Nokia 9500 Browsing websites with Java Applets

There is a Java runtime on the 9500, but it is J2ME (Java 2 Mobile Edition) for local (on the phone) Java midlets (not browser-based applets):
http://java.sun.com/j2me/

Your web site is probably using J2SE (Java 2 Standard Edition) applets (http://java.sun.com/j2se/), and those won't work as mobile phones don't really have J2SE support.

The processor and memory requirements are too much for most mobile phones today; that's why J2SE was developed in the first place.

To put it otherwise: Mobile phone users with phones that have a built-in or installable web browser will not be able to access web sites that rely/depend on Java applets.

The options:
#1: Don't go to such web sites
#2: Persuade web site developers to create a site that does not require Java applets
#3: Wait for somebody to make a full J2SE implementation for a mobile phone (and buy that device)

I'd say that #1 is what most have to live with, but #2 would serve the widest audience, #3 will not happen soon (but it is an eventuality).

N/A wrote:
The options:
#1: Don't go to such web sites
#2: Persuade web site developers to create a site that does not require Java applets
#3: Wait for somebody to make a full J2SE implementation for a mobile phone (and buy that device)

I'd say that #1 is what most have to live with, but #2 would serve the widest audience, #3 will not happen soon (but it is an eventuality).

Well put N/A. Being in the web industry myself, I say that option #1 is the easiest one for the user, and it's the one that I would chose as a user. If I'm the client, I would probably change contractor.
From a developers point of view, option #2 is something that I strongly advocate. A long time Wired's Jeff Veen wrote a book and in it he was talking about "Degrading Gracefully", which, in short, means that don't create any critical functionality using a technology that might break. For example, using a Java Applet as the only site-navigation is a seriously bad idea (and haven't we seen those!!).
Always provide alternatives. I'm assuming that the applets are there because they are updated live? (i.e not static graphs). I'd seriously consider changing those applets for Flash graphs; you can easily create an .swf file that fetches data from the server (via POST/GET). The Flash-plugin is available for most browers, including the built in one for 9500. If the client doesn't have the Flash plug-in, provide a static image instead; reloading the browser is better than no functionality at all. (You could even create an iframe that contains the image, and uses meta-refresh to update itself, but remember to provide an alternative for the iframe! patches-on-patches-on-patches-on....)

Restricting user-base will always come back and haunt you 😞

Hope you get things sorted 😊

Thank you for the assistance and ideas on changes to the site.

It looks like option 1 will be it until we can redesign the graphs on the website.

We have identified the need to make the whole site more mobile device friendly so this will form part of that redesign.

Thanks,
BIGmate
www.bigmate.com.au

Hi,

It really is sad that the communicator has limited browsing capabilities due to the java issue. Where would be the first place to look if a full J2SE implementation was available?.Is there no other browser for the 9500 which can help open these sites running the java applets?.Thanks

There is no phone in existence, by any vendor (as far as I know), with a full J2SE implementation. It is too resource-intensive (memory, processor, power) for mobile phones; that's why J2ME was invented in the first place, more or less.

The next step is a CDC virtual machine (instead of the currently used CLDC). You'll probably see that in phones some time in 2006.