Bill Day's Blog

Hey Apple, Got J2ME?

I've been re-reading Tim's thoughts on Mac OS X switchers and OS X and the Next Big Thing of late.

You see, my current personal laptop is starting to show its age, and I'm considering alternatives. I've always said I wouldn't consider any system that didn't give me a command line, and now Apple's removed that hurdle. I've always said I had to have Unix tools, and OS X has that in spades. I've always sided with simplicity of design and reliability over complicated Windoze software hairballs, and Apple continues to beat the pants off other laptop OS choices in that department, too.

Given the above, it would seem like my choice is obvious: Dump the complexity of a Linux/Win dual-boot laptop mess and go for a shiny new Mac OS X PowerBook. But just as I was getting cozy with the idea, I hit a major snag: Though Apple has done a first rate job building in Java desktop and Web development support (J2SE and J2EE developers rejoice!), their J2ME development solutions are zip, zilch, rien.

Given the high priority Apple has assigned to enabling a new kind of productivity application via their iLife vision and iApps, one would think that supporting wireless software development would be a high priority in Cupertino. And given that Apple also supports basic data synchronization with many J2ME enabled devices via iSync (example: the latest rev supports, among other things, Bluetooth synchronization with my Nokia 3650), one might get downright giddy with anticipation of the fantastic J2ME development options that must surely be on offer for OS X.

Unfortunately, one would be very disappointed.

As best I can tell, Apple doesn't currently offer any J2ME development tools. There is no generally available port of the J2ME Wireless Toolkit (WTK) or any other general purpose J2ME development tools or emulators for Mac OS (X, 9, or otherwise). There are some independently available tools (Michael Power's excellent MIDP 1.0.3 reference implementation port to Mac OS X is one such example), but a search on the Apple Developer Connection site turns up but a single reference to J2ME, and it is an obscure reference to Zentek's i-JADE tools for i-mode development (applicable only to Java devices sold in Japan for the NTT DoCoMo network).

So Tim, here's my answer to your question, "What would you like to see Apple do to better support its independent developer community?":

Apple should support J2ME development as well as it supports J2SE and Tomcat. It should enable all of us Mac OS X fans to build first class apps for the hundreds of millions of Java devices available now and in the near future. It could port and support the WTK on Mac OS X (a relatively straightforward option, and one I'd be glad to help sort out if Apple is interested), or it could one up the current WTK support for Linux, Solaris, and Win32 with some new tool making J2ME development even more productive on Macs. Either way, Apple, I'll buy the next PowerBook off your manufacturing line...and I'll recommend PowerBooks as the J2ME development laptop of choice to anyone and everyone that will listen.

All of this reminds me of the California Milk Processor Board's now classic "Got Milk?" ad campaign. In the ads, people are tempted into some tasty treat such as chewy chocolate chip cookies, only to find out that the milk that would make the treat complete is missing. Chocolate chip cookies without milk, quelle catastrophe!

Apple has the chewy chocolate chip cookie goodness of J2SE and iApps and WiFi+Bluetooth support for Mac OS X. They need to add the "milk" of J2ME development support to tie all of the developer pieces of their wireless and iLife visions together. Apple needs to be able to say "Heck yes!" when someone asks "Got J2ME?"

Comments

• Apple support of dev tools
  I'm still completely unclear as to why it's up to Apple to support J2ME development tools. Isn't it up to the tool vendors to support Mac OS X as a development platform? I don't think it would be Apple's best business interest to develop J2ME dev tools. Why should they compete in that market? In your example you state that Apple supports J2SE and Tomcat, but the two are not peers. Apple suppors the port of J2SE on Mac OS X; Tomcat works as a side-effect of Apple supporting the Java runtime platform. Apple would be better served to make it easier to port dev tools from other platforms to Mac OS X. In this area, they've made incredible progress by supporting X11 as an intergrated windowing environment and the inclusion of various POSIX and Linux APIs in Panther. That should make it easier to at least get some of the dev environments running and then 3rd-party app vendors can make the call, based on demand, whether they should create a true Aqua interface (maybe a Cocoa front-end with a portable back-end) or whether the X11 UI is good enough.

  I want Apple to keep its focus on creating and supporting the best dev tools to create Mac OS X applications and implementing the appropriate industry standards. Am I nuts?

  Posted by: cgervais on July 02, 2003 at 08:31 AM

• Where can I get J2ME for OS X?

  I for one and the company that I work for has a very strong need for having J2ME on OS X. Didn’t Steve Jobs promise the Mac faithful that he wants to turn OS X into the ultimate Java development platform? Well for one thing J2ME is no where to be seen on OS X. However, I find it strange that there are other Java tools for OS X such as J2EE and Tomcat.

  I’ve been bringing this up with some people who have vested interest in the Mac. And certainly there is a potentially large market out there that need tools for creating applications for handheld devices. I think that having J2ME on OS X would be a big win for Apple and the Java development community. The entire world is moving to a device-centric model and it would be the best interest for OS X to have the ability to write Java applets using J2ME. With Apple's support I can really see Java expanding and emerging even stronger than it was before with J2ME for OS X. In return Java developers will turn to OS X as alternative platform to writing applications rather than Windows. Both Apple and the Java community will definately benefit by having J2ME tools for OS X.

  Apple of course is not obliged in porting J2ME into OS X but it would just be beneficial for Apple to do so. Jobs promised that OS X would be the best Java development platform. I hope he can walk the talk on this one.

  Now, where can I sign the petition to get J2ME ported to OS X?
  

  Posted by: codeslave on July 02, 2003 at 10:15 AM

• Sun, not Apple, should make the tools available
  Bill,

  You of all people in the world should know this. It should be Sun's responsibility, not Apple's, to port the Wireless Toolkit (WTK) to Mac OS X. In checking the J2ME web page I found that you (Sun) provide the WTK for Windows, Linux, and Solaris. Why don't you provide it for Mac OS X? Sun is the creator of Java and J2ME, why don't they provide support for OS X? If Sun, the creator of this technology, wants J2ME to be successful and available everywhere then they should be the ones to promote it and make the tools available.

  Also, why is the WTK platform-dependent anyway? Why isn't it written in Pure Java so that it can run on any platform that has Java support?

  Apple has done a tremendous job in supporting Java on Mac OS X. They've even shared some of their innovations with Sun that will probably make it into Java 1.5 or 1.6. Sun on the other hand has weird licensing issues that prevent Apple from porting Java 3D to the Mac (among other things). Sun should just get over the licensing issues and do everything they can to promote Java everywhere in everything all of the time.

  So Bill, please, evangelize your own company a little bit and get them to support J2ME on the Mac. After all, it was Sun, not Microsoft that created the WTK for J2ME on Windows. Why should Apple have to do it for Mac OS X?

  Posted by: kuwan on July 02, 2003 at 10:24 AM

• Where can I get J2ME for OS X?
  Try here :)

  http://mpowers.net/midp-osx/

  Posted by: kaicherry on July 02, 2003 at 11:12 AM

• Since neither Sun nor Apple managed to do this...
  ...it appears this guy did:

  http://mpowers.net/midp-osx/

  And I'm with the other guy: Sun made the tools for Windows so why not OS X as well?

  Maybe you all should contact the nice fellow at the url above and ask him about getting a head start :)

  Posted by: kaicherry on July 02, 2003 at 11:15 AM

• Development tools do exist
  Like others have said, it's not Apple's job to port the J2ME tools but it would be to their benefit if they did. Did Sun make a mistake by making some components native? Sure. Should Apple correct that mistake until Sun can fix it? If Apple is smart, they will.

  But then again, how many J2ME developers are there on (or desiring to be on) OS X? When I started J2ME development last year, no one I could find had ported over the preverify tool. After tons of searching, I had to port the tool myself:

  http://homepage.mac.com/drmx/java/

  Even after I ported it and told people about it, I only had two people actually email me about it. But that's not to say there won't be a lot more Mac J2ME developers in the future that Apple may want to support.

  In any case, as long as you're comfortable at the unix command line, the only required native tool from the WTK is the bytecode preverifier. With preverify, you can test on Palm (POSE) or an actual device. Not as nice as having a cell phone emulator, but it has worked great for developing on my Palm and Nokia 3650.

  Posted by: drmccuistion on July 02, 2003 at 11:22 AM

• Get the show going Sun!
  Yep - I totally agree that Sun needs to step up to the plate on this item. Has Bill contacted the team inside Sun to find out what the holdup is?

  Posted by: cjgraham on July 03, 2003 at 08:20 AM

• When OSX runs on PDAs and handsets
  When OSX runs on pdas and handsets you will see j2ME ported to OSX..

  as for emualtors and tools for j2me, they already run under MacOSX..

  and BTW you cannot write java applets for J2ME just as you can not for J2ee either..

  Posted by: shareme on July 19, 2003 at 10:03 AM

• any experience with real devices?
  did anyone succeed in developing a midlet with the tools mentioned here for macos x and in transfering it via bluetooth file transfer or irda or any other means to a real device (a Palm, a Sony Ericsson T610 or a Nokia 3650, maybe?) thanks in advance for any answer.

  Posted by: teodori on July 31, 2003 at 03:09 AM

• Responsibility vs Sensibility
  A lot of the discussion here seems to rotate around who should be responsible for providing the WTK for OS-X. The truth is that noone is responsible: both Sun and Apple will, of course, follow the same market rules that guide any company, and they will focus their efforts where they think it will provide them with the most gains. It is in both companies interest to provide J2ME support for OS-X. Both companies will benefit from this. Obviously, though, for some reason neither company yet percieve the value of this to outweigh the cost of development.

  This is a big shame and leaves us J2ME developers out in the cold, having to make do with either Windoze emulation, or Mr Powers' port. (Our thanks go out to you M.P.)

  However, what irks me the most is that Sun have spent time and money developing the J2ME WTK as a native application rather than a normal Java application. I cannot get my head round the crazy logic that possessed them to make this decision. A lack of Java development skills at Sun? A malicious desire to piss people off? Some Micro$oft spy who has infiltrated their ranks?

  Whoever made this decision deserves a hideous punishment that will send shivers down the spine of those learn of it and will act an effective deterrent against future transgressions: I suggest he be contractually obliged to spend the rest of his career using nothing but Windows XP!

  Okay, now he has been dealt with, what can the rest of us do about the woeful situation we are left in? We can either sit on our backsides waiting for Apple or Sun to release a WTK for OS-X, or we can do something ourselves. Perhaps an open-source J2ME WTK (obviously written entirely in Java)?
  Anyone interested? Anyone know of such a project already being started somewhere?
  

  Posted by: stanbey on August 18, 2003 at 05:32 AM

• any experience with real devices?
  Hi

  I have been investigating J2ME on OSX 10.2 with a SE T610.

  Dev env is Mr. Powers Port, SonyEricsson SDK (midpapi.zip), IntelliJ IDE, Blluetooth File transfer

  Comments

  Cannot transfer JAD file over BlueTooth.
  Haven't tried OTA.

  BT File Transfer says that JAR files are not recognised but if you click ok to continue anyway, the jar file is transferred cleanly to the Games & More Folder. I have compiled sample Sun programs such as worms which worked fine since they do not query a JAD file.
  Small simple Screen (rather than Canvas) based MIDlets have been ok.

  Using IDE as editor only with ant as make replacement. Have not tried any debugging.

  So far it has been enjoyable but have reservations about debugging.

  Posted by: aidanreel on September 02, 2003 at 08:17 AM

• J2ME on MacOSX
  I certainly would like to have J2ME tools available on MacOSX. I have a project that's been in waiting for a couple of years for the Internet enabled phone to become more ubiquitous. I thought Metrowerks had a J2ME environment for MacOSX.

  Posted by: unknown1 on July 15, 2004 at 01:30 AM

• Not having a dev environment on OS X is all Suns fault. Why? Sun push Java as being cross platform, yes? So why are the tools not written in Java, including the emulator? Sun should start practicing what they preach.....

  Posted by: andylarder on January 15, 2005 at 06:52 AM

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