With feature phones representing more than 80% of the global handset market, there's a huge opportunity for developers to distribute rich content and applications to these devices. The Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) enables your content to reach more end users than any other mobile applications platform. By attending this Webcast, you will learn how developing on Java ME gives you a competitive edge and helps you reach the broadest audience possible. 

In particular, the webcast focuses on the following topics:

• Market dynamics and trends in India, China, and South-East Asia
  
• Application distribution and Monetization models
  
• Case Studies and Success Stories

Register and view this important on-demand webcast today

It's been a good week for Java ME.  Although much of the hype in so-called "developed markets" is focused on smartphone platforms, the majority of the world continues to use feature phones and the best way to bring applications to these devices is with Java ME.  In India alone, feature phone users outnumber smartphone users by a factor of 18 to 1!  Because of the vast number of Java ME enabled phones, app development for the platform represents a significant market opportunity for mobile app developers. With minimal code modifications developers can reach hundreds of millions of feature phones.

Well, a couple of events have occurred in the past week that reinforce this opportunity.  Remember Snaptu, you know, the company that enables Facebook to run on billions of phones?  Facebook decided this week to shell out $70 million dollars and acquire Snaptu outright.  Why?  Well, by some estimates there are around 1.4 billion personal computers in the world. 1.4 billion might seem like a huge number, but a number of estimates peg the total number of mobile subscribers at close to 5 billion or more - more than 3 times the number of personal computers.  In addition, Facebook has been striking deals to enable users to access their mobile portal for free in certain geographies.  Through applications that deliver "smartphone-like" user experiences on lower-cost devices and through free access in key geographies, Facebook has the opportunity to significantly improve their reach.

Another company making headlines this week is Bitstream, whose new Bolt SDK enables developers to "build feature rich Java (Java ME) applications that work just as well on entry-level feature phones as they do on high-end smartphones."  The Bolt browser is one of the more popular Java ME applications and one of its key benefits is that it can take advantage of compression technologies on the back-end to improve the on-device experience, enabling users to render full web content on low-cost devices.  With its new SDK, Bitstream is empowering developers to leverage the capability of the Bolt browser from within their applications. 

If you are interested in learning more, check out our webcast: Mobile Java Applications in Feature Phones, A rich Opportunity for Developers

VisionMobile is currently soliciting feedback for the second edition of their popular Mobile Developer Economics report.  With the 2011 edition, VisionMobile is hoping to:

 "see how the dynamics of the developer world have changed since early 2010 and to provide more insights into app marketing, monetization and many other factors."

If you have a couple of minutes, please check out the survey and provide your input.  In addition please help us spread the word to make sure that Java developers are well represented in this survey.  Thanks!

Are you attending Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week? If so, you might want to register for Oracle's free workshop series taking place in the App Planet. We will be hosting a series of 25 workshops in our booth covering a range of topics that include:

• Benefits of Deploying Phones with Oracle Java Wireless Client
• Oracle's Embedded Java solutions for Machine-to-Machine applications
• Building better User Interfaces with the Lightweight User Interface Toolkit
• Resources to help you leverage Operator Network APIs in your Applications
• The Java Verified Program: new trusted status and other recent initiatives
• Building better mobile enterprise applications with Oracle's ADF Mobile technology
• How to build a profitable mobile applications business with Java ME
• Guest speakers from Orange, Telefonica and from leading ISVs

REGISTER NOW for one or more workshops in the Oracle Java Booth 7C18 located in the App Planet. Oh, and did we mention there might be giveaways?

Note: you may need to "sign out" if you have an account on Oracle.com in order to see the registration page

Java Verified has just announced that GameLoft is the first developer to receive its new Trusted Status!  Java Verified is an industry-recognized Java testing and signing program backed and funded by companies such as AT&T, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Oracle, Orange, Samsung and Vodafone, and chartered with making it

easier for mobile developers to certify and deploy applications for use across the billions of mobile handsets that run the Java ME. 

Because of its breadth and diversity, Java ME provides an unmatched opportunity to reach more than 3 billions consumers, but at the same time, developers are faced with the challenge of working with multiple distribution channels and a range of handsets. To this end, the Java Verified program provides a suite of tests that help to validate identity, functionality, integrity, and quality. 

Since its rebirth in 2010 as an independent organization, the Java Verified program has been actively working to make it even easier to create and distribute Java ME apps.  Example initiatives include updates to the Unified Testing Criteria to make it easier to test "Simple Apps," community outreach to better understand and address developer pain-points  and a new "Trusted Status."  In the words of the Java Verified Program, Trusted Status is:

a privileged status to be granted to developers who will have proven that the quality of their Java ME apps is of a consistently high standard. These are developers who will have earned the trust of Java Verified by demonstrating unfailingly that testing to the UTC standard is a crucial part of their product development activity

The first developer to be awarded this status is GameLoft.  By achieving Trusted Status Gameloft can now test their applications to the Java Verified standard without needing to provide Java Verified with the evidence.  The apps then automatically get signed with the Java Verified signature enabling GameLoft to benefit from reduced costs and time-to-market for their new Java ME applications from here on out. 

Learn more about the exciting news or apply now for Trusted Status!

Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) has just launched a new Java ME app store for the Brazilian market.  TIM has focused on Java ME applications for their new store, due to the popularity of the platform.  Running on over 3 Billion mobile handsets, Java ME is the best way to build and distribute applications to the largest possible audience. In fact, TIM's new store enables them to deliver applications for use across more than 100 handset models.

"The iPhone is a phone that everyone wants.  Java is what everyone else has, "said Flavio Ferreira"

While the media often spends its time focused on smartphone platforms that made up less than 15% of the global market in 2009 (Feb 2010, Gartner) people in the know recognize that there is an incredible business opportunity in targeting mainstream handsets running Java ME.  In launching this new store, TIM is hoping to boost data usage thereby increasing their average revenue per user (ARPU).  In a positive twist, TIM is not charging users for any data usage incurred while browsing for or downloading applications from its store.  For more information, check out the following story translated into English or in its original Portuguese

Mobile Sensors are a very useful feature in modern mobile handsets that can provide you with a wide range of information about the device or its environment.  Sensor data can include temperature, battery state, accelerometer information that indicates the movement or angle of a device and more!  To access this information, Java ME includes an API that makes it very easy to leverage Sensor Data in your applications. 

In this article, Vikram Goyal provides you with an introduction to working with Mobile Sensors and provides you with some code samples and links that will help you get started incorporated them into your next project.  Here is a brief excerpt from this article,

"The Mobile Sensor API (JSR 256 for Java Platform, Micro Edition [Java ME]) provides the ability for Java MIDlets to talk to the physical and virtual sensors available on the device. This is a particularly useful API, because it can provide the MIDlet the means to gauge the health not only of the device but also of the outside physical environment, which makes some very interesting applications possible. Of course, as with all APIs, the implementation of this API by the device manufacturer determines the actual sensors that are available."

You can read the rest of this article here.  Or click here to check out additional technical articles on Java ME.

If you missed Terrence Barr's excellent webinar on the Lightweight User Interface Toolkit earlier this week, we've got you covered!  Simply register here and you will be emailed a link that will let you view it as many times as you want for the next 12 months!

The Lightweight User Interface Toolkit (LWUIT) is a small-footprint user interface library that helps developers create better looking and more consistent Java ME applications. LWUIT supports visual components and other advanced UI features such as 3D graphics, animations, transitions, touch input, themes and more.

Key features for the new 1.4 release include:

• XHTML Component - LWUIT 1.4 enables rendering of HTML documents that conform to the XHTML Mobile Profile 1.0 (XHTML-MP 1.0) standard. This component enables rendering of  HTML text embedded locally and web content accessed remotely from within the application - making it easy for Java ME developers to add rich and dynamic content to their applications
• BlackBerry support - With the new LWUIT binaries for Blackberry OS, developing for a BlackBerry device is now simple and easy.
• Enhancements to the Virtual keyboard - The virtual keyboard included with LWUIT can be easily used within Java ME applications. The enhancements include the ability to customize the look and feel of the virtual keyboard, the ability to add new language support, and the ability to bind it to a text field to improve user experience
  
• New UI Controls - includes components such as Tree, Table, Buttons, List, etc. inspired by Swing

Please visit the LWUIT page on the Oracle Technology Network for more information 

Congratulations to the team over at GetJar, whose application store recently surpassed the one billion downloads mark.  A recent report from VisionMobile named GetJar as the top distributor of Java ME applications, so its great to see them growing their business and providing such a powerful distribution channel for Java ME developers. 

With the rate at which they have been seeing their downloads accelerating, it would not be surprising for us to be celebrating their 2nd billion in relatively short order.  Any bets?

Java evangelist Terrence Barr has just written an excellent article about the Lightweight User Interface Toolkit entitled, "Rich Applications for Billions of Devices: What's new in LWUIT?"  In this article, he provides an overview of the technology, discusses key features, including support in the Java ME SDK, and provides an update on the functionality that has been included in LWUIT 1.3.  Here is a quick excerpt from the article:

"The Lightweight User Interface Toolkit (LWUIT), released in mid-2008, has been a boon to mobile developers right from the start. LWUIT is a UI library targeted to a wide range of mobile devices, from mass market to high-end smart phones, and has now also been ported to other embedded platforms. The rich functionality and clean design of LWUIT makes developing and deploying rich and engaging cross-platform applications easier than ever. LWUIT is an open technology with its source and binary freely accessible for individual or commercial use.
 

LWUIT has seen widespread adoption by developers, ISVs, and other third parties. Numerous resources are devoted to LWUIT, including a developer guide, articles, tutorials, code samples, videos, a site with featured LWUIT-based applications, and last but not least, a very active developer community and associated forum"

check out the rest of his excellent article here. If you're already convinced and want to roll up your sleeves and dive right in, you can visit the LWUIT website directly!