Connect from java mobile application to webservice to read messages.

Question

Hello,

I have a website where users can send personal messages between them, now I want them to recieve the messages also on their mobile phone but without having to send them a SMS.

I am thinking about providing them with a mobile phone with internet access over GPRS or 3G, then develop a Java application that will connect to the website and retrieve the messages.

On the website I am thinking to make a webservice where the phone will login, get new messages, and also be able to answer back to messages.

Does anyone know any mobile application tutorial that will do that? Or do you recommend me where to start? I never done a java mobile application before, I only work with websites and PHP.

I also tried to use ICQ, the client is already done for java and for iphone, and I've also found a script that will send ICQ messages from PHP, but ICQ server bans you for 20 minutes when you do many reconnections, so I have to develop some kind of ICQ bot always online that will check for new messages to send from the mySQL database and then send them, one per 2-3 seconds, so the server won't ban me for flooding.

Well any advice or recommendation is welcome about how to have users connected to the website messaging system from their phones.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Instead of a Java Application, I would do a mobile HTML web page for the mobile devices because it will be simpler to deploy. I know Java is supposed to be WRITE ONCE RUN ANYWHERE, but with JavaME is not that simple. You will have to create special deployments for different phones, and there are phones that do not support JavaME (iPhone) at all.

With a mobile WEB SITE, the only thing your mobile phone needs is a browser. Pretty much every feature/smart phone have a browser these days.

If you insist on developing a JavaME application, you are on the right track. You can publish some WebServices on your WebSite and consume them from JavaME. Here is a tutorial on how to do that.