The Java Mitey Mover Awards (3/2006)
This award honors a product which has proven itself to be the best in class and has significantly advanced the progress of Java ME in the small devices market.
This month’s winner: Opera Mini
Description:
|
Opera Miniâ„¢ is a fast and easy MIDP-based mobile browser that allows users to access the Web on mobile phones that would normally be incapable of running a Web browser. This includes the vast majority of today’s WAP-enabled phones.
Instead of requiring the phone to process Web pages, it uses a remote server to pre-process the page before sending it to the phone. This makes Opera Miniâ„¢ perfect for phones with very low resources, or low bandwidth connections.
Opera Miniâ„¢ offers the same speed and usability as the Opera mobile browser, and uses Opera’s Small Screen Renderingâ„¢ technology to provide access to the Web. It has all the features expected of a browser, and more, such as bookmarks, browsing history, and ability to split large pages into smaller sections for faster browsing.
Why It Won
This is the first Java app I’ve seen that has caused major ripples throughout the mobile space, including forums and websites dedicated to Palm and Windows devices. In many cases, it served to highlight deficiencies in the Java-capabilities of some of these gadgets, as users tried to add JVMs and run the Java app.
Installing Opera Mini on a Palm
Its lean and mean performance will help combat the perception of Java MIDP apps as only good enough to be second-class citizens behind native apps, and demand for the Opera Mini will highlight the benefits of having Java ME to those who may not have heard of Java before.
As a bonus, some people even took potshots at Qualcomm’s hapless BREW over at Slashdot.org.
Links:
- Reviews:
- Forums:
If you would like to nominate a product for the Mitey Mover award, please email at kalim1998 (at) yahoo.com.