Based on developer feedback, Sony Ericsson in 2004 made significant efforts to improve the Java performance of its phones by a complex set of optimization steps. The graphics implementations and memory use were optimized, and the byte code interpretation improved, increasing speed of calculations in Java ME. The KVM execution was optimized, image drawing to the screen speeded up, key latency reduced, etc. All this led to Sony Ericsson achieving one of the best Java ME MIDP 2.0 performances on the market.

K700: Midlet Review's official game review phone Midlet Review has selected the Sony Ericsson K700i as their official game review phone. Midlet Review is an online, mobile gaming magazine, each month read by people in more than 135 countries, including gamers, developers, publishers, operators/carriers, handset manufactures, news magazines and more. Jan F. Weber, CEO of Midlet Review, says, "The Sony Ericsson K700i still proves to be an excellent phone for gaming and not only its great display but also performance in especially 2D games but also 3D have proved convincing to mobile gamers. In addition, having access to Sony Ericsson's broad range of new Mobile Java 3D-enabled phones will allow us to put the quality and playability of 3D games to the ultimate test."

Lifestyle and productivity applications
There are however examples of lifestyle and productivity applications where the above-mentioned improvements in Sony Ericsson's Java Virtual Machine (JVM) from the MIDP 1.0 to 2.0 generation of phones were instrumental to the commercial viability of the application in question.

Ascendo Inc. developed a Fitness application for the Sony Ericsson K700 with numerous databases, forms and heavy use of dates and calculated fields. Marc Bolh, Founder and President of Ascendo, recently shared some of the company's experiences of trying to get their application to work on other handsets on the market, recognizing the importance of having a good JVM for being able to handle Record Management System (RMS) databases.

Marc says, "When we completed the initial development and started testing on a handset from another major vendor, we were shocked. Performance was terrible and we found major bugs in some of the base classes of the JVM. RMS binding of a 200 line database took several minutes. A simple lookup on the same RMS database took about 40 seconds. The date fields would only save the system date to the RMS. User entries were discarded and we ended up having to write our own date class. We were in a state of dispair. We truly felt that many months of development were lost because the user experience was completely unacceptable." 

A few weeks later Sony Ericsson provided Ascendo with a K700, which allowed them to achieve their goals with the Fitness application.

Marc states, "RMS binding for the 200 line database was reduced from several minutes to under a minute. Lookups went from 40 seconds to 1 second. Date fields, forms and calculated fields behaved as expected, a rare and miraculous occurrence for any Java developer. Other handset manufacturers improved their JVMs over time but Sony Ericsson provided a quality product right out of the gate and still has the best JVMs on the market. More importantly, they allowed us to turn Ascendo Fitness into a viable commercial success."

Through its Java Platform approach, where a number of phones use the same Java ME platform version where the JSRs and runtime behavior are the same, Sony Ericsson also ensures that quality assurance and end-user experience is largely shared between phones sharing the same Java ME implementations, and that porting of applications is made much easier for content developers.

More information:

• MIDlet Review>>
• Ascendo's web site>>