Wendong’s Smart Phone Weblog

I stopped by a local T-Mobile store this Saturday. I pretty much made the decision to buy one T-Mobile G1 if it is available. Just as I suspected, there in no G1 in stock in my local area, although T-Mobile started to sell G1 “nation wide” from 10/22. The G1 poster was right in front of store entry, but the sales guy was not sure when they will have them. It looks like I will have to go to a store in Boston to get one. Or I just need to order one online and wait it shipped to me.

In the mean time, I am also eyeing on the Nokia 5800. It is first touch screen phone from Nokia running S60 5th Edition. As a long time S60 user, this phone seems to be perfect to replace my two-year old E61. And ~$390 is about the right price tag. But I am not sure when it is going to be available for US market. Most likely it is going to be early next year. It is going to hit Asian market first, maybe I can get one this year from China? That will be perfect.

It seems to me that BBC is always ahead of mobile technology usage. In 2006, BBC offered Headlines application based on Java ME and Flash Lite. Java ME was not new, but Flash Lite was pretty new at that time. Now BBC has a streaming media application which uses Web Runtime.

To bad I do not have a Web Runtime capable phone to play with it.

Via AllAboutSymbian

Flixwagon, a similar service to the popular Qik and the open sourced Movino, now is officially open to everyone. A mobile client is also available for download at m.flixwagon.com/nokia. Flixwagon blog gives a list of new features of the mobile client. However it is only for S60 devices. I am wondering where is the Java ME version.

Symbian is celebrating its 10 years anniversary. On Symbian site there is an interactive timeline you can quickly browse through the Symbian history. It is fun and brings back a lot of memories. I am surprised that Nokia 3650 is not there. That is the first Symbian phone I ever used in 2003. It is the first MMS phone in US (?) and the first Java handset with MMAPI support. After that I remember Sony Ericsson P800, P900, Nokia 6600, Nokia 9500 and a few newer E Series and N Series.

The reason that I pick Symbian (Nokia S60 in particular) device as my personal cell phone is that it is the best developer handset you can ever get. With Nokia’s upcoming N96 for example, you can develop software for it with:

• Java (CLDC/MIDP,eSWT)
• Symbian C++ and Open C
• Python
• Flash Lite 3.0
• SilverLight Mobile
• Nokia WRT Widget

That is just the official supported list. With 3rd party solution, you can add Visual Basic .NET and other options to the list.

If you are a developer who are interested in mobile development, there is no other device can even come close to Symbian’s openness and wide language options. As a normal user, more development options for developer means more cool, open and free applications available.

Symbian is experiencing some growing pain now. Palm OS, a mobile platform with almost the same age as Symbian, is dying and rebirthing. I am glad to see Symbian OS is still very strong and innovative. I wish it the best.

I woke up late on this Columbus day morning and found a few interesting Java ME related entries in my feeds, which normally does not happen in one day.

(1) Gorkem Ercan’ Blog: eSWT for S60, First Contact

Forum Nokia has released a plug-in to S60 3rd edition FP2 MIDP beta SDK, that will enable the development of eSWT based midlets using the SDK.

(2) Petr Panteleyev’s Blog: Java ME on Windows Mobile
The news is that you can build and install CDC and core packages to Windows Mobile devices. I also heard this from Java Mobility Podcast recently. So I really need to take a look.

(3) Bruno Ghisi’s Blog: JustJava 2007 Goes Mobile
JustJava is a Brazilian Java event. - Please make some voice like in Java One conference each time when Brazil is mentioned A few interesting projects were mentioned in this entry such as Floggy and mOOo Impress Controller