J2ME Content Handlers Are Indeed Wicked Cool

Via Erik’s Linkblog, comes this article on mapping J2ME applications to content cypes with JSR-211 (CHAPI):

In July, the Java Community Process released JSR 211, the Content Handler API (also known as CHAPI), for public review. The release counts as one of the most useful and innovative new APIs for J2ME development. In short, the API defines a communication model between applications (either Java/J2ME or native applications), by letting developers specify MIDlets as the content handlers for one or more specific file types.

This seems to me like they’ve finally tidied up the Muglet technology that has been available on Sprint’s network for the last couple of years, which did exactly this.

We used this for a game which sadly still hasn’t seen the light of day, and I can tell you that it works a treat, and it even seemed to make for a pleasant user experience. It also opens up different business models for the application providers, so it’s a very exciting addition to the J2ME family.

What bothers me about all these extensions for J2ME is that who knows if we’ll ever see it in handsets on a large enough scale to make it worthwhile doing anything with? Extension packages are fine for desktop or server-side Java applications, since you can easily just drop in the jar to add support, but it’s not that simple on the phones. Perhaps what’s really needed is a self-updating VM for mobile phones.

Think I’ll leave that as a project for someone else, though…