Question

I have very little idea about mobile platforms, though I am interested to program for them.

Would you please compare J2ME VS Android VS iPhone VS Symbian VS Windows CE.

I would like to know:

• which one is better
• which one should I choose and why
• if there is any VM technology to test the programs
• is there any IDE, debugging facilities?

Personally, I would like to code for open source, but any suggestions are welcome. I have preliminary knowledge on Java. I would also like to know, if there is anything else that you can recommend.

Answer 1

There’s several of these questions floating around on SO already… the most popular seems to be this one: what mobile platform should I start learning?

Quicky from the accepted answer over there (I edited a bit):

I think 3-4 platform have a future. But depends what platform do you like and how you like freedom in distribute your applications 🙂

1. Windows Mobile
   • C++ or .NET
   • free distribution, just like normal applications or through market
   • You need a Windows PC to develop
   • proprietary
2. Android
   • Java
   • Open Source
   • through Android Market ($25 one-time fees) or like normal applications
   • The platform is completely open source
3. iPhone
   • Objective-C or Java (Developing iPhone Applications using Java)
   • through iPhone Market ($99/year fees)
   • You need Mac (Mac OS) for development
   • proprietary
4. Java
   • J2ME or JavaFX
   • largely open source

My personal thoughts are: Symbian’s dead; Windows Mobile will die, but take a long time; Android will become the standard in the next few years; iPhone will remain trendy in coming years, but NOT take be the biggest player; Pre/WebOS will maintain a niche market, but not be wildly sucessfull, Blackberry will decline, but still be around forever. I’d probably put my time/money into Android or iPhone at this point.