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Java ME and Adobe Flash Lite which is better

Author: karui
Filed under: Event News & Updates, Mobile Phones & Devices, Software Tools, Tutorials & Tips | Tags: flash lite 3, flashlite 3, Java, Java ME, mobile platforms, SUN
Date: Jun 13,2008

If you’re a mobile developer, you may have noticed that more devices these days are supporting Adobe Flash Lite. According to the latest figures, approximately 300 million devices in the market support some form of the Flash Lite specification. Bruce from blogs.sun.com wrote very interesting direct comparison between the world 2 most widely deployed mobile platforms. His conclusion is that J2ME is better at backend functions that require device access(file I,O/Bluetooth/SMS etc), whereas Flash is clear winner in video and vector graphics. His recommendation is to use Flash as front and while using J2ME in the backend.

I’ll compare the latest and greatest specifications for both platforms in the following categories:

Graphics
Multimedia
Local Device Accessibility
Security
Network Connectivity
Miscellaneous

Our first category for comparison is graphics. As you can see in the table below, the Flash Lite 3 platform supports all the standard rasterized graphic formats and supports FLA (Flash format) and SVG formats for vector graphics. In my opinion, FLA is a superior vector graphics format compared to SVG, and the tools required to create sophisticated applications are easier (and more widely available) to use for FLA compared to SVG. So, the Flash Lite 3 platform is a worthy competitor in the graphics department for mobile applications, and it is easy to see why many Flash Lite applications are games. One downside, however, is that Flash Lite 3 has no support for 3D graphics.

Conclusion

Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to mobile application development. Flash Lite-enabled devices are really good at displaying graphics and multimedia, which lends itself to several gaming applications. On the other hand, devices that support the Java ME MSA platform are the obvious choice when you need to communicate with Bluetooth devices, use location based services, capture audio/video, render 3D graphics, or perform any form of asynchronous communication.

I’m really glad to see that one of the Java ME licensees, Sony Ericsson, has made significant progress on bridging the gap between both platforms with its Capuchin technology, which was announced in late April: “…a Java ME API that defines a bridge between the Java ME and Adobe Flash Lite programming environments. This API makes it possible to use Flash Lite as the front end and Java ME as the back end of applications, meaning that Flash tools can be used for UI design while still having access to all the phone services available to Java ME.” Both platforms have made significant advances from their initial 1.0 versions. I can’t wait to see what’s on the horizon for both platforms as the standards evolve.

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