Sampo asks:
>Could you briefly tell me your opinion whats wrong with T720 BREW?
In a nutshell? A limited number of titles.
BREW in itself is not a bad idea ... J2ME certainly cannot claim a
"write once, run anywhere" over BREW's native code. (Hint: we need a
'certification suite' for MIDP 2.0 NOW!).
We've done some work with the development system. It looks like a C++
based system that switched to 'C' sometime during it's development. In
other words it looks like your C code is calling C++ methods in the ROM
via. some complex macros. So that isn't the issue.
It's just that the cost of development systems and Verizon's wish to
have a limited number of titles means your choices are restricted. I
still can't find a Email client that will work with my POP and I don't
see any IM clients ... just a chat system that lives in it's own world.
As the head of the mobile division of a game company I have to put my
resources where I can best achieve good results ... some of that is
driven by technology ... most of that by the market and J2ME appears to
have won in terms of market share ... to the point where I expect to see
J2ME show up on BREW phones by the end of the year.
I know the folks at Jamdat and they are making a MINT on BREW apps for
Verizon ... but Verizon plays a big role in supporting them. I suspect
that when our stuff ships late this year ... we'll suddenly become more
'interesting' to Verizon ... we have some cool technology running on
BREW as it is (4x to 5x image compression for one). Would be nice to
exploit that.
I have to say that I am amazed at the lack of certification on the J2ME
implementations. Even stuff like array bounds exceptions is different
on a platform by platform basis.
It is CRITICAL that J2ME MIDP 2.0 not repeat these mistakes. A test
suite that certifies phones could be a good step.
I'm also VERY interested in the Flash based phones ... if nothing else
Macromedia has shown that it DOES try to make this stuff work cross
platform.
Bill Volk
Teknik Digital Arts
Received on Thu Jul 24 22:48:56 2003