to webOS.

This suggests that any app made for the iphone could be quickly ported to webOS. (You hear that Iambic?! Lets see some agendus!)

[dvlchd3]

This is sort of disappointing to me then. I was confused when Palm was so slow to adopt Java in the PalmOS, and am once again confused as to why the delay in giving developers the tools they need to provide great applications to the Palm community.

On a positive note, I was happy to see them waviering any fees to open source developers. This is encouraging. I always love to see a company support OSS developers!

However, thank you all for helping me sort through this rather confusing issue. I'm looking forward to the adoption of Java and C/C++ SDKs!

Also, excellent replies. I'm impressed on how quickly my thread was replied to, and how high quality the responses were. This seems to be an excellent community for webOS!

[Pulp]

Originally Posted by japomani

The EA games were originally created for the iphone in Apple's Objective C language, not Java. EA was quickly able to convert them into C and use the C plugin to port them to webOS.

As mentioned before, Objective C is not Apples creation, they only decided to use it.
I also think that Palms PDK does nativly support Objective C aswell, so there isn't even any "conversion" of the code required.

[angiest]

Originally Posted by Pulp

As mentioned before, Objective C is not Apples creation, they only decided to use it.
I also think that Palms PDK does nativly support Objective C aswell, so there isn't even any "conversion" of the code required.

As I understand it, Objective C really is an extension of C, as opposed to C++ which is a different language that is based in C. Objective C is compiled by standard gcc, I believe, whereas C++ is compiled by g++ (when using the Gnu compiler chain, of course).

[Sethiathome]

Nope, no objective C for the PDK. But C++, which is closer to Objective C than pure C.

[stubbs]

Originally Posted by dvlchd3

This is sort of disappointing to me then. I was confused when Palm was so slow to adopt Java in the PalmOS, and am once again confused as to why the delay in giving developers the tools they need to provide great applications to the Palm community.

On a positive note, I was happy to see them waviering any fees to open source developers. This is encouraging. I always love to see a company support OSS developers!

However, thank you all for helping me sort through this rather confusing issue. I'm looking forward to the adoption of Java and C/C++ SDKs!

Also, excellent replies. I'm impressed on how quickly my thread was replied to, and how high quality the responses were. This seems to be an excellent community for webOS!

As far as I know, there isn't any planned adoption of any Java SDK. The PDK will bring the option to write in C/C++, but not Java.

[ADGrant]

Originally Posted by Sethiathome

Nope, no objective C for the PDK. But C++, which is closer to Objective C than pure C.

The compiler for the PDK is gcc which can compile C, C++ and Objective C. So Yes, you should be able to compiler Objective C code to run on the Pre using the PDK. No support for Java though so you are on your own there.

[chris_phelps]

Given there there is a VM already on the Pre and running ALL the time, I see no reason that you couldn't do some C++ JNI trickery to envoke Java apps while still supporting the callbacks required by the PDK. I've done things like that on other platforms...all it would take is a set of wrapper functions and a few other bits of awesomeness. Not sure if the VM we're rocking supports swing and the full UI toolset though.

Chris

[yannick56]

Originally Posted by dvlchd3

Hello. I'm a software developer and looking to purchase the Palm Pre. This will not wavier my decision to buy, however, does anyone know if Java ME applications will run on the Pre? I don't care to greatly for JavaScript, and would much prefer to develop applications in a low-level language.

I have searched around, however, I've been unable to find very many answers. It seems my search results render applets and JavaScript answers...which, obviously, is not what I'm looking for.

Hello,

You can find a lot of informations about Java support in webOS here :
Java Support in webOS - WebOS Internals

There is no J2ME suport in webOS,
but the only solution could be to use Microemu ( MicroEmulator - Overview )to add it.