I recently acquired a Sony Ericsson K800i telephone. It’s a great phone. And the camera (3.2 MP) is just really great. Being an ex-employee of Ericsson I still have a soft spot for that brand…

I still also own a QTEK 8310 Windows Mobile 5.0 telephone for which I develop DopplerMobile. Of course I couldn’t leave the Sony Ericsson phone behind so I started some development on DopplerMobile for J2ME devices.

I’ve included an initial screenshot (taken from the emulator, on the real phone it looks much better due to better fonts).

I made some efforts to make sure that the user experience on the K800i is the same as on the Windows Mobile 5.0 versions. But as J2ME has only a -very- limited framework available for forms etc I had to revert to creating my own framework. It’s still gr0wing, but it’s getting there.

All the elements you see in the screenshot are handled by the framework, so no custom ’painting’ is needed.

What I like about JME is the fact that there is a build in ‘database’. A so-called recordstore, which allows me to create records of any type (as long as the contents is a byte array). In DopplerMobile for Windows Mobile I serialize everything to the file system, but in DopplerMobile for JME devices I make use of this internal recordstore. But because I didn’t sign the jar file every time you access the filesystem (for instance to save a downloaded podcast) you will have to allow DopplerMobile to do that (it will ask you if it can read, to check for a folder for instance) and then it will ask you if it can write (to save the file). etc. etc. Rather annoying. Buying a certificate… well, maybe later… it’s around 400 USD per annum I’ve been told.

I have no time frame when I will release a beta of this, I’m focusing on getting Doppler 3.0 and DopplerMobile for Windows Mobile ready first. Still, it’s getting there, and you can expect it in the future to be available.

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