Great news to all those who didn’t register to the vufone mobile phone backup and sync service before March. We have launched our March Promotion campaign - get vufone for your mobile phone for just $9.99/year or $0.99/month !
Yes! - Our full mobile synchronization and backup service with annual upgrades and guaranteed service level agreement for a whole year for just $9.99 !
vufone wizard
One of the biggest challenges developing a mass-market mobile application using J2ME (targeting, for example, Nokia S40, SonyEricsson or Motorola devices) clients is application permissions - or more accurately - how to effectively help users to download the application and set its permissions correctly.
When a mobile operator deploys a service onto his phones he can preset or pre-load the client with the right permissions and his own certificate to the device and that’s it. Third party service providers or software developers need to rely on different mechanism. When we (or other software developers) develop a software to be downloaded to mobile phones, we need to sign the application with a certain authority (such as Java Verified, Verisign or Thawt) which grants the application permissions to access data on the phone. Alas, these permissions are lower than of the handset manufacturer or the mobile operator and require the user to manually set the permission of the application.
For years this requirement resulted, IMHO, in a major setback of mobile application development and prevented real innovation to penetrate mass-market devices.
The reason I’m sharing this frustration is that this problem was the focus of the recent upgrade of the vufone service.
When registering to the vufone service users basically need to follow 3 main steps:
Since we cannot override the current crippling J2ME signing processes, we developed a special wizard which guides you though the entire process with real screen shots of a phone. Moreover, during the entire process the phone reports exactly what you did so we can either progress automatically to the next step or offer you the correct troubleshooting steps to correct your steps.
I believe that this is the first time such a tool is available and I’m certain that following these easy steps, screen shots and simple guidance on the screen (both web and phone) will simplify this process.
Currently we implemented the full Wizard for Nokia S40, Nokia S60 and SonyEricsson devices. Other devices see a more basic version. We will add the wizards for other phone platforms in the upcoming days. We will be happy to hear any feedback to the wizards we introduced to vufone.
Almost a decade ago, in the JavaOne conference of 1999, Sun Microsystems introduced a new Java Virtual Machine for small-memory, limited-resource, connected devices, such as mobile phones. The first K Virtual Machine (KVM) was demonstrated on Palm OS, as a proof of concept. Since then, it has become part of the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) platform, or as it is called now, Java ME. Today, Java ME is the most common application platform for mobile devices, including most GSM and iDEN phones and some CDMA phones, such as those that are provided by Sprint in the US. The importance of Java ME is that it has opened mass-market phones that are running embedded operating systems to third party application developers. However, the main challenge now is how to develop an application that would be portable across different devices, seamlessly.
Although most mobile phones today support Java ME, it doesn’t ensure any compatibility between them. Realizing the different capabilities of different devices, Java ME is not a monolithic platform. A specific Java ME runtime environment is defined by 3 layers: configuration, profile and optional APIs. Most mobile phones support the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC). On top of that you will usually find the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP). But, when it comes to optional APIs, the number of combinations is enormous. Each API is defined in a specific Java Specification Request (JSR), which is denoted by a number. Common examples are JSR-75, which includes the PIM API and the File Connection API, JSR-82, which specifies the Bluetooth API, and JSR-120, which specifies the Wireless Messaging API. Many applications require one or more optional APIs. The vufone mobile application, for example, requires JSR-75 and JSR-120.
Even if you have a mobile phone that has all the required APIs, it is still not enough in terms of compatibility. There are many different implementations of Java ME. Although they implement the APIs that are defined by the relevant specifications, there are still different interpretations of the semantics behind these APIs, and sometimes even bugs in the implementation. In many cases, the specifications define the API as a framework, but leave the definition of the actual resources behind it to the implementation. For example, the PIM API, which is specified by JSR-75, provides access to contacts, calendar and tasks. However, it allows each implementation to support different PIM categories and any subset of fields per PIM item.
The most painful aspect of deploying Java ME applications is the issue of signatures. There are several operations which require permissions, such as accessing the network, reading and writing user data, sending SMS, and others. APIs that provide access to these operations are restricted and the application will be allowed to use them only if the application manager grants the relevant permissions. How does the application manager decide which permissions to grant? This is the tricky part…
An unsigned MIDP application (MIDlet) is considered untrusted. If the application is signed, it can be mapped to 3 protection domains: third party, operator and manufacturer. If the signature is valid and is authenticated against a certain root certificate that resides on the device, then the application will be assigned to the corresponding protection domain. Finally, the security policy specifies which permissions are granted to each domain. This policy is set by the manufacturer or operator and is completely hidden from the developer. The outcome is that in many cases it is impossible to know in advance which signature is required until you actually try it. Furthermore, some devices allow only applications in the operator or manufacturer domain to access certain operations. It means that as a third party developer you may not be able to install your application on these phones.
To summarize, Java Micro Edition has become the most common application platform for mobile devices in the last decade. However it still suffers from some major deficiencies that create pitfalls for application developers. We hope that these issues will be addressed by future implementations of Java ME.
I’m happy to update that we released a vufone client for windows mobile professional edition devices (WM 5, 6 and 6.1). Now you can use all these touch screen windows mobile phone to sync to our service.
We will be released the windows mobile standard edition (a.k.a smart-phone edition) shortly.
Checkout the new supported device page - there are over 280 supported phones now.
Cheers,
Rafi Ton
Here’s one problem everyone who uses J2ME web apps is familiar with. Permissions.
Many J2ME enabled devices require manual authorization when it comes to accessing the internet, media gallery or phone book. This could result in an annoying, never ending, drill.
Permissions can be manually set though. Once such action is taken, the annoying pop ups will simply stop and fluent flow of application will be permitted.
We have taken a few moments and created a short instructional clip for you. The clip demonstrates a step by step vufone installation and in addition will get you past the permission hurdle.
Hope you find it helpful.
Hoora! I can’t believe we’re finally here! vufone is launched!
Before we begin with vufone let me first catch my breath. Perhaps it would be a good idea to start where it all began and tell you what brought us to this point.
About 2 years ago, 716 days ago to be exact, I bought a new mobile phone. After nearly 20 years of Nokia addiction I decided to jump back in the water and I got the new (at that time, of course) Sony Ericsson k800i. The walkman capabilities, 3.2MB camera and slick interface just did it for me.
Excitement turned to dismay as the next few days were hard to imagine. The phone itself was great, don’t get me wrong, but I just couldn’t get my old data on it. Imagine the ultimate black book, my mobile contact list, after all these years. The ringtones, some of them cut specifically for me by a DJ prodigy who also happens to be my sister in law, were they all destined to be gone? and what about my messages? could they ever be salvaged? I was sweating bullets!
For the first couple of days I juggled PC suites, Nokia’s and Sony Ericsson’s respectively. I couldn’t get them to communicate with each other. I then pulled my bluetooth capabilities to the max. Finally, I registered to 3 different internet services that asked me to master guru terms like SyncML and forced me to dig deeply into my phone settings. In the end, I managed to transfer most of my contacts, some of my ringtones and none of my messages.
It sucked, it was cumbersome, it was tiring, it was frustrating and in the bottom line it was a failure. Then came a wonderful moment of Eureka. And we sat down, rolled our sleeves and decided to solve it.
2 years and later vufone.com finally opens to the general public. Vufone was primarily designed so you won’t have to go through what I went through, but we realized it can actually do much more. You don’t need to learn any technical term, just register and follow the instructions. The rest is up to you.
So what exactly can you do with vufone? Well, to start with you can back up, restore and manage all of your contacts, meetings, pics, clips, tracks, ringtones and messages. This means you can switch phones without losing a single bit of information. You can manage your appointments and meetings from our web or using our MS Outlook plugin. In addition, you can upload your pics and clips on an ongoing basis and share them with your friends via your favorite social networks. You can also synch your music tracks with your phone and play them on the go. Come to think of it, you can actually manage your phone using a friendly web based interface.
You may say “these guys probably support only a handful Windows mobile device” - well, No. Our focus was on mass-market phones. Sure, the service supports Windows Mobile and Symbian, but more importantly, it also supports your standard feature phones such as Nokia S40, SonyEricsson, Motorola and others. Take a look at the Supported Devices page to see a full list of supported phones. Don’t see your phone there? drop us a note in the support forum. Supporting many languages was also a priority for us, realizing that as weird as it may sound, there are other spoken languages other than English. So, we launched the service in the following languages: English, French, German, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Italian.
Oh yeah, we realize our service ain’t perfect yet and we appreciate your support in making it such. For the next 3 months we offer it absolutely for free. For the lifetime of your phone that is. That’s right, join vufone now and get it all for free for the lifetime of your phone. 100% FREE. Guaranteed.
Happy to be here and thankful for your support and feedback, both good and bad (good is fun to hear, bad helps us improve).
Cheers,
Rafi Ton
