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Cell Phones For Easy App Development?

Posted by timothy on Thu Aug 28, 2008 02:46 PM
from the complexity-is-much-easier-to-achieve dept.
Cellphones Java Programming
linnrose writes "When I purchased my current cell phone — a ATT/Samsung Sync — my primary reason for selecting it was Samsung told me I could install custom Java applications on it via USB or the microSD card; turns out they lied to me. I would really like to have a phone that is open enough for me to install simple Java (or whatever language; I'm primarily a C# developer) apps without having to download them from a server. And it doesn't have to be cutting-edge/feature-rich; gimme a nice color screen and good call quality. I'm thinking Nokia might have something useful, but I'm not sure. Any suggestions?"
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Submission: Cell phones and app development by linnrose (1352827)
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  • More details please (Score:3, Informative)

    by the_humeister (922869) on Thursday August 28 2008, @02:50PM (#24783841)
    My current phone is a Sony Ericsson W580i. I can just upload those micro Java apps onto my phone via Bluetooth and they work.

    • I second that. I love my W580i.

      • Third, having used a z520 for a long time. The only crippled features I can think of are the permanently enabled camera noise, an inability to send applications to other users from the games and applications folders (the copy in the "other" folder that was used to install a given app can be propagated just fine), and the standard SIM lock that any mainstream cell phone has.

        • The only crippled features I can think of are the permanently enabled camera noise

          In some markets where your phone is sold, statutes or regulations require "the permanently enabled camera noise" to counter invasion of privacy.

    • I'll jump in too for supporting Sony Ericsson phones as a simple phone development platform. They've an active and extensive developer site and it looks pretty easy to get simple apps written and installed.

      I did reflash the firmware on my branded w580i back to factory and it's much easier to work with now without all the vendor crap on it.

      Android may be the future but until then SE phones will satisfy my urge to tinker with simple phone apps.

  • All nokia phones (Score:4, Informative)

    by Simon (S2) (600188) on Thursday August 28 2008, @02:55PM (#24783893) Homepage

    At least here in the EU, I don't know it it is the same in the US, but every nokia phone I bought (now I own a 6111) has had the capability of installing j2me apps from the memory card, vie USB or simply by copying them from the PC to the mobile over bluetooth.
    If you are a developer and would like to hack your mobile, maybe you could have a look at the Freerunner?

  • Sad to say it, but Windows Mobile phones are probably the most widely available "open for developers" phones out there. WM does have app signing, but every WM phone I've seen allows the user to easily override the signing function. It's basically "This app is unsigned, are you sure you want to run it? Yes/No" - The nice thing is that the phone *remembers* this answer until the app's hash changes.

    Most current Linux phones are heavily locked down (such as the Motorola MOTOMAGX based phones).

    Android based p

    • Re:Windows Mobile (Score:5, Informative)

      by LaughingCoder (914424) on Thursday August 28 2008, @03:13PM (#24784151)

      Sad to say it, but Windows Mobile phones are probably the most widely available "open for developers" phones out there

      First, why is it sad? Second, I have had extensive experience developing for Windows Mobile (alongside some poor slobs who were saddled with having to develop the same application for Symbian and Java). While I can say that I had a very positive experience, my compatriots were not so lucky. The tools (Embedded Visual Studio) were free. And as a big bonus, I was able to do 90-95% of my development on the desktop the same source could be built and run on a desktop Windows box and then, with a small smattering of #ifdefs, built and deployed onto either a pocket PC style (touchscreen with stylus) or Smartphone style target device. As you can imagine, source-level debugging an application in desktop Visual Studio is orders of magnitude more efficient than fiddling around with simulators or worse, tethered devices running in some sort of half-speed debugger mode under control of a desktop. I also dabbled with BREW (uggh) though not for terribly long. For my money, Windows Mobile is definitely the way to go if you want to develop applications for personal consumption.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by sznupi (719324)

      On Symbian you can also self sign.

    • Sad to say it, but Windows Mobile phones are probably the most widely available "open for developers" phones out there.

      Is there a good way to compile apps for Windows Mobile on Linux? Or on Windows without buying a copy of Visual Studio Standard or higher? (Visual C++ Express lacks the Windows Mobile SDK.) Is CeGCC arm-mingw32ce [sourceforge.net] any good?

  • It's my understanding that anyone with a BlackBerry and the Windows desktop software can install Java (J2ME or J2ME+BBapi) apps on their BlackBerries via serial/USB.

    I know older Symbian devices could install via memory card as well (I had a Nokia 6600), but I've heard enough scare stories about newer Symbian revs to wonder if that's still the case.

    In *theory*, anyone with ActiveSync should be able to sync/install on a Windows Mobile phone. I've never used one myself, and the one person I know with a Window

  • Windows Mobile? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Darkstorm (6880) <lorddarkstorm AT hotmail DOT com> on Thursday August 28 2008, @03:01PM (#24784007)

    I have one of the Veriozon windows mobile phones, it has .net compact framework, and even compact sql server.

    I got it mainly because I could write my own c# apps for the thing. Visual studio even has a nice emulator built in.

    • Re:Windows Mobile? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rufus t firefly (35399) on Thursday August 28 2008, @03:17PM (#24784255) Homepage

      I have one of the Veriozon windows mobile phones, it has .net compact framework, and even compact sql server.

      I got it mainly because I could write my own c# apps for the thing. Visual studio even has a nice emulator built in.

      I can't quite get over Windows Mobile's horrific interface design. I mean, if I wanted a small desktop, I think I could just buy one [asus.com]. It's not really designed to be controlled with fingers (opting instead for a stylus), and is a pretty huge pain to use. Not that some of the other entries in the mobile phone OS market aren't horrible ... Nokia managed to get around the finger problem recently with their menu system in Maemo [maemo.org], even though that's not really available for phones.

      Here's to hoping Android works better in "real life". Running it under Windows Mobile is painful at best.

      • Well, when I needed a new phone, I also needed a new pda (my sony clie is a bit old), so I got both in one. I actually use more of the pda functionality (like the calendar) since I carry the phone most places, while my pda stayed in my bag, or at home.

        I like it, and I can write apps for it.

        • Well, when I needed a new phone, I also needed a new pda (my sony clie is a bit old), so I got both in one. I actually use more of the pda functionality (like the calendar) since I carry the phone most places, while my pda stayed in my bag, or at home.

          I like it, and I can write apps for it.

          Problem is, you have to buy into the whole thing. You can't develop for Windows Mobile without a Windows desktop and a Windows development environment.

          Haven't had a Windows machine since 1999, and I'm not about to get one just so I can write apps for a phone. J2ME-based apps provide much greater market penetration, and hopefully if Android is adopted by enough companies, I can avoid the prospect of designing for either the iPhone or any WinCE hardware.

  • No idea how useful this is for development, but Amazon is offering an unlocked Samsung I321N phone for $165 until 2pm PDT as a gold box deal. [amazon.com] It runs Windows Mobile 5.0, and since it's unlocked I would imagine you should be able to load apps onto it with no problems.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Hard_Rock_2 (804967)

      As a heads up it uses European frequencies, and only has the higher frequency for North America. Its fine for T Mobile which only uses 1900mhz, but if you use it with At&T you'll find it wont work indoors as much as other phones, which have both North American bands.

  • Lots of Choices (Score:4, Informative)

    by Hard_Rock_2 (804967) on Thursday August 28 2008, @03:14PM (#24784191) Homepage

    To be honest, I'm really suprised your phone doesn't let you just upload J2ME apps and run them, most phones (RAZR, etc) let you do it, some might require you buy a $6 cable, but its nothing serious.

    If you want more choices:
    1)Symbian based phones. You can run native C++ apps, and J2ME based ones. A popular example would be the N95.
    2)Iphone, although you'll need to go through the iTunes store or jailbreak it.
    3)Windows mobile phones, not sure which one to reccomend here.
    4)OpenMoko, although I hear this phone still needs a while to go before it becomes something someone will want to use as their primary phone
    5)Wait for an android based phones.

    However before purchasing new phone see if you can get a cable or modify your phone in such a way you can load java apps onto it, because I'm really surprised its that heavily locked down.

  • Nokia+Python (Score:5, Informative)

    by Masa (74401) on Thursday August 28 2008, @03:26PM (#24784419) Journal
    A Nokia S60 phone (I have an E61) + Nokia S60 Python interpreter have been enough for my personal development needs. The nice thing is, I can develop Python applications on the road only using the phone itself.

    Information about the interpreter: http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/pythonfors60/ [nokia.com]

    The latest version is available at the Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pys60 [sourceforge.net]

  • You should check out the OpenMoko: http://openmoko.com/ [openmoko.com]

    I don't have one. However, at the linux users group I attend ( http://ale.freeshell.org/ [freeshell.org] ), a group of people who got them via one of the group purchase agreements came to last night's meeting. I was pretty impressed.

    It does cost $300 or $400 depending on what model you get, and then you have to get one of the cellular services that works on a sim chip thing.

    At least one of the guys at the linux meeting was using it as his daily phone. However he al

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tony (765)

      The "sim chip thing" is GSM, which most places (T-Mobile, AT&T, etc) use.

      If you need it for day-to-day use, QTopia is stable and pretty. You can then develop using Qt, which isn't bad, as long as you like C++ (or you can use Python bindings or whatnot).

      If you want to explore, install the FSO image, and develop using Vala, which has a C#-like syntax, but compiles using an intermediate C step. It's fast, efficient, and not a bad language, even if it *is* modelled on C#.

      It has easy access to accelerometers

  • Sony Ericsson K800i (Score:4, Informative)

    by aembleton (324527) <aembleton@NOsPAm.gmail.com> on Thursday August 28 2008, @03:33PM (#24784553) Homepage
    I can load Java ME [wikipedia.org] apps onto my Sony Ericsson K800i [wikipedia.org] by using either the supplied USB cable, or via Bluetooth. Java ME doesn't provide all of the libraries that come with Java Standard Edition; so be prepared to work around the lack of Lists which is something that I have found frustrating about it.

  • I have been personally bitten by this Samsung crippling "feature" too. Java apps/games can only be installed via a server/EDGE, not via USB or microSD or via Bluetooth file exchange. Samsung is the only manufacturer that does that, and I have my share of experience with many cellphones.

  • For instance, ROKR Z6 [motorola.com]. It connects to PC via USB as a memory card (one of the options). JARs copied over to the phone are installed with a single click ;-) Out of the box it has a little over 60M of free space with an option to add (up to) 2G micro-SD card.

    Phone is easily reflashable [modmymoto.com] including mods [bashorg.net.ru] that add telnet and FTP ;-)

  • I have a BlackBerry and happily code for it in Java. I use a Mac with VMware to run Windows so I can run the SDK's tools.

    Pros:
    - The device OS is itself written in Java, so your Java apps are not second class citizens
    - API is intelligently designed and easy to work with
    - Good API documentation
    - Simulator runs the actual OS code
    - Apps can be loaded using a USB cable
    - Apps can be debugged as they run on the device itself through that USB cable
    - SDK downloadable for free in a few clicks
    - Lots of people have Bl

  • Sprint/Nextel or AT&T/T-mobile (Score:4, Informative)

    by juanfe (466699) on Thursday August 28 2008, @04:43PM (#24785643) Homepage

    If you're in the US, two general choices:

    Sprint will let you load pretty much any Java ME app that does not use protected APIs on your phone. For their CDMA phones, you'll need a special developer unlock to use protected APIs (easy to get). For their Nextel phones, you can sign any apps that use protected APIs using the iDEN SDK they have available. Visit their developer site (http://developer.sprint.com) and you'll find links to tools to do Over-the-air (or cable installs in the Nextel case) of Java apps on your phones.

    Pretty much any GSM phone with Java ME you can use to download apps over the air. AT&T does not make this difficult, and lets you download applications over the air to any of their Java ME capable phones. If the application uses a protected API, you'll probably have to get it developer enabled as well -- their developer website (http://developer.att.com) should help you with what you need.

    T-Mobile also has wide open phones for Java ME apps, as long as they're not using protected APIs.

    For Verizon, you're SOL.

    BlackBerry devices are all pretty open and you can install whatever you want on them as long as it's not locked up by your system administrator. The APIs are as rich as they come.

      • You're right, I didn't mention WinMobile. I have a blindspot to WinMobile -- I guess I've been in Java ME-land too long.

        Generally speaking, I have seen either lot of crapware on WinMobile or good apps that are much more expensive than their Java ME counterparts (3X-5X). Basically, even though Microsoft is probably the best company out there in supporting developers, they haven't managed to create a hugeexcited developer ecosystem for the WinMobile platform for some reason. I think it's because of what you m

  • iPhone (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tom (822) on Friday August 29 2008, @01:10AM (#24790741) Homepage Journal

    Yeah, someone had to mention the obvious. But the iPhone is really great to develop for. Once you've learnt Objective-C, the whole dev environment is very good, and I've heard that from quite a few people, many professional software developers among them.

  • Sounds like a Windows Mobile device with .NET would be a choice then. Haven't ever tried them out myself (I'm very sick of mobile devices so I don't check them out really) and I have heard some bad and some good about WM, but it should be a good fit if you want the MS development suite and languages.

    • Most of the folks I know who've gotten WinMobile devices for the purpose of getting apps on them seem to be happy (with the exception of WinMobile SmartPhone (not Pocket PC Phone edition) users, who tend to be unhappy because the platform allows the carrier to lock it down) -- at least happy in that they can get applications they download of the interwebs on their phone.

      My experience is also that there are a huge number of fairly crappy/duplicative applications written for WinMobile, and that the good appli

    • I'm pretty sure that the submitter dosen't want to pay the $99/year Apple developer tax, especially just to run "simple Java apps".

      • Why would he do that when it's perfectly simple to jailbreak the phone? Then you can run your custom apps for free. It doesn't sound like the submitter is interested in distributing the apps he writes.

            1. How small are your pockets, exactly? I could fit several iPhones in the pockets of any clothes I've ever tried on.
            2. I will grant you this one. However, the phone will be obsolete long before you need a new battery and you can use an external battery in lieu of a spare; no different than carrying another battery, really.
            3. Not true for my cell service provider
            4. That's a pretty silly reason not to buy something

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by AKAImBatman (238306) *

      If he's looking for something cheaper, I can vouch for RAZRs working with Java apps. There's a simple USB Mini port on the side (cable not included) that can be used to hook it up to a computer and transfer applications.

      I have also been told that many Nokia phones allow Java programs to be installed, but I do not know the details of those.

        • This may be related to the reason why Samsung SAID it would work but it didn't: you usually need to buy an unlocked phone to do certain things. My unlocked SLVR works fine, and I've uploaded several Java apps to it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Z00L00K (682162)

      And you have to buy a Mac to develop them.

      iPhone is the LAST phone that I would select for that. And I also suspect that if you succeed in porting Java to the iPhone Apple will blacklist that really soon since it will be in conflict with the developer license.

      SonyEricsson, Nokia or any Windows Mobile phone should be fine. Operator branded phones may be lobotomized from the prospect of installing apps on them.

        • iPhone is soon going the only phone that matters if you are developing apps for other people.

          I didn't realize the iPhone was reaching 100% market penetration so quickly. Out of the ~1,150,000,000 phones sold last year, how many of those were iPhones? 3%? That's a lot to make up this year.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            you need to fine tune your crude statistics, % of market penetration for all phones does not give a good sense of things. Think a bit deeper... take those 1,150,000,000 phones sold, break it down by model ... how many models have people paying for applications? A small percentage I bet. Out of this small percentage... where does the iPhone rank?

            If this number is significant then only the iPhone will matter.

            Also factor in the following:
            - iPhone is just over 1 year old and two model years old
            - 3% for on

            • Re:Become a registered iPhone Developer (Score:5, Insightful)

              by toleraen (831634) * on Thursday August 28 2008, @10:38PM (#24789703)
              Really? Are you sure? The iPhone is the only mobile phone that requires any and all legitimately purchased software installations to go through a single point of origin. There is no comparison to Symbian, RIM, Linux or Palm. Every other mobile OS has the legitimate option to install applications without 'phoning home' to their respective manufacturer.

              It simply amazes me that so many people in the slashdot crowd don't see a problem with this.

              • This simply isn't true. BREW, used by Verizon's Get It Now service, Alltel and other CDMA carriers in the USA have a "single point of origin" system in place as well. All applications are centrally submitted and tested via QUALCOMM and these are placed in a centralised application database which carriers can select applications from. This ridiculous claim that Apple is somehow the first to do this or the big nasty one for doing this needs to be put to bed - they have replicated and tweaked a business model

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by tha_mink (518151)
      If you roll in the Java world, then check out the Blackberry. It's really easy to develop for, there's a bunch of tools out there, and installing and removing apps is a breeze through the USB cable. (or a server for that matter)

      • If you roll in the Java world, then check out the Blackberry. It's really easy to develop for, there's a bunch of tools out there, and installing and removing apps is a breeze through the USB cable. (or a server for that matter)

        Has anyone done any development for the Blackberry on Linux? I use Eclipse for most of my development these days, and it looked like the only Blackberry Eclipse plugin/toolkit [blackberry.com] was an unfriendly Windows binary. Anyone have any better experiences with it?

        I'm not about to put together another machine or waste money on a Windows license just to develop cell phone software, especially when it seems that there's no specific reason why there isn't a readily available Linux port of their toolkit.

        Yeah, I'm just wait

      • I'll concur with this. I installed many of my own test midlets via web download. The blackberry (even though I really hated it as a phone platform) is really dead-simple when it comes to running java apps.

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