Mobility General Session: Your Java Lifestyle -- Mobile, TV and Beyond

Java technology is now running on more than 2.6 billion mobile phones. With this statement, Eric Klein, vice president of Java software marketing at Sun, opened the Wednesday afternoon mobility general session at the 2009 JavaOne conference.

Klein highlighted the explosive growth of the mobile device market, calling it "the rise of the connected device," and saying that this is an amazing opportunity for both companies and developers across the globe. Unveiling a composite slide of the companies that have Java technology in their mobile devices, Klein then reiterated a major announcement from the opening general session: Verizon has now joined the Java mobile platform family.

But "mobile" is now much bigger than mobile phones, said Klein. Mobile now encompasses connected devices such as netbooks, Amazon Kindle, PlayStation 3, and even set-top boxes.

Klein then highlighted the new major release of JavaFX Mobile, which is built in Java and augments phones running Java ME technology. This wonderful new platform allows for more expressive user interfaces (UIs), provides the ability to deal with device fragmentation, and boasts an experience that is consistent across devices.

Although JavaFX Mobile was announced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in February 2009, this is the first release of the new JavaFX Mobile development environment. And with this new release, Klein thanked several of the major carriers that will be incorporating JavaFX Mobile onto their devices, including Sony Ericsson, Orange, LG, and Sprint.

Klein also officially announced the release of JavaFX Mobile 1.2. JavaFX Mobile 1.2 now includes a common UI library, localization support, ISV developer feedback, and key performance improvements.

Then, Klein formally announced that a new JavaFX Mobile developer phone was available for each and every attendee to have, along with a new book titled Essential JavaFX, both waiting for them at the Java Store.

Klein emphasized that this is a fantastic opportunity for developers to see the power of JavaFX running on real hardware. He also invited developers to visit the Java Utopia section of the Pavilion to glean the latest tips and tricks from JavaFX Mobile programmers.

He demonstrated a JavaFX application that can "find someone nearby to have a beer with." The application interfaces with his calendar and someone with whom he wants to have a drink -- in this case, his associate Eron. Starting with a list of friends, Klein checked to see whether Eron was nearby, using a view aptly named "Here and Now." Then, calling Eron up to the stage, Klein highlighted one of the great things about this app: The mobile version is almost identical to the desktop version.

As luck would have it, Eron owed him money, so the demo shifted to using PayPal to allow Eron to send him the money. After a successful PayPal transfer that used JavaFX Mobile and the new JavaFX PayPal APIs, Osama Bedier, VP of platforms and emerging technologies at PayPal, joined the two men onstage. Bedier mentioned that PayPal will have its first developer conference and invited developers to visit the conference web site for more information.

Klein then noted that it took less than one week for a developer to build the JavaFX Mobile-PayPal application.

At this point, Klein unveiled the new JavaFX authoring tool that was demonstrated in the Day 1 general session -- but this time "with a mobile twist." With this technology, much like a layout tool for a modern keyframe animation package, graphic designers will soon be able to use the JavaFX authoring tool to build a JavaFX application for both desktop and mobile platforms. Klein then created an elegant graphical JavaFX example, retargeted it for a mobile platform, and deployed it to a real JavaFX mobile phone onstage.

He then spent time discussing the huge amount of innovation in the Java ME platform in the year since the 2008 JavaOne conference, including the Java Device Test Framework (JDTF), PhoneME, and LightWeight User Interface Toolkit (LWUIT).

Klein urged anyone who wants more information on these tools to go to Java Utopia in the Pavilion, obtain the latest SDKs, and interact with everyone working with Java mobile technologies. And he also noted that Sun's Java mobile development tools are now available for the Mac platform.

A number of mobile partners were also here in Java Utopia, including a company that Klein went out of his way to highlight: the Orange Platform. Steve Glagow, VP of partners from Orange, then came onstage to celebrate the fifth birthday of Orange, and announced a new initiative to get "five apps on five phones in five days."

With the Orange tool suite, the project took only three days to complete. However, fragmentation was still a big issue. Christopher David, head of developer and partner engagement at Orange, then joined the two men onstage to announce that an industry consortium called Java Application Terminal Alignment Framework (JATAF) is gaining more and more members each day, including Vodafone, all focused on eliminating the problem of fragmentation.

Klein then asked the audience a key question: "What is mobility?" He pointed out that connected devices other than phones have made their way into the market, for example:

• Netbooks. Sales of netbooks have grown 60 percent since 2008. "However, each company has taken the same approach to creating netbooks, which is in effect to shrink laptop computers." Klein said that one company has taken an innovative approach to looking at the netbook market: Qualcomm. He invited Rob Chandhok from Qualcomm onstage to tell the audience about how smartphones and netbooks are merging into a single device: smartbooks. Smartbooks are always connected, have great battery life, include timely services such as GPS-location hardware, and are between 8 and 10 inches in size. A prototype device was then shown running JavaFX and using the new Snapdragon chipset that contained several pieces of software, including office and browser devices. Chandhok invited the audience to go to HelloSmartbook.com for more information.


• Television. "The average American spends 4.5 hours a day watching TV." With this remark, Klein segued into what was arguably the best demonstration of the mobility general session: a cloud-based digital video recorder (Cloud DVR), connected to the Sun Cloud. Showing that this application will work on a desktop and a 47-inch LG television, Klein demonstrated how to order and chat about the Keanu Reeves movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, even purchasing the Blu-ray version. "And, I can have the same application running on the mobile phone." Klein underscored that the future of JavaFX is connected media with connected interactivity.




Eric Klein demonstrates JavaFX running on a connected LG television.

• Blu-ray. Noting that television is wider than JavaFX, Klein gave the audience an update on the latest advancements from the world of BD-Live, which was mentioned in the Day 1 general session. Showing a chart of amazing growth for Blu-ray now that the format wars are over, Klein urged the audience to go to Java Utopia, "get on the Blu-ray disc," and burn your own BD-J disc.


• Tru2Way. The innovative Tru2Way technology, based on the Java platform, allows programmers to tap into the millions of set-top boxes running in households across the world. Said Klein: "Any developer in the audience now can program to Tru2Way. You now have the tools and technologies to help you do that right now. The reference implementation is now available." Again, Klein urged developers to go to Java Utopia in the Pavilion for more information.

Finally, Klein mentioned the questions that he hears most often from today's programmers: "How do I make money from all of this? Where do we get these applications from?"

That's why Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz announced the Java Store earlier this week, but what developers are interested in is the Java Warehouse. Coining the phrase, "Submit once, sell anywhere," Klein outlined how Java and JavaFX developers will be able to place an application is a single location, transition to the Java Store, and have their application fan out to all sorts of different partner stores and devices.

Klein finished the general session by mentioning that Sun is committed to helping developers with three key challenges: reach, monetization, and innovation. And he demonstrated how Java and JavaFX technologies are poised to achieve those goals in the months and years ahead.

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