Mobile Application Domains

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Mobile Application Domains

• Kelvin Hilton
• k.c.hilton_at_staffs.ac.uk

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Objectives

• Overview of
• Symbian
• Palm
• Java
• Microsoft Smartphone
• Others

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Symbian
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Symbian

• Origins
• In 1990s Psion, UK based company, were No 1 in
  Europe of Personal Digital Assistants

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Symbian

• Psion OS was
• Robust
• Reliable
• Flexible
• Separated the kernel from the interface to
  support different form factors (clamshell,
  palmtop, etc)
• In mid 1990s Psion were developing next
  generation OS called EPOC, however,
• Palm were becoming a threat
• With Windows Chicago (Win 9x and WinCE 1.0)
  Microsoft declared intention to move into PDA
  marketplace
• Mobile phone manufacturers Nokia were developing
  the Communicator and were looking for an OS

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Symbian

• To avoid Microsoft domination a la desktop, in
  July 1998 Nokia, Ericsson, Matsushita
  (Panasonic), Motorola and the Psion OS
  development team formed a new company, Symbian
• EPOC remained the generic term for the platform
  (though it has become more familiarly known as
  Symbian)
• Platform is 32bit C based
• Has three logical partitions
• The OS kernels, libraries, etc
• The Graphical User Interface (GUI)
• The applications

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Symbian - Different by Design

• Designed specifically mobile devices
• Power
• Processor
• Memory
• Hard disk
• Interface (pen and key)
• Specifically engineered error handling (similar
  to Java) such that the OS should never crash,
  leak memory, lose data
• Uses concept of servers rather than traditional
  device drivers

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Symbian Standards Based

• Inherent support for
• TCP/IP
• IrDA
• Bluetooth
• Fax
• WAP
• FTP / Telnet
• MMS
• Multimedia
• Java (J2ME and Personal Java)

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Symbian Development Environments

• Most handset manufacturers provide an SDK
• Eg Nokia provide free download of Series 60
  plug-in for Borland and MS Visual Studio
• Metrowerks Codewarrior has specific Symbian
  development support

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Symbian Example
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Palm OS
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Palm

• Palm started life as a software house developing
  handwriting recognition software for other
  manufacturers handhelds
• Developed GRAFFITI in 1994 but commercial
  reception was lukewarm, so they designed and
  marketed their own, the Palm Pilot
• Dominate US market until 2000 when Pocket PC
  RIM and EPOC based devices nearly forced the
  company to close down

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Palm

• 2001 Palm split in to two companies, one
  developing the OS and one the PDAs
• Licensed Palm OS to third-party vendors such as
  Handspring and Sony
• Symbol, a US company specialising in wireless
  technologies have made wireless, ruggedized
  devices using Palm OS for industrial use in
  warehouses (barcode readers), etc
• Palm have been slow to adopt industry standards
  such as TCP/IP preferring proprietary solutions
  such as web clipping, HotSync, etc

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Palm

• Single-tasking third-party kernel developed by
  KADAK
• Real-time OS able to handle hardware interrupts
  while task switching
• Error trapping
• Time sliced (prioritising tasks)
• Event driven
• Dynamic memory blocks
• Web clipping (no browser originally supported)

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Genesis of Palm
1996
1997
Palm Barcode reader launched
Pilot launched
1999
1999
Launch of Palm V. Company takes 73 US market
share
Wireless
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Genesis of Palm
2000
2000
m series launched
1st colour Palm
2003
2003
Support for MS PocketPC Apps
Palm OS phone launched
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Developing for the Palm OS

• 20 languages from COBOL to Python, C to Java
• 30 Development environments from free to 1000
  US
• Palm recommend their proprietary C as optimum
• Palm peaked at over 140,000 registered developers
  worldwide in 2001
• Now support Opera Internet browser

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Palm Example
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Java
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Java

• Ironically, Java was originally developed as a
  language for embedded programming of microwaves,
  washing machines, etc
• Unlike desktop / server market which is dominated
  by the big four OSs and a handful of processor
  manufacturers, mobile / portable market place is
  fragmented with no one dominant OS or device
  platform
• Therefore, ideally suited to the Java write
  once, run anywhere philosophy

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Java

• By 2000 Java language had become extremely
  sophisticated with large classes supporting
  desktop like applications but requiring
  significant processing and memory resources
• The growth capability of mobile / portable
  devices and Java developer community had reached
  critical mass and Sun relaunched the smaller
  version of their SDK as Java 2 Micro Edition
  (J2ME)

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J2ME

• Specifically targeted at consumer and embedded
  devices
• Retains integration with larger SDKs (J2EE and
  J2SE)
• Originally target 3 platforms
• High-end devices such as PDAs
• Small foot-print devices (phones, pagers)
• Embedded devices (smartcards)
• Architecture further partitioned into the virtual
  machines, configurations and profiles

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J2ME

• 3 sizes of Virtual Machine specified
• 1MB 10MB Classic VM (CVM)
• 10kb 500kb Kilo VM (kVM)
• 8bit Card VM
• Configurations
• Defines minimum set of libraries / APIs
  available for devices supported by the VM
• Specifies the features supported by the VM
• 2 main configurations defined so far
• Connected Device Configuration (CDC) for the CVM
• Connected, Limited Device Configuration (CLDC)
  for the kVM

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J2ME

• CDC
• Full Java implementation
• 32 bit
• Device must have 2MB memory

• CLDC
• Subset of Java
• 16 or 32 bit
• Device with 160 512 kb memory

• Profiles
• Collection of Java-based APIs that supplement a
  configuration to support specific device or
  application domain
• Guarantees interoperability within device
  verticals
• Industry groups specify profiles for each of the
  configurations (Nokia, AOL, Palm, Oracle, etc)

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J2ME

• Profiles contexample
• Mobile Information Device Profile
• Addresses
• User Interface
• Persistence
• Networking
• Application life-cycle management
• Event handling
• Hardware characteristics
• Screen size 96 x 54
• Touch screen and/or ½ handed key input
• 128k non-volatile memory plus 8k for persistence,
  32k for Java Runtime
• Support for 2-way wireless networking
• Applications called MIDlets

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Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP)

• MIDP device contains a program called the
  application management software (AMS) which
  downloads the MIDlet suite from theserver, opens
  the MIDlet suite, then launches the
  user-specified MIDlet on the MIDP device
• High level APIs
• Textfields, lists, forms and images for programs
  such as e-commerce applications basic user
  interfaces
• Low level APIs
• Incorporate graphics shapes at precise pixel
  locations, provides animation for games
  applications

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MIDP Lifecycle
constructor method called
paused state
startApp method called
pauseApp method called
active state
destroyApp method called
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Developing for J2ME

• SDK and emulator available from SUN
• Third party IDE manufacturers providing plug-ins
• Huge growth in the Java mobile gaming market
  fuelled by handset / network operators attempting
  to drive the mobile data market in the consumer
  sector
• O2 provide full developer support and marketing
  service for Java games (at a price)
• Support for OTA provisioning

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J2ME Sample
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Microsoft Smartphone
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Smartphone

• Microsoft late into the handset market place
• Invested heavily in UK company who spent 2 years
  trying to get the software to work before
  abandoning MS for Symbian
• 1st MS powered handset reached market in 2003
• Motorola now adopting MS Windows for Mobile next
  generation OS

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Smartphone

• Designed to support ARM RISC processors
• Two classifications for applications
• Data management for interactive data
  manipulation
• Billboards for viewing and manipulating data
  without updating
• 176 by 220 resolution
• Not touch screen! Emphasis on single-handed usage
• Not dissimilar to PocketPC in look and feel,
  titlebar, menubar, view

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Smartphone

• 32 bit OS
• Minimum 4 MB RAM / 8 MB ROM
• Single application instance
• Supports USB, IrDA, TCP/IP, TAPI
• Does not natively support Java

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Smartphone

• MS provide plug in for Embedded Visual tools with
  an emulator
• Can use emulator with GSM modem during
  development
• Support for OTA provisioning using CAB

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Smartphone
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Other Platforms - Blackberry
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Other Platforms - Linux
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Other Platforms -Brew
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Other Platforms -Android
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Other Platforms -iPhone
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Recap

• Overview of
• Symbian
• Palm
• Java
• Microsoft Smartphone
• Others

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Questions ?