The Google Market offers an application purporting to run J2ME MIDP applications on the Nexus One.
I have tried this application but it only appears to run MIDP applications that are downloaded from particular web sites; it does not seem capable of picking up a MIDP application that is stored on the SD card in the phone.
I have suggested to the developers that they might like to add such functionality, but they have not been particularly responsive to my messages.
So I would like to build my own MIDP runner for Android and would like to see if I can find a pointer as to where to start, or even whether this is possible.
The MIDP application in question was supplied on CD along with a security camera system and permits remote viewing and remote control over the security system.
Clearly it wasn't built with the Android platform in mind. However, if it is possible somehow to run MIDP applications on Android (perhaps by creating some kind of sandbox environment for example) then I'd be quite keen to develop it.
MicroEmulator is a Java implementation of Java ME. You could try porting this to Android. The UI part should be re-written, as MicroEmulator is based on Java SE components that aren't available in Android. Also hardware access won't be possible. Device vendors implement J2ME APIs (camera API for example) and bundle them with the core J2ME. This won't be easy for you to do. You will need to study the JSR specification and implement it in Android.
You can use App Runner to port MIDP apps to Android.
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I have an iPhone application (with an android counterpart), developed in Xcode and written in Objective-C. It is a classical native iOS app, already working and uploaded in the App Store. Similarly, the android version is built with Java and linked with the android SDKs. It's uploaded to the market place.
I was asked to port the app to Windows Phone. Is this possible without modifying the code?
I am not familiar with Windows Phone dev, however it looks like that is a completely
separate ecosystem for developing apps (different programming language, different IDE, different app store etc).
Can I go from Android to Windows Phone or from iOS to Windows Phone?
PhoneGap - or similar platforms - are not options since the code is already written in Objective-C and Java.
Like iOS and Android, Windows Phone is a completely different operating system and currently requires a completely different development platform.
It is not possible to take the existing code and make it function on a Windows Phone.
iOS commonly uses Objective-C for application development . Even if there was a way to compile Objective-C onto a Windows Phone, it would be inherently tied to platform features, and UI controls. While you could write some code in C++ and share it, with an iOS application, you'll still need some in Objective-C.
Android applications use Java normally. Java is not available for the Windows Phone platform. So, the language is out. Further, like iOS, the platform features are not necessarily shared and the UI control and behaviors are different. Android applications can use C++ (if you happened to code using it), but it has limitations, and by using it, again, you'd be tying the code to the Android platform potentially. Some code may be portable.
Windows Phone applications are usually written in C#/C++ and XAML or DirectX. While there is some similarity in languages (Java and C#), you'll encounter far more platform differences that could need significant effort to convert. From the way network requests are made to handling threads will be different (and many many more). Objective-C is also very different from C++.
Unless you had used something like Xamarin and written the underlying business logic using a common platform (C#/.NET), you'll need to consider a port to Windows Phone a fresh start.
It's not possible to just reuse all of the code that's been written. With a careful effort, you could share some common code (if it were written in C++), but as the shared code will not directly work with UI (and other platform features), you'd still need to do the UI on each platform, work around limitations, and potentially customize the user experience for each platform.
Microsoft has provided some guidance on porting, and provided some links with an API equivalency table here.
Yes, you can use Microsoft's Windows bridge for iOS to convert your iOS application code to Windows mobile platform code.
You need to use WinObjC SDK provided by Microsoft for this purpose.
Follow this link for more details.
No, you can't, WP apps are build with c# or .net and in visual studio IDE. There is no automated way to port a previously coded ios or android native app built with objetive-c or java to WP.
In my opinion there is no way to directly port a iphone app to windows phone app. You need to develop windows phone app with its needed environment like Visual Studio , windows phone sdk and with windows os.
You can also use cross platform like phonegap if it may fit to your requirement.
It looks like you have an existing Obj-C codebase for iOS, and a Java codebase for Android. No matter how you cut it, you're looking at [re]writing code to get something on WP8.
I don't know how "UI heavy" your app is; in general the UI code is the most platform specific (unless you're willing to put up with "cross platform" stuff that might not have good UX).
You might consider keeping the non-UI code mostly plain C++ and using Obj-C, etc. only for the parts where you have to talk to the framework. It will be easier to support multiple platforms with C++.
I took this approach with an app I'm working on; it's targeted for iOS but it's about 80% C++ (including Open GL). If I decide to port to Android I just need to deal with the 20%, mostly UI-ish code.
I have developed application for android based mobile using Java. I have tried developing apps for Windows based mobile phones using C# and heard about iOS that one would need to know Objective C.
Wondering if there is any way to have one language to develop an application that can run on all these platforms. I understand every operating system executes programs having different binaries that it execute. But just wondering if there is any common platform like JRE that is run on these mobile operating systems.
Thanks for the reply
Short of working with HTML mobile webapps, I reckon your closest bet to a common language between the 3 platforms would be C# using Mono.
Check out Mono for Android and MonoTouch for iOS both supported by the same company.
Whilst you could probably use the same language for your apps and even share internal APIs across the different platforms, you would still start to encounter differences in how the UI is handled on each of the platforms.
There is a project: http://www.appcelerator.com/platform which can be used for writing apps for Android and iOS... But from my experience I can tell that this is good only for simple prototype apps. The more fancy app, the bigger issues you would have with it.
I have to develop an app for the Ipad. It has to be non-browser based. That's a requirement and I can't change it.
I think it likely that the app would be useful on other tablet PC types and have a good chance of a second app which requires IPad and Android at a minimum; Windows and Linux would also be useful.
If it makes any differences these are "desktop" apps for tablet PCs and it is not envisaged that there will be any handphone development.
Is there a “Grand Unifying Theory” of cross-platform desktop app development? Is there a good IDE, preferably FOSS? I'd rather code C++ or Java and am less keen on Ruby or Python (through lack of experience) but would accept if there is no alternative.
I need a GUI builder, something like Borland Delphi or MSVC or the Eclipse Android plugin and I need a way of executing different code on different platforms (#ifdef Android … etc)
Any ideas, or should I just go ahead and code the current project for Ipad only and stick to browser based HTML5 + CSS3 with Jquery/Ajax for cross platform apps (the problem being that some will need to execute native system calls, like en/de-crypting a file and at least one app has to work in “local mode” if there is so internet access, so I guess I would have to bundle a web server (Apache) if I go browser based (in order to serve the web pages), which would not be necessary with a “desktop app”.
Any recommended IDEs, Web sites? Books? Thanks
The "grand unifying theory" is that core business logic should reside in the cloud; that allows your iOS and Android implementations to be just a thin GUI on top of this shared logic. Unfortunately, there isn't really a way to reuse the GUI, and even if you did, it would go against the intuition of users on one or both platforms, since you wouldn't be using the paradigms of those specific platforms.
Google App Engine provides a way for implementing your core business logic in Java on top of Google's cloud computing infrastructure at reasonable costs (development is free, cost is proportionate to usage, and one can put caps on how much one is willing to pay). There is an Eclipse plugin for developing App Engine applications. When developing for Android, you will similarly want to use Eclipse (there is a plugin specifically for Android development), although the Android SDK can be used just from the commandline (which is good for setting up a continuous build and test system).
For iOS, you will want to use the standard Xcode and the iOS SDK. Xcode is an IDE, but it is possible to build Xcode projects directly from the commandline using the xcodebuild command (also good for continuous building). The standard language for iOS applications is Objective-C.
You should take a look at jQuery Mobile. I used it to cross develop between Android and Playbook. I know that it also does iOS.
Maybe for you the downside is that you have to program in JavaScript.
I try to create a very small partition (root filesystem) where I can run programs written in Java (android dalvik). Those applications will not use fancy functionality like telephone, multimedia, browser etc.
It will only run some services not using UI and use "basic" android things like intents, services, activities, binder aidl. I'm not interested in a JVM on a small linux distribution because this doesn't offer the basic android functionality like intents/services etc.
I intent to preinstall the applications as system applications on this filesystem. So no need to install them at a later time.
Is there a compile switch in the android platform build files to create such a "root filesystem"? Or is this doable with minimal effort (less than a few days of work)?
I think your best bet is going to be the porting section of the AOSP website.
It walks through the process of building and bringing up a custom Android system.
As for as I know that android application can be developed in core java only. But is it possible to code android with J2ME? Please give some example codes if possible.
I would suggest using the Android framework to create applications for it. The J2ME runner is a work in progress and will always be a work in progress. Google is not going to ensure that this J2ME project is supported in future releases and it may just stop working with any firmware update.
Keeping this issue aside, you are better off using the vastly different and better application elements that Android provides than being restricted to what is provided using this J2ME runner.
Download Android J2ME MIDP RUNNER:
This is a Android J2ME MIDP RUNNER so
that ANY J2ME or MIDP applications
can run without modification.
So theoretically, you just create your J2ME application and that will ensure that it runs.
The open source license of www.microemu.org seems to indicate that you can even include its code into a commercial application.