(keitai-l) Re: Java enabled P209iS

From: Michael Turner <leap_at_gol.com>
Date: 09/10/00
Message-ID: <000001c01cbd$62736420$1c2bd8cb@miket>
From: "Andre Pemmelaar" <andre@soken.mei.co.jp>

> I was reading through the Keitai-L archives and came across a lot of
questions
> about when Java enabled phones will be come available, so I thought you
would
> all be interested to know that the P209iS (Panasonic's
> latest i-Mode phone) includes a Java Micro Browser developed internally by
> Panasonic. ....

"Developed" wouldn't mean "burned ROMs with Access's
alpha version," would it?

> In fact, most of the games included with the P209iS are actually running
as
> Java applets. Unfortunately, the P209iS does not yet allows you to
download
> applets and run them locally. Which is probably why they haven't bothered
to
> tell anyone that the functionality is there.

That's not a reason to keep it quiet.  (Besides, how do *you* know
there isn't some way to run locally?  They kept quiet about having
Java, didn't they?  I will be publishing my 7-stage chorded-button-
press app-save sequence shortly :-)

Keeping JavaPhone capability quiet might have more to do with
as-yet-unsolved security problems, developer relations, etc.
Not to mention that most people don't really know what Java
is, anyway.  "Java-capable"?  You mean it's not just a keitai,
but a coffee-stirrer?  Can't wait to try it out....

Java has always had this potential for "virtual embedded apps"
with a pay-per-use model.  It might even have been the reason
why they defined a virtual machine, not just an API.  You can't
really work this model on a desktop PC - PCs are too "open".
Nobody has really solved the copy-protection problem there.
You need much more platform control.  But mobile phones offer
that control (for now, anyway).

As I mentioned in my "JavaPhone, Here We Come?" post some time
back, ROM is the traditional way to get developers paid in the
handheld game market.  Wireless pay-per-use -- the arcade
business model distributed into the palm, if you will -- could
even be preferable to ROM.  It depends on how people will
feel about pay-per-use for games.  So far, so good.

Of course, it will still be possible to intercept game transmissions
somehow and download to non-phone devices.  But with enough
consortium-type pressure, full copy protection for apps like
games might become a reality in the mobile phone arena.

The Big Divide: is the mobile phone going to be a wireless terminal,
or a portable wireless PC, in relation to service providers?  It's
not either-or, of course, I just wonder which will be the dominant
source of revenue....

Michael Turner
www.idiom.com/~turner
leap@gol.com
Received on Tue Sep 12 16:18:54 2000