I had surgery yesterday, and am recuperating today.Interestingly enough, i still managed to do some work. No, i could not bring a laptop with me, but i had my nokia 9300, which i’m slowly coming to realize is wonderful for many situations. Add the opera mini java browser and you can do work and play from anywhere! In fact, I’m currently bed-ridden right now and posting using these!
They’ve got 1 million subscribers as of this April, 2006. They bring the Discovery Channel, CNN, Bloomberg, The History Channel and other cool programs to you whenever and wherever you go. They come to you via Java ME, and they’re called MobiTV.
So, if I had one of those “lower-end” devices like the Nokia 6682, or the Motorola Razr, it would be a snap to download the Java ME application OTA via a MediaNet portal entry page. Snap to reality, where I have a Nokia 9300, a smartphone that (seemingly) has no Cingular MediaNet portal entry. I’ve searched far and wide on the web, but there does not seem to be a way via a JAD or JAR file to get this baby into my baby.
It sucks to be one of the few who opts for a smartphone.
What is small, handy, and has been downloaded 2 million times in the space of a few months?
Check out some of the comments from a press release from Opera, where the success of the Java ME-based Opera Mini browser continues to astonish and rake in revenues for carriers.
No way can you do this using .NET Compact Framework (who? whazzis? dat is so passe!), stuck in the niche market of Windows; No way can you reach such a large audience using Flash Lite (bwahahabwahaha! “Let the Applet Wars Part 2 Begin” my ass - that’s MIDLETS to you bozo).
From: Opera Press Release
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Opera Software’s new mobile Web browser, Opera Mini, has attracted two million users around the world. While every user does not browse every day, the daily number of Web pages surfed with Opera Mini exceeds four million, proving the browser has become very popular among mobile phone owners. After Opera Mini’s compression, the average Web page size is between 10 and 20 kilobytes. With the current usage, Opera Mini’s users generate between 38 and 76 gigabytes of data traffic every day, providing a healthy revenue stream for operators. Opera Mini can dramatically boost operators’ ARPU and increase the market demand for data-packages. Since T-Mobile started offering Opera Mobile to deliver the full Internet on their smartphones in 2005, the mobile browser has proven itself to be a compelling revenue booster. During the first few months after the launch of web’n'walk in June 2005, an average web’n'walk customer was visiting 330 Internet pages per month. This resulted in an increase of 489 percent in data volume per user and 119 percent of data ARPU (excl. SMS) per user. T-Mobile will now offer Opera Mini on their high-volume feature phones, providing full Web access and increasing ARPU across their entire customer segment. “Smartphone owners have already shown the potential of full Internet services to boost ARPU,„ said Tony Cripps, Wireless Software Analyst, Ovum. “Now mobile operators can extend that option across their customer base and free users from the confines of the walled garden.” “Opera Mini is making a big impact on the entire mobile value chain,” says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “Operators can increase their ARPU while mobile phone users can surf the Web on their phones. We are also seeing a lot of interest from mobile content providers, online newspapers and companies, such as Pricerunner.com, that want to give their users mobile access to their Web sites and services.” |
If you are interested in taking some Java ME (MIDP) apps and games for a run in the familar confines of your desktop, you may be interested in this web-start enabled Java desktop app that provides lots of games and apps for you to test. A couple years ago, there were several of this “midlet players”, but none were as polished as this.
Ready? Click here to go to the mpowerplayer homepage, and good testing!
I found this while looking at Jim Liddle’s Amazon Explorer Thinlet, which he ported to MIDP from Personal profile/PersonalJava.
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:
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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:
If you would like to nominate a product for the Mitey Mover award, please email at kalim1998 (at) yahoo.com.