Forum: General Topics

Hello Stephen.

Apologies this is technically in the wrong forum (the Phone Compatibility one seems a bit quiet), but here's a friendly prod in the hope that you will be able to look into developing Android compatibility at some point soon...

After upgrading my previous phone towards the end of last year I've come to realise how much I miss TMJ. I do still use my handset and the software as PAYG, but with an external dongle it's a bit clumsy.

And it could look sooo good on a decent size touch screen!

That's good to know (not being a software developer myself I can't imagine what you would have to go through to get a new version up and running).

A simplified version would be good - generally speaking I only really used the map and tracking features on my Nokia 6500c, which was probably down to the limitations of the phone itself. Wonder if that's representative of others?

Another reason for starting with a simpler version is that from my experience of the Android Marketplace so far, the best ratings go to the applications that do what they say on the tin and perform reliably. Unfortunately people seem to have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to placing bad reviews on buggy software (instead of contacting the developer first)...and it's the star rating that could put off a prospective buyer. Hope the above doesn't put you off...perhaps you could release a beta version for testing for users such as me that have migrated to Android? If you can find the time, of course :o)

My thinking would be to base it around the current Plan screen [4], with the recorded track and vector maps, perhaps with overlays to show selected text info (from screen [1]), and then also implement the web uploading and waypoint functions.

Still, its a long way off (if at all), I haven't even begun to experiment with the Android SDK as yet!!

Hello,
I can only support the advice or wish of porting TMJ to android, otherwise I fear TMJ will not have a future (excuse my hard words).
I'm not a developer but I just searched for ways to migrate from j2me to android and found the following:
http://www.enough.de/products/j2me-polish/janus/
I looks as if with this you can develop in Java/j2me and J2ME Polish ports it automatically into native applications for other mobile platforms.
Perhaps it's worth to take a look at.

Good luck,
Meinalf

Hello,

I have another suggestion to make j2me compatible with android. Here's the link: http://www.netmite.com/android/srv/2.0/getapk.php
To use any of the converted apps the android phone must have this one time install: http://www.netmite.com/android/rc/andme/2037/andme_signed.apk
This eliminates reprogramming. But I'm not sure how it will behave with GPS.

Regards,
Alan

Hi Stephen,
I'm just searching internet for some vector map rendering engine and I discovered your project. Looks very nice. To introduce myself. I was developing mapping software Locify on J2ME with Polish GUI. Now I'm developing mapping software on android (mainly this one https://market.android.com/details?id=menion.android.locus). I'm looking for some engine that allow me displaying vector osm maps. I know it's too much work to one person and I'm really surprised by your work. Anyway I discovered this http://www.droyd.org/, which looks and works nice. But it costs a lot a of money and it do not exactly fit my needs. So I have an quick and not much intelligent idea :) if you do not plan create some "library" for vector map rendering that I should use in Locus application, or maybe connect both projects a little bit? Hmm I'm writing as I'm thinking so excuse me a little.

Anyway think about it a little and contact me if you have any idea. Also if you have any troubles with android, try to write me.

regards
Menion

I wonder, now that Nokia is officially ditching symbian, what is the future of TMJM ? :(

That's what I should be doing, too. Indeed, a dedicated phone for TMJ exclusively.

TMJM with OSM is so rich and powerful that no specialized handheld gps device e.g a garmin even compares.

Hi Stephen,
Still not hopes for an Android port ?

Good, I'll stick to my current phone then. Thanks!

Hi Martian,

As far as I understand it J2ME-Polish is another layer of APIs that can help to make an app run in a more cross-platform way, but would still require recoding of existing code. I've not tried the microemu method but I guess its similar to the Netmite one mention earlier in this thread from a while ago.

The trouble with all these converters as I see it is that although they may work for simple foreground apps that are started, used, then exited, I can't see how they would handle background apps like TMJ. Android works in a totally different way to J2ME, whereby once you have switched to a different app (ie putting TMJ to the background), the OS is quite likely to kill the previous TMJ instance at will. So apps need to be written from the ground up to expect this, and be ready to save their state when necessary, or run specifically as a background service, which the OS will then know needs to be kept alive. So a converter will not be able (I assume) to separate a J2ME app into its foreground and background components.

So no go there, really. However I'm making a bit of headway in getting to grips with Android/BlackBerry 10, so things may improve in the future...

Cheers,
Stephen

ANDROID BLUES: I finally replaced my antiquated BB 8120 with an LG Opt 9. Android does offer really some good apps that appeal to me, but in my opinion there is NO Android map-app that comes close to what TMJ offers. Fortunately the BB will connect to the web via WiFi so I can stay with TMJ..