You are right about the timing and it not just being a UI design issue and I certainly didn't mean otherwise. But could you build J2ME apps that were elegant an

You are right about the timing and it not just being a UI design issue and I certainly didn't mean otherwise. But could you build J2ME apps that were elegant and WORA without pain? Android mostly makes that a piece of cake. Do you think J2ME kept up with times in the post iPhone era? Do you think if it wasn't for Android, under Sun/Oracle J2ME would have been competent in 2012? Fact remains that J2ME was mostly a failure and even with the hardware and UI advances it hasn't improved. There are reasons for that. Failure of J2ME had to do with the flawed process, the technology, the design, the backwardness, the inability to keep up with times, the failure of the WORA promise, the fragmentation and Sun's management lacking any and all vision. Licensing from Sun would have likely meant Google would have found itself in a déjà vu situation. That was the point I was trying to make :)