MP4

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Mobile Platforms



There are many available platforms all of which could become the dominant design. This field is

characterized by competition, lack of de-facto standards and by divergence of the platforms. OMA

(Open Mobile Alliance) may ensure compatibility.



In the following text we shortly describe the following mobile platforms: Java, Symbian, Palm,

Microsoft Windows Mobile, Brew, Embedded Linux and Do-it-yourself OS. We concentrate on

Java and Symbian. An overview of politics is given below.





Overview of Politics

Guiding consortia



Java Symbian

Open development No ’own’

and standards development needed



Linux Microsoft



Full access Single company

to everything Proprietary development effort

OS

Mobile Systems Programming

tommi.mikkonen@tut.fi, Institute of SW systems, TUT









Java



The complexity of hardware and software is hidden from the programmer by the use of interfaces.

This makes programming much easier but resources are lost. On the other hand device indepen-

dence and security are enhanced. The interface(s) can be understood as a program code interpreted

by software. The interpreter is often called virtual machine (VM). The virtual machine provides the

runtime environment for the application. The executable program is named interpreted byte code.

The Java standard also defines necessary libraries. Instead of standardized interfaces also interfaces

developed by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are used.



The current release of the Java 2 platform is defined in three main editions. Each edition is targeting

a particular group of applications. The three editions are



 Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) – Designed for heavyweight and scalable business

server applications



 Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) – Designed for traditional and well-established desktop

applications



 Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) – Designed for consumer, mobile and embedded device

applications



Special software has been developed for smartcards. The three main editions are illustrated below.

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 Java™ 2



Servers

Servers

Desktop

Platform

Desktop

machines

machines 

Optional

Packages

High-end

High-end

consumer



consumer

devices Low-end

Low-end

Optional devices

Packages

consumer

consumer

devices

devices 

Smart-

Smart-

Java 2 Java 2 Personal Profile cards

Enterprise Standard

cards

Edition Edition Foundation Profile MIDP

(J2EE) (J2SE)

Java

CDC CLDC Card

APIs



Java Virtual Machine KVM CardVM







Mobile Systems Programming

tommi.mikkonen@tut.fi, Institute of SW systems, TUT Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME)







Each edition has its own virtual machine that is specially optimized for supporting its target

application. HotSpot VM is a highly tuned Java virtual machine for J2EE, corresponding traditional

virtual machine for J2SE is JVM. HotSpot VM and JVM are compatible. For low-end consumer

devices the virtual machine is KVM (kilo virtual machine). KVM is very compact in size and

requires much fewer system resources than the JVM and the HotSpot VM. KVM is suitable for

16/32-bit RISC/CISC microprocessors with a total memory budget of no more than a few hundred

kilobytes.



J2ME is a lean platform targeted specifically at applications running on consumer devices. A

modular and scalable architecture has been adopted. J2ME defines three layers of software built

upon the native operating system of the device:



 Java Virtual Machine Layer – This layer is an implementation of a Java virtual machine

that is customized for a particular host operating system and supports a particular J2ME

configuration.



 Configuration Layer – A J2ME configuration defines the minimum set of JVM, Java

language and class libraries for a particular ‘horizontal’ class of devices with a certain

memory budget and processing power. Shortly, the configuration can be seen as a contract

between the equipment manufacturer and the Java environment developer.



 Profile Layer – A profile defines a set of APIs, and is available for a particular

configuration. It provides functionality for a specific range of devices within a ‘vertical’

functional market or device type family, for example smartphones. Shortly, the profile can

be seen as a contract between the application designer (programmer) and the Java

environment developer.

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For high-end consumer devices there are two profiles, Personal Profile and Foundation Profile. The

configuration layer is CDC (Connected Device Configuration). The Foundation Profile acts as an

extension to CDC to achieve J2SE functionality. It is a subset of the J2SE APIs for running on

small devices with a network connection. The target devices do not require GUI (Graphical User

Interface) functionality. The Personal Profile comprises a subset of theJ2SE APIs and is a

replacement for Personal Java (pJava). Personal Java is a runtime environment targeted for devices

whose users have minimal computer experience. This includes devices such as set top boxes for

digital and satellite TV.



For low-end consumer devices the profile is MIDP (Mobile Information Device Procedure) and the

configuration is CLDC (Connected Limited Device Configuration). CLDC has been designed to

service small devices with limited resources and limited network connectivity. However, it gives

very limited functionality. MIDP sticks to the CLDC approach of minimizing resource usage but

provides ways to add reasonably a good user interface. A MIDP application is called MIDlet.



Java is intended as an add-on application because it runs on ‘almost’ every operating system. Savaje

is an example of an all-Java mobile platform.



Add-on to any system,

not a native system

New Java

Native down- Native App

App loaded App Java

App core



Native core Native core







Native executable Java executable



Mobile Systems Programming

tommi.mikkonen@tut.fi, Institute of SW systems, TUT









Mobile Service Architecture (MSA)



Java has developed strongly in the consumer area, such as in games, but will have an increasingly

important role in the Enterprise domain as one of the most important technology enablers. For

example, a new initiative, the Java API Platform (JSR232), aims to further develop Java into a

uniform enterprise technology for mobile terminals. The initiative specifies a component

management framework that will allow mobile devices based on the J2ME CDC (Java 2 Platform

Micro Edition, Connected Device Configuration) to evolve and adapt their capabilities by installing

new components in terminals on demand. Web services, messaging, presence, concurrent

applications, and multi-threading are among the specified features. The initiative specifies

downward compatibility with Java CLDC/MIDP-based mobile devices, and will be coordinated

with the Open Mobile Alliance and OSGi Alliance standardization bodies.



Nokia and Vodafone have established the MSA initiative within the Java Community Process to

improve application compatibility across multi-vendor mobile devices through structured Java

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(J2ME) API standardization. The initiative defines a common, open standard-based, next-

generation mobile Java development and deployment platform for consumer and enterprise

applications and services.









The MSA initiative will strengthen and define the overall API platform architecture including any

dependencies or common platform features, such as security, with an aim to reduce fragmented and

often incompatible device implementations. For developers, this will accelerate and facilitate the

creation and distribution of mobile applications by providing a uniform end-to-end architecture that

includes a compatible programming environment, rich user interface component set, and platform

functionality.



MSA is supported by an expert group including the main players in the industry, such as Sun

Microsystems, Borland, Motorola, Orange, T-mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, and

others.



The Mobile Service Architecture will bring benefits to all key stakeholders in the industry –

including application and middleware developers, device manufacturers, operators, enterprises, and

consumers. It will address the industry’s future needs by:



 Simplifying the Java™ API landscape

 Creating consolidated API platform roadmaps

 Speeding up the pace of future API innovation

 Providing backward and upward compatibility

 Speeding up device creation through simplified licensing models

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Symbian OS

Symbian OS is a mobile software product from Symbian Ltd. It’s an open operating system for

mobile phones including 2G, 2.5G and 3G system phones. Symbian is owned by some of the

leading mobile phone manufacturers with shares shown below.



Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the global open

industry standard operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones. Symbian licenses

Symbian OS to the world’s leading handset manufacturers. The following Symbian OS licensees

have Symbian OS-based mobile phones in production and development: Arima, BenQ, Fujitsu for

NTT DoCoMo FOMA, LG, Lenovo, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Sendo, Sharp,

Siemens, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. In 2003, over 6.67 million Symbian OS-based mobile

phones were sold worldwide and almost 20 million have been sold to date (5.2.2005). Symbian OS

is designed for the specific requirements of open, data-enabled 2G, 2.5G and 3G mobile phones.

Symbian OS is characterized by:



 integrated multimode mobile telephony – Symbian OS integrates the power of computing

with mobile telephony, bringing advanced data services to the mass market

 open application environment – Symbian OS enables mobile phones to be a platform for

deployment of applications and services (programs and content) developed in a wide range

of languages and content formats

 open standards and interoperability – with a flexible and modular implementation,

Symbian OS provides a core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and

technologies that is shared by all Symbian OS phones. Symbian supports key industry

standards and contributes to the development of industry standards through Board

membership of the Open Mobile Alliance

 multitasking – Symbian OS is based on a micro kernel architecture and implements full

multitasking and threading. System services such as telephony, networking middleware and

application engines all run in their own processes

 fully Object-oriented and component based – the operating system has been designed

from the ground up with mobile devices in mind, using advanced OO techniques, leading to

a flexible component based architecture

 flexible user interface design – by enabling flexible graphical user interface design on

Symbian OS, Symbian is fostering innovation and is able to offer choice to manufacturers,

carriers, enterprises and end-users. Using the same core operating system in different

designs also eases application porting for third party developers

 robustness – Symbian OS maintains instant access to user data. It ensures the integrity of

data, even in the presence of unreliable communication and shortage of resources such as

memory, storage and power.



This diagram provides a general overview of the operating system:

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Symbian OS v8.0 Architecture





Symbian OS provides a rich core of application programming interfaces that are common to all

Symbian OS phones.



Key features of Symbian OS v8.0:



 Rich suite of application services – the suite includes services for contacts, schedule,

messaging, browsing and system control; OBEX for exchanging appointments (vCalendar)

and business cards (vCard); integrated APIs for data management, text, clipboard and

graphics



 Java support – supports the latest wireless Java standards, including MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1,

JTWI (JSR185), Mobile Media API (JSR135), Java API for Bluetooth® wireless technology

(JSR082) and Wireless Messaging (JSR120)



 Realtime – a realtime, multithreaded kernel provides the basis for robust, power-efficient

and responsive Symbian OS



 Hardware support – supports latest CPU architectures, peripherals and internal and external

memory types



 Messaging – multimedia messaging (MMS), enhanced messaging (EMS) and SMS; internet

mail using POP3, IMAP4, SMTP and MHTML; attachments



 Multimedia – audio and video support for recording, playback and streaming; image

conversion

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 Graphics – direct access to screen and keyboard for high performance; graphics accelerator

API



 Communications protocols – wide area networking stacks including TCP/IP (dual mode

IPv4/v6) and WAP, personal area networking support include infrared (IrDA), Bluetooth®

wireless technology and USB; support is also provided for multihoming capabilities and link

layer Quality-of-Service (QoS) on GPRS and UMTS networks



 Mobile telephony – Symbian OS v8.0 is ready for the 3G market with support for WCDMA

(3GPP R4); GSM circuit switched voice and data (CSD and EDGE ECSD) and packet-

based data (GPRS and EDGE EGPRS); CDMA circuit switched voice, data and packet-

based data (IS-95 and cdma2000 1x); SIM, RUIM and UICC Toolkit; other standards can be

implemented by licensees through extensible APIs of the telephony subsystem



 International support – supports the Unicode Standard version 3.0



 Data synchronization – over-the-air (OTA) synchronization support using SyncML; PC-

based synchronization over serial, Bluetooth® wireless technology, infrared and USB; a PC

Connectivity framework providing the ability to transfer files and synchronize PIM data



 Device Management/OTA provisioning – SyncML DM 1.1.2 compliant



 Security – full encryption and certificate management, secure protocols (HTTPS, and SSL

and TLS), WIM framework and certificate-based application installation



 Developing for Symbian OS – content development options include: C++, Java (J2ME)

MIDP 2.0, and WAP; tools are available for building C++ and Java applications.







Symbian platforms



Nokia develops and maintains several advanced software platforms that enable different user

interfaces and displays, product concepts, and feature configurations:



 Series 30 is the lowest-cost platform, designed for entry-level mobile phones that feature

voice and basic messaging functionalities

 Series 40 is a versatile, efficient and highly cost-effective feature phone platform,

particularly suited for the mobile phone product range

 Series 60 is the world's leading rich smartphone software platform, available for OEM

licensing

 Series 80 is a high-end software platform optimized for enterprise Communicators and

smartphones, enabling a two-hand operated QWERTY keyboard and a wide screen



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Series 60 and Series 80 are based on the Symbian operating system, whereas Series 30 and Series

40 use Nokia's proprietary operating system. The Symbian operating system powers the majority of

advanced data-enabled mobile phones worldwide. Designed from the beginning for mobile

terminals, the Symbian OS supports the network protocols and hardware configurations required to

design devices for different user segments.



To complete the mobile software stack, the popular application platform and programming

language Java™ hides the device complexity from applications, ensures ease of programming, and

further increases developer productivity.



The combination of Symbian, Java, and the different Nokia software platforms attracts a vibrant

international software developer community. This ecosystem in turn contributes to a continuously

growing array of high-end applications and services for users.



to be continued….