Another Top-10 Java (Mobile) Killer Apps

6. July 2006, 19:45 UhrJava MEWendong Li

Airlan San Juan listed Top 10 Java Killer Apps on his blog one month ago:

Opera Mini, Google Maps Mobile, FlurryMail, Skype Mobile with Eqo, Karaokini: Mobile Karaoke, GCalSync, MobyExplorer FTP Client, KABLOG, FIFA Mobile Matchcast and Telnet/SSH clients.

It is really a great list. I have a few more cool applications that I would like to add to that list. So here is another top-10 list of Java mobile killer apps:

  1. Widsets
    Keywords: widget
    People are trying to move the idea and success of those cute Apple scoreboard widgets or Yahoo widgets to the mobile world. This Widsets application is from a Nokia team.
    Another one in this category is Bluepulse. Thomas just posted a good article about mobile widgets on his blog.

  2. Comedy Central Take Out
    Keywords: streaming media
    Nellymoser’s Warner Mobile Music Streaming Jukebox was awarded Best In Show in CTIA 2004. Its new application Comedy Central Take Out takes to another level. TakeOut not only contains traditional elements like ringtones and wallpapers, it also offers streaming comedian sound tracks and video highlights of popular MTV-Comedy Central shows.
    Another application in the category is mobitv.

  3. Mobup
    Keywords: camera, picture, video
    Yahoo Go Mobile is nice. But it is a heavy Symbian application. And it does not work with Flickr. Mobup is a nice small Java application that allows you upload pictures to Flickr using the Flickr APIs.
    ShoZu is another one in this category. It allows you to upload video and pictures to the web. But it is not only a Java application. It has Symbian and Windows Mobile versions too.
  4. Tricastmedia’s OMEGA
    Keywords: UI
    Tricastmedia’s OMEGA gets lots of attention on blogsphere. One of the popular post is on JavaLobby. But it is not commercially available yet. By the way, if you think your application is very cool, post some video on YouTube like Tricastmedia did.
  5. Processing Mobile
    Keywords: art
    Processing is not an application. It is a programming language to program images, animation, and sound. Processing Mobile provides a nice SDK to allow you write programs using its APIs and generate MIDlet codes automatically.

  6. Tinyline
    Keywords: SVG Tiny
    Tinyline is a SVG Tiny implementation for Java ME handsets. Now with JSR 226, many new Java ME phones will come with SVG Tiny support. But Tinyline is still a nice libary to check out, especially its sample page if you just start to play with SVG Tiny.

  7. Microsky
    Keywords: Sky, GPS
    Microsky is like Google Universe in your hand. And it keeps improving. The latest version has bluetooth-GPS support and offline mode.

  8. VIAMOTO
    Keywords: GPS navigation
    If you saw the Verizon Wireless’s new RAZR turn-by-turn navigation commercial on TV and thought that was cool, well J2ME is years ahead of BREW in aGPS area (thanks to Nextel). VIAMOTO was launched several years ago. It is the first audible turn-to-turn GPS navigation solution. Its website still shows the Nextel i88 phone. That is the first J2ME phone I played back to the year of 2001.
    Now with Bluetooth API and Bluetooth GPS receiver, aGPS navigation is possible even Location API is not available from the phone. Tons of GPS navigation applications are available, such as TomTom Mobile and wayfinder.
  9. vOICe
    Keywords: camera, voice
    The vOICe MIDlet is only a prototype but it shows a lot of potentials that a mobile application could have. I can imagine in near future, mobile phones with cameras, OCR and text-to-voice technology can read newspaper for blind people. Actually there are several cool applications in this area from codefactory such as Mobile Speak and Mobile Accessibility. But they are not Java applications.

  10. ?

    11. is there anyone who can come up with a #10 for this list? :)

    [Updates]
    Since I got a lot of attention on this entry, I would like add the missing #10. Initially I wrote this blog entry at night and it was really late so I skipped it.


    QR Code Decoder
    Keywords: 2D barcode

    There are actually a lot of similar 2D barcode technologies. Besides those I mentioned in my blog before, I also noticed LP Code and U Code (优码) in China, which could be potentially everywhere in 2008 Beijing Olympic.

    QR Code is a winner here because they provide an open source Java ME decoder. And you can also try this pure Javascript generator.

10 comments:

  1. HeGe, 9. July 2006, 21:29

    Hi Wendong,
    great to see that WidSets is on your list, and even mentioned first on it! And a very good list, I have to check out the other apps mentioned there, too!
    Cheers,
    HeGe

     
  2. Thomas Landspurg, 16. July 2006, 9:20

    I won’t put Omega/Tricast media, Tinyline in the application category. They are more tools to create the application to come….

     
  3. Mika Li, 2. August 2006, 10:57

    Wen Dong… great stuff… another list to closely watch… Glad that Tricastmedia’s OMEGA engine is up there in your list… Watch this space, they have already signed up one operator and 1 handset manufacturer to embed OMEGA. And one of US top magazine publications would be launching an e-zine application in Q4 ‘06 with Tricastmedia UI technology.

     
  4. Tricastmedia Buzz » Blog Archive » Thank you, Wendong… (Pingback), 2. August 2006, 11:17
     

    [...] Source: http://wendong.ngphone.com/?p=257 We are listed as no. 4, flattering… really… [...]

     
  5. Christian Lampard, 2. August 2006, 11:21

    Thank you Wendong… it really makes our day!

     
  6. Wendong, 2. August 2006, 20:02

    Thanks for comments, guys! I am glad that I got your attention. Keep up the great work!

     
  7. George, 24. September 2007, 5:45

    Just wondering, that Yahoo! Go is not in your list. They also have a Java client including maps, Flickr, mail and some more features.

     
  8. Wendong, 24. September 2007, 10:43

    I can not remember the exact date that Yahoo GO Java version was launched, but I think at the time I wrote this entry, Yahoo GO only had Symbian version for a few S60 phones.

    “Yahoo Go Mobile is nice. But it is a heavy Symbian application.”

     
  9. Guaira, 27. June 2008, 18:49

    Excellent list! Thanks for compiling it.

     
  10. amkis, 1. August 2009, 13:54

    thankx 4 the blog

     

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