J2ME doesn't allow one access to the phone features that one can get with .NET!

[Casey Hawthorne]

From Joel Spolsky's book "Joel on Software" he says on page 340
(probably also on his web site) that J2ME doesn't allow one access to
the phone features that one can get with .NET!

Has this been improved?
Or
Is there a way around this?
- using a PVM? (Python Virtual Machine)
- some way to get phone applications to not run in a sandbox?
- turn off some JVM security restrictions?

Thank you for your time!

 

[Tim Tyler]

From Joel Spolsky's book "Joel on Software" he says on page 340
(probably also on his web site) that J2ME doesn't allow one access to
the phone features that one can get with .NET!

Has this been improved?
Or
Is there a way around this?
- using a PVM? (Python Virtual Machine)
- some way to get phone applications to not run in a sandbox?
- turn off some JVM security restrictions?

What are you trying to do?

Are you hoping to write a mobile phone virus? ;-)

 

[Darryl Pierce]

From Joel Spolsky's book "Joel on Software" he says on page 340
(probably also on his web site) that J2ME doesn't allow one access to
the phone features that one can get with .NET!

Does he qualify the statement by explaining what specific features they
area? And does he also mention that J2ME is not all about mobiles; i.e.,
that only the MIDP is for mobiles, while all else with J2ME (now JavaME)
regards other things like headless, settop boxes, etc.?

Has this been improved?

There is, in the MIDP 2.0, a way to access features the OEM has made
available to Java, through the MIDlet.platformRequest() API. But,
remember, the MIDP is in a security sandbox and isn't given free reign
to the handset. .NET might do that, but then again look what happened
when Microsoft gave OS-level access to the outside world via ActiveX...

Or
Is there a way around this?
- using a PVM? (Python Virtual Machine)

No. The VM is a part of the mobile's firmware.

- some way to get phone applications to not run in a sandbox?

Nope. See above.

- turn off some JVM security restrictions?

You can sign your MIDlet to have extended access, but what is accessed
is device-specific.