Free App Store For Boost Mobile and Sprint iDen Users

I’ve built and launched  a new mobile and desktop service called BoostApps.  It’s an off-portal free app store for Boost Mobile and Sprint Nextel iDEN network users. Unlike most mobile platforms, iDEN doesn’t support direct over the air downloads of Java applications using the browser. Games and apps can be purchased from Sprint using a desktop or mobile browser. Purchased games are provisioned to the user’s handset and downloaded to the phone through a Java ME application called Download Apps … Continue reading

Nokia, Go Green and UCLA’s New App Tracks Your Personal Environmental Impact

This morning I participated in a Q&A secssion with Martin Gutierrez from the Go Green Foundation, John Shen from Nokia Labs, and Jeff Burke and Mark Hansen from UCLA about PEIR (Personal Environmental Impact Report), an environmental initiative by UCLA researchers that Nokia and Go Green are funding. PEIR is an application for Symbian OS 3rd Ed, Windows Mobile 6 and soon Android handsets. It measures your impact on the environment by using location data uploaded from your phone to … Continue reading

Download Skype Lite

Update:  As of 26-Feb-2010, Skype has discontinued both the the Skype Lite and Skype Windows Mobile clients and the download links for both products have been removed from Skype’s site. Although they are no longer available,  Skype says that the Skype Lite and  Skype for Windows Mobile clients will continue to work at least through the end of 2010. Update: As of 11-May-2012 the Java ME client still works (I don’t know if the Windows Mobile one does or not). … Continue reading

MWC09: Flash Lite Client Finally Free!

Adobe seems to have dropped their brain-dead practice of charging for the Flash client for mobile phones.  I never understood why the far more capable desktop client was free but Adobe expected end-users and OEMs to pay for the mobile client.  In my opinion, if the mobile client had been free from the start Flash would be the dominant mobile application platform today instead of Java ME. At MWC, Adobe  launched  a new distributable player solution that finally brings the … Continue reading

Carriers Abuse Java ME Signing

I’m sick and tired of network operators and handset manufacturers blocking applications from access to certain phone features in the name of “security”. This may not be an issue for the majority of mobile users who never install programs on their phones. But for someone like me interested in pushing the limits of what can be done with these little computers the limitations are very frustrating. I install every native and Java application I find just to see what it … Continue reading

Motorola Opens Up iDEN

Motorola has been embracing Open Source lately, releasing their Java ME 3.0 implementation under the Apache license. Moto is also the leading producer of Linux OS phones although none are available in the US. While it’s not Open Source, Motorola has also released iDenJAL. For the 24 million users on iDEN networks this means that loading Java games and applications just got a whole lot easier. This new tool allows anyone to transfer Java ME programs from their Windows 2000 … Continue reading

Simple Machines Forum

Simple Machine Forums (SMF) is free server software for hosting a user forum. The reason why I’m writing about SMF on Wap Review is that every SMF forum by default, is a mobile site. This a great feature and I think as the mobile web continues to grow in popularity more and more server packages will offer this sort of built in mobile version. I first saw this trend with Microsoft’s Live Spaces (review) blog platform and now there’s SMF. … Continue reading