How Developers Make Mobile Applications Work
If you’re going to build one of those tiny i-mode websites or create a downloadable Java application (Games, anyone?), then you’re going to have to test your software before going live – and that means using emulator tools. If you don’t, you have to use actual handsets for testing and the packet fees would wipe out even the fattest bank account. We visit leading provider Zentek, and then speak with Tokyo University expert Dr. Sam Joseph – who has a lot of experience in making emulators actually emulate. Want to know what portion of a mobile project’s costs are consumed by testing prior to launch? Watch this one.
One of the best aspects of working at WWJ in Japan – the country most responsible for creating the post-war consumer electronics revolution – has to be covering the trade shows. October’s CEATEC is one of Asia’s coolest (and largest) electronics showcase events, and Japan’s cell-phone makers rolled out their very best gear. We speak with Sharp about camera keitai (What’s the cost to add a camera-thingy to a phone?), Hitachi about cell phones morphing into computers (cellys now have 133-MHz CPUs – same as PCs used to), and take a look at J-Phone’s first 3G handset from Sanyo. One of our best programs to date!
Our final program from Sun’s JavaOne conference sees Rich Green, VP and General Manager for Java software, fielding questions on the content provider ecosystem, the transfer of made-in-Japan mobile programming expertise to overseas markets, and how terminals are becoming ever more complicated – due at least in part to Java. One of the most interesting questions that Rich addresses is whether carriers outside Japan will be able to create and foster a “content ecosystem” similar to that established domestically by NTT DoCoMo (and, to a similar degree if not extent, competitors J-Phone and KDDI) — which many have pointed to as a major reason behind the success of mobile computing (and Java) on Japan’s wireless webs.
This week, we finish our two-part interview series with James Gosling, founder of the Java programming language now being applied to diverse mobile uses in Japan and elsewhere. Some people have concluded that lessons from Japan’s weird, mutant keitai market — with a single dominant carrier and mobs of cell-phone-obsessed gadgety commuters — just don’t apply in normal places like North America and Europe. The inventor of Java says, “I think those people are deluding themselves. They don’t appreciate the extent to which people in North America [also] find that technological devices actually make a difference.” Part II of one of WWJ’s most intriguing interviews ever.
We recently spent a fascinating hour with James Gosling, godfather of Java and an eloquent supporter of open standards and common sense when it comes to mobile application development. James points out that NTT DoCoMo has let anyone drop software into the network and get paid. But North American carriers don’t appear to have taken the hint. “[They] have this attitude that their networks need to be closed. Personally, I don’t buy it. They’re being very, very short-sighted.” Mobile business developers and service planners everywhere: Don’t miss this one. 
We spent a day at Sun Microsystem’s JavaOne conference and show in Yokohama in September, and were pleasantly surprised to meet up with mobile software vendor Openwave, grand-daddy of the WAP Forum (freshly repainted as the Open Mobile Alliance). Japanese carriers have created killer Java services… and they had to do so from scratch. That included the provisioning system which actually feeds the applis onto the handsets (providers merely have to write the downloadable Java code). Now another major player has launched a Java provisioning system (which also works for other content). Want to launch Java, but you’re not partnered with DoCoMo? You’d better watch this one twice…