S60 Open to new features

The greatest asset of S60 is the S60 community. We are constantly looking for more ways to make sure what matters to S60 community matters to us. As part of that effort, together with our product managers, we will try to discover what really matters, from your stories.

If you are reading this blog there is a good chance that you have chosen to use java for developing your application. But if you felt that java was not your thing and decided to use something else, we value your opinion equally. Whether you use java or not we are interested in your stories.

Tell us your reasons for choosing java or your reasons for not choosing it. Also add the type of applications you are developing. There is a chance that our product managers will further contact you to get more details so please do fill in your email addresses. Your stories will be valuable inputs for us.

The beta version of the java SDK for S60 3rd edition FP 2 is available.  SDK comes with all the essentials for starting with developing java applications for the next version of S60.  It includes the device emulator, implementations for java APIs and the documentation with code examples.

Speaking of documentation, Forum Nokia wiki is another source which I favor. Wiki content includes code examples, how to's, small tutorials and is a real community effort. The information is not only provided by the people behind the Forum Nokia and S60 java platform but also by the S60 developer community at large.

I think the project has been around for some time but I found out about MUPE about a week ago. It is an open source project from Nokia. Although, it includes a lot of technologies and concepts underneath, it can simply be described as an application platform that makes it easier to create multi-user applications and games.

It consists of a java ME client that works on the mobile phone and a server that hosts the applications. The client is all that is needed to use different applications. Using this client, applications can be downloaded  and used without requiring a separate installation.

I must admit, after reading the definition on the project's site, I did not expect too much from the applications that is available via MUPE . I was surprised with the capabilities of applications that are available. There is already a selection of 4-5 applications, and I especially enjoyed playing piper. Although most of the applications are games, it looks like there are some services in the works.

Overall, MUPE makes use of the java to create a platform that makes it easier to create innovative, multi-user applications. Furthermore, it tries to make it even easier by providing a set of development tools based on my favorite IDE, Eclipse. It is definitely a platform worth checking both for application users and developers.

Every major open source community has good amount of projects that uses java. SourceForge lists more than 25000 projects for java, Google code lists more than 2000. Also Apache and Eclipse hosts large java projects. So there is plenty of open source java projects for end users and developers to choose from.

Unfortunately, mobile java does not benefit enough from open source. There is a number of projects that target mobile java, I will try to introduce some of those projects in the future in here, but compared to desktop and enterprise scoped projects that is a small number.

We love open source in S60 java and we are trying to enable more of it in our platform. But It is always interesting to hear your opinions. Why do you think there are not as many mobile java projects? What about converting those existing desktop and enterprise projects to mobile? What are your candidates for converting to mobile?

I come across this nice list of navigation software that you can use with your S60 phones. I especially enjoyed the list because almost all of the applications reviewed were java applications.

Java provides access to GPS functionality on S60 phones and I have started to see more java applications with GPS functionality. The applications are not only limited to navigation.

What is your favorite java application with GPS functionality?