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Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

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Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#11

Post by chubot »

I'm pretty ignorant about whatsapp, but I paged through their blog a couple hours ago, before reading this post (https://blog.whatsapp.com/).

And the fact that they had blog posts about Windows Mobile, Nokia, and Blackberry clients really stood out.

I think Google, Facebook et al probably prioritize those platforms last, if at all. So kudos to Whatsapp for their contrarian thinking.

Their blog also shows the achievements of 1M and 2M simultaneous connections on a box, which I remember seeing here before on HN. So these guys are also very talented and experienced engineers.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#12

Post by dlhavema »

616c wrote: post #10
dlhavema wrote: post #5

i dabbled with some J2ME development back in the day when palm pilots were cool, i even made a basic app for the original (early 2000-ish ) Motorola Razer.. it's not easy at all... i haven't looked for community resources for J2ME in years but back then i could find hardly any...

And out of curiosity I decided to search for J2ME on my laptop and Google had very little resources except official Oracle docs and a Java blog tutorial ... from 2005. Good times. https://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2005/02/09/j2me1.html

what kills me is the initial release had support for the IR blaster that most palm pilots had, the next "SDK" i found had it removed, and i later read it was because of something along the lines of "most devices don't support this so we removed it". the possibility of having a programmable IR remote control on the cheap 12 years ago was amazing to me. I think its kinda cool that newer android devices are starting to have IR blasters again..

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#13

Post by rabino »

ghshephard wrote: post #8
dsl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of today: Smartphones outsold feature phones for this first time ever in India. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/samsung-smartphones-outse... From my personal experiences, international countries that have smartphone adoption use Viber, and the feature phone countries use WhatsApp.

Singapore is a Smartphone country, but Whatsapp is pretty dominant there. (I didn't run into anyone who didn't use it as their primary messaging platform)

Same in Argentina

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#15

Post by colin_mccabe »

Let's not forget Symbian and Blackberry either. WhatsApp also runs on those.

I don't think starting a new Blackberry, Symbian or J2ME project today is really a good idea, though. It takes at least a few years for a company to make an exit, and by the time you do, those burning platforms will have flamed out.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#16

Post by sspiff »

thewarrior wrote: post #4
gojomo wrote: post #3

If anyone has used the J2ME version of WhatsApp, can they describe how similar it is to the smartphone versions? For example: • Do you get a notification as soon as messages are waiting, even if the J2ME app hasn't been run recently? • Are photo/video messages available? • Are the group messaging options the same?

Yes all of them work. Not just that they work surprisingly well. This is the best J2ME app that I have ever used on my phone.

Background notifications too?

I'm surprised - I wrote a Twitter client in 2009, and I couldn't find a way to make that work. I didn't think J2ME could do that at all, to be honest.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#17

Post by nicpottier »

coenhyde wrote: post #9

The key take away from this article is not to build your app in J2ME but to recognize how big the world is outside of America. American focused startups face lots of competition in a relatively small market.

Ya.. that is definitely the takeaway. If you address all platforms, your market is suddenly both under served and absolutely huge.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#18

Post by nicpottier »

apunic wrote: post #14

Wrong. Whatsapp didn't start with a J2ME app, they started with the smartphone versions first and later they provided J2ME versions when they had already significant market share.

The point isn't actually which came first, it is that they are ubiquitous. The difference between WhatsApp and Viber is that WhatsApp put far more effort in being on every possible platform, and for something that relies on network effects, that effort was worth it.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#20

Post by thewarrior »

sspiff wrote: post #16
thewarrior wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes all of them work. Not just that they work surprisingly well. This is the best J2ME app that I have ever used on my phone.

Background notifications too? I'm surprised - I wrote a Twitter client in 2009, and I couldn't find a way to make that work. I didn't think J2ME could do that at all, to be honest.

Even I dont know exactly how it works. I think Nokia gave them access to some private API.
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