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#1 is a bit off. As a result of the huge variety of handsets available the mobile industry has very strict adherence to standards. JavaME is available on most h

by danw 20y ago

#1 is a bit off. As a result of the huge variety of handsets available the mobile industry has very strict adherence to standards. JavaME is available on most handsets providing a consistent platform for use accross hundreds of devices. WAP has been an established mobile web standard since the late 90s and is consistently supported. There are dozens of different mobile browsers and they all work. Theres a lot less cross browser compatability trouble than with desktops even with more browsers! There are two main problems with mobile currently: device UI and carriers. Here in the EU at least carriers are openning up and encouraging users to try data services. Many now offer monthly flat rate data packages, such as Three who bundle skype, slingbox, etc with the package. T-Mobile even has a "well never charge you more than Â£1 a day for your data access" for pay as you go users. The operators now understand that they can make money from being mobile payment providers, identity solutions, ad brokers, etc instead of just charging huge ammounts for data. So things are looking up. It may be 5-10 years before mobile web and apps are as mature as the desktop is now but there is so much potential thats it shouldnt be dissmissed so quickly.

Tichy 20y ago
I have worked in J2ME games development for two years and I can say that #1 is not off at all. There is no way around testing your application on all possible phones, because they all come with the weirdest bugs. For an example of what to expect: on some phones, PNG images show up broken if they are structured in a certain way (ie pixel dimensions not an even number or dimensions of image exceed screen size). Some method calls just crash the phone. Persistence might take forever or not work at all. Starting the application might take forever - on some phones it is slow if you load lots of small files, on other phones it is slow if you load fewer big files. And it IS a pain to adapt to all possible screen sizes - granted, it might be a problem of designing the application, but as I was working on games, the design was often based on fixed size images. Especially as font support is crap with J2ME. Maybe flash for mobiles does a better job, haven't tried it. Another thing that used to suck with J2ME: there is no standard for text entry, so it is difficult to integrate text entry nicely into your application. The only standard way is to switch to a blank screen that supports your phones text entry method, so you can't integrate it into your design. Another problem, which I currently face: even if you know what phones you support, how can your customer know? Phones are usually not labeled with their technical name, so if you say "Nokia 6230i supported", it might mean nothing to your customer. I wouldn't say it is impossible to make money with mobile applications, though. It seems also the price for mobile networking is falling. Edit: the mobile games company I was working for was and is very successful and also in the meantime was bought by a big international entertainment company (think the Coca Cola of Entertainment). When I was there it was a 7 people company, so I think it qualifies as a successful startup (I think now they have 50 employees).
- danw 20y ago
  Plus handests have different proprietary apis for the more advanced stuff in j2me. Certainly as soon as you start trying to do anything 'interesting' it becomes a nightmare and there is a lot of space to improve. Mobile widgets might prove to be a good solution. I forgot another problem: uncertainty about monetization. Theres no proven way to make money on mobile yet. Do you go ad supported? Sell to operators, device makers or users? Charge micropayments or subscriptions? It's hard to pitch a mobile startup when you dont know how you're going to make money from it!
  - Tichy 20y ago
    Here in germany several companies are making good money with mobile phones. Usually the payment is all through "premium SMS", which can cost up to 5. So you can sell an application for 5 by having the user send an SMS to a certain number (you can also make it a monthly charge of 5, if you are lucky). Not sure how it works in the US. A huge share of the 5 goes to the operator, I think at least 40%, but it still works. I think there is room for Ad Support for mobile devices - is anybody even doing it yet? One could start a company focussing on that - making interesting applications available for "free" might also give the whole business a boost. At the moment it has a very bad reputation where I live because mostly the industry was ripping of kids. I don't think there even is a portal to check for serious applications. The mobile games portals have some serious applications at times, but I don't think the target audience is likely to stumble upon them there.
    - danw 20y ago
      it has a very bad reputation where I live because mostly the industry was ripping of kids Same here in the UK. There are a lot of companies tricking kids into premium subscription services for ringtones, etc. Perhaps there is an oppertunity for a mobile marketplace/portal for applications? I think there are plenty of these for games, but are there any for apps? If the portal handled distribution, easy installation, etc it could work.
      - Tichy 20y ago

by danw 20y ago

Tichy 20y ago

I have worked in J2ME games development for two years and I can say that #1 is not off at all. There is no way around testing your application on all possible phones, because they all come with the weirdest bugs. For an example of what to expect: on some phones, PNG images show up broken if they are structured in a certain way (ie pixel dimensions not an even number or dimensions of image exceed screen size). Some method calls just crash the phone. Persistence might take forever or not work at all. Starting the application might take forever - on some phones it is slow if you load lots of small files, on other phones it is slow if you load fewer big files. And it IS a pain to adapt to all possible screen sizes - granted, it might be a problem of designing the application, but as I was working on games, the design was often based on fixed size images. Especially as font support is crap with J2ME. Maybe flash for mobiles does a better job, haven't tried it. Another thing that used to suck with J2ME: there is no standard for text entry, so it is difficult to integrate text entry nicely into your application. The only standard way is to switch to a blank screen that supports your phones text entry method, so you can't integrate it into your design. Another problem, which I currently face: even if you know what phones you support, how can your customer know? Phones are usually not labeled with their technical name, so if you say "Nokia 6230i supported", it might mean nothing to your customer. I wouldn't say it is impossible to make money with mobile applications, though. It seems also the price for mobile networking is falling. Edit: the mobile games company I was working for was and is very successful and also in the meantime was bought by a big international entertainment company (think the Coca Cola of Entertainment). When I was there it was a 7 people company, so I think it qualifies as a successful startup (I think now they have 50 employees).

danw 20y ago
Plus handests have different proprietary apis for the more advanced stuff in j2me. Certainly as soon as you start trying to do anything 'interesting' it becomes a nightmare and there is a lot of space to improve. Mobile widgets might prove to be a good solution. I forgot another problem: uncertainty about monetization. Theres no proven way to make money on mobile yet. Do you go ad supported? Sell to operators, device makers or users? Charge micropayments or subscriptions? It's hard to pitch a mobile startup when you dont know how you're going to make money from it!
- Tichy 20y ago
  Here in germany several companies are making good money with mobile phones. Usually the payment is all through "premium SMS", which can cost up to 5. So you can sell an application for 5 by having the user send an SMS to a certain number (you can also make it a monthly charge of 5, if you are lucky). Not sure how it works in the US. A huge share of the 5 goes to the operator, I think at least 40%, but it still works. I think there is room for Ad Support for mobile devices - is anybody even doing it yet? One could start a company focussing on that - making interesting applications available for "free" might also give the whole business a boost. At the moment it has a very bad reputation where I live because mostly the industry was ripping of kids. I don't think there even is a portal to check for serious applications. The mobile games portals have some serious applications at times, but I don't think the target audience is likely to stumble upon them there.
  - danw 20y ago
    it has a very bad reputation where I live because mostly the industry was ripping of kids Same here in the UK. There are a lot of companies tricking kids into premium subscription services for ringtones, etc. Perhaps there is an oppertunity for a mobile marketplace/portal for applications? I think there are plenty of these for games, but are there any for apps? If the portal handled distribution, easy installation, etc it could work.
    - Tichy 20y ago