Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Java 2 Micro Edition - Profiles

A Profile primarily defines the type of device supported. Profiles are built on top of configurations, since they are specific to the memory available. They add an additional layer on the top of the configuration layer providing APIs for a specific class of devices.

Profiles are specific to the configurations selected. For different configurations, different profiles are available.

CDC Configuration

For CDC configuration, a foundation profile is available, which is primarily a skeleton profile over which we can create our own profile.

CLDC Configuration - MIDP, KJava And Doja

For the CLDC configuration, predefined profiles such as MIDP, KJava and Doja are available. The KJava profile is one of the popular profiles for the Palm OS. It consists of Sun specific APIs. Further it's not a standard J2ME profile.

The Doja profile is another popular profile, though not widely used in our mobiles; it is a rapidly growing profile, because of its simple user interface and as it easy to understand. This profile is popularly used in Japan for their local cellular phone companies. However its influence on the entire mobile network is still a long way ahead.

The most popular profile used these days in the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP). It is mainly based on the CLDC configuration and is widely used in cellular phones and pagers. Currently there are two versions of MIDP that are available for programming - MIDP 1.0 and MIDP 2.0. Mainly the differences between these two profiles are the fact that the MIDP 2.0 has extended features when compared to MIDP 1.0 such as audio and 2D gaming. On the other hand MIDP 1.0 has greater portability when compared to MIDP 2.0. Many of the cellular phone brands such as Nokia, LG, Samsung, and Motorola use these profiles.

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