Palm kits out handhelds with Java

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 16 Dec 2003 at 16:11

PalmOne has released a developer toolkit that eases the building of Java apps for its range of Tungsten and Treo devices.

As well as aiding the creation of new Java applications for the Palm OS, it also allows developers to use existing tools and port other applications to a Java-enabled Palm OS platform.

The kit uses the latest version of IBM's WebSphere Micro Environment Toolkit for Palm OS developers and offers Java 2 Micro Edition support. More specifically, it provides profiles that support the Treo 600's five-way navigation pad and the CDMA/1XRTT and GSM/GPRS network stack of its radio functions, plus support for the high res screens of the Tungstens, including the portrait and landscape modes of the Tungsten T3.

PalmOne claims its native optimisation for ARM architectures, the runtime environment outperforms the current leaders on many of the standard Java benchmarks.

The toolkit is available now from the palmOne website. When the new Java runtime is released to end-users next spring it will cost $5.99 a licence.