Tag Archives: BlackBerry

Opera Mini 7.1 For Java ME and BlackBerry Released

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Dennis Bournique

Today Opera Software released new versions of the Opera Mini Browser for feature phones with Java ME support and for BlackBerrys running OS 4.2.1 for latter. The new release adds several of frequntly requested features to Opera Mini's download manager. The new features in the release are:

Downloads can now be paused and resumed. You can even pause a download, exit Opera Mini and resume the download the next time you launch the browser.
Smaller files (up to around 15 MB) are downloaded faster.
When you download a file you can now change its file name before saving it.
The last used download folder is remembered for various file types and the browser will default to that folder on future downloads of the same type of file.
There's a new option to pass files to the device OS to handle instead of downloading them through Mini.
Stability and performance improvements.

I tried the new Opera Mini on two feature phones, a basic and rather old Motorola WX400 "Rambler" QWERTY phone and a "Type and Touch" Nokia 302, also a QWERTY. The browser performed well on both phones.

As with previous Opera Mini releases there were some minor key mapping issues with the Motorola. I wasn't able to play YouTube videos using Opera Mini on the Motorola even though the phone's built-in Myriad browser was able to play the same videos. I wasn't offered the option to open the videos using the phone's OS either. Even with these issues I greatly prefer using Opera Mini over the Myriad browser which is slow and generally does a horrible job of rendering even simple mobile sites.

I had no such problems using the new Opera Mini on the Asha. The QWERTY keyboard worked without issues and videos from a variety of sites including YouTube played without error.

Opera Mini 7.1 can be installed by visiting m.opera.com using your phone's browser. If you prefer to sideload, the .jad and .jar files or a .zip file containing the BlackBerry .alx and .cod files are available at www.opera.com/mobile/download/versions/

Posted in Browsers | Tagged BlackBerry, Java ME, Opera Mini, server based browser | 13 Comments

Opera Mini 7.0 Now Available For Java ME, BlackBerry and S60

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Dennis Bournique

Opera Software has just announced the availability of version 7.0 of the Opera Mini browser for Java ME, BlackBerry and Symbian S60 second edition and latter including all Nokia Belle devices. Opera sent me a pre-release copy of the Java ME version earlier today. Here are my initial impressions.

Opera Mini 7.0 is the release version of the Opera Mini Next Beta, that launched three months ago. It contains many bug fixes and stability improvements, but no new features compared with Opera Mini Next, which added:

Smart Page - The browser's start page now has two tabs; Speed Dial and Smart Page. Smart Page is a one page summary of your favorite sites, the latest from your Twitter timeline, Facebook news feed and news sites of your choice.
Support for more than 9 speed dials - you can have as many as you want, limited only by device resources.
Improved support for Right To Left languages
Tabs are now closed with a single tap on touch screen devices. When you close a tab, Opera Mini now switches to the last one used rather than the one to the left.
The default "www." prefix has been removed from the address bar. Auto completion still supports it, though.

Smart Page

The biggest change is obviously the Smart Page. It has three main sections. At the top are large non-removable icons for the Opera Mobile App Store and Opera's Facebook page (image above, left). Below is "My Sites", an ever changing dynamic list of your most visited sites. Next come non-editable icons for Google+, Gmail, Google News and a second Opera Store icon That's followed by a "Social Networks" section with items from your Twitter and Facebook feeds (image above, right). The page wraps up with "My News", links to recent stories from your most visited news sites and blogs and a nicely organized directory of top sites, which is not customizable (image below, left).

The My Sites, Social Networks and My News sections can be independently swiped or scrolled left and right to reveal more items.

A like much of the Smart Page but I'm a bit put off by the large number of non-editable links and icons. I realize that many of these are paid placements that help support the considerable development and hosting costs of the browser. It is possible to disable the Smart Page entirely. I hope future releases will give users more control of the Start Page content.

Speed Dial Enhancements

The other new features in Opera Mini 7 are all appreciated, especially the ability to have more than 9 Speed Dials. The bug in Opera Mini Next that caused Opera Link to duplicate Speed Dials seems to be banished. At least I didn't see it on either of the devices I tried Opera Mini 7 on.

Hands On

I briefly used Opera Mini 7 on a basic Motorola WX400 Qwerty clamshell that retails for less than $50 on pay as you go and a Nokia Asha 303, a high end Touch and Type S40 feature phone. Both ran Opera Mini Next with no real issues and Opera Mini 7 worked just as well.

Instalation

As is usual with Opera Betas, Opera Mini Next installed alongside existing any Opera Mini release version. Because Opera Mini 7 is a release version, installing it upgrades your existing Opera Mini 6.5 or earlier browser, retaining all your settings, bookmarks and saved passwords.

Opera Mini 7 is available now from m.opera.com (mobile) and opera.com/mobile/download/ (desktop).

Conclusion

I continue to be impressed by Opera Mini's ability to quickly, accurately and completely render large, complex desktop web pages even on very basic phones. That combined with the speed, data and money saving virtues of a proxy browser makes it easy to see why Opera Mini is one of the most widely used mobile browsers in the world. It's particularly popular in the developing world where data is slow and expensive and feature phones are still the norm. Opera Mini 7 is a major upgrade that adds significant new features and usability to an already outstanding browser. I recommend it.

Posted in Browsers | Tagged BlackBerry, Java ME, Opera Mini, server based browser, Symbian | 15 Comments

Gmail for Java and Blackberry No Longer Available From Google - Get It Here

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Dennis Bournique

On November 22, 2011, Google discontinued support for mobile Java and BlackBerry versions of its Gmail app and removed the download links for these apps from their sites. The Gmail apps still work and are the best way I've found to access Gmail on non-touchscreen feature phones. I haven't used a BlackBerry in years but when I did I used the Google app because it worked better with Gmail than BlackBerry Mail did.

As these apps still work I'm posting them here for anyone that wants them. These are all official versions that I downloaded from the Google servers over a period of years. They are unmodified other than changing the URLs in the .jad files to point at the .jar or .cod files on my servers.

These apps work best on non-touchscreen phones. I've run the Gmail app on a N0kia N8 touchscreen phone and it works but it's frustratingly difficult to accurately tap the correct items in the tiny hierarchical menus

Mobile Java:

V 2.0.6 - 257 KB: JAD, JAR

V 1.5 "Mail By Google" version that supports Google Apps domains - 157 KB: JAD JAR

V 1.5 - 156 KB: JAD, JAR

V. 1.1 - 138 KB: JAD, JAR

V. 1.0 - 113 KB: JAD, JAR

BlackBerry:

V. 2.0.6 for BlackBerry OS 4.1 and later: JAD for OTA , ZIP for installation using Blackberry Desktop Manager

There's also a link to Gmail V. 2.0.7 for touchscreen BlackBerrys posted in this CrackBerry Forum thread.

A word about the various versions. V 2.0.6, which was released in 2009, was the last Gmail mobile Java version. It includes the following new features compared with previous releases

Support for multiple Gmail accounts including Google Apps accounts.
Offline capability. You can launch Gmail even when you have no signal to read emails that you previously downloaded and to compose new emails. When you hit "Send", instead of complaining about the lack of connectivity, Gmail will hold the newly composed email and send it when you move back into a area with coverage.
Polling, Gmail will check for new email periodically, approximately every 5 minutes when it's in the foreground and every 20 minutes when running in the background.
Alerts, when new mail arrives Gmail will alert you. The Java app vibrates once when a new email arrives, which is easy to miss. With the BlackBerry app the Gmail icon on the home screen changes to indicate you have unread mail. Gmail also hooks into the Blackberry OS's profile based notification system allowing you to configure the phone to do any combination of vibrating, ringing or flashing the message waiting LED continuously to indicate new mail.

Unfortunately, 2.0.6 doesn't work for everyone. There are two main problems:

Size: Gmail 2.0.6 is a relatively big download, the generic Java version is 257 KB and is too large to run on some older and very low end current phones. Version 1.5 was significantly smaller at 156 KB and 1.0 smaller yet at only 113 KB. (The BlackBerry version of Gmail that is even larger, but even older BlackBerries seem to have sufficient resources to load and run it without problems.)
Data and battery consumption: The constant polling uses data and battery power and there is no way to disable polling or change the interval. This is an obvious issue for anyone who pays for data by the KB or who needs to make their battery last as long as possible. The only way to stop Gmail from polling is the exit the app which means you have to restart it every time you want to check you mail. Gmail's start up time is quite long compared with the time required to do an on demand poll with 1.5.

For most Java phones the easiest way to install Gmail is to point your phone's browser at the mobile version of this post on wapreview.mobi and click on one of the JAD file links.

JAD (Java Application Descriptor) files are small text files that contain meta data about the actual application which is the JAR file. Loading the JAD file is the recommended way to install Java apps. The phone will read the JAD, which contains a link to the JAR, and then automatically download and install the JAR. Occasionally a phone will have trouble understanding the JAD but will be able to download and install the JAR directly. So if you get an error with the JAD link, try clicking the JAR file link.

Originally posted 1-Feb-2009. Updated 14-Dec-2011 with 2.0.6 versions added and links modified to point to copies of apps on my servers.

Posted in Email | Tagged BlackBerry, Google, Java ME | 141 Comments

New Opera Mini 6.5 for iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian and Java ME, Opera Mobile 11.5 for Symbian

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Dennis Bournique

Opera Software rolled up updates to both Opera Mobile and Opera Mini today.

Opera Mini 6.5, which was released for Android 3 weeks ago, is now available for Java ME, Symbian 2nd edition and latter, Apple iOS and BlackBerry OS 4.2.1 and latter.

Opera Mobile 11.5, which also first appeared on Android three weeks ago, was released today for Symbian 3rd edition FP1 and latter.

The iOS release is available in iTunes. Java, BlackBerry and Symbian versions can be downloaded from opera.com/mobile/download/ (desktop) or m.opera.com (mobile)

There are a bunch of new features in both browsers. Opera is emphasizing the Data Usage View (image above, right), a new page that shows how much data Opera Mini has consumed and how much was saved by Opera's server size compression and optimization.

Another big change that many users have been clamoring for on the Opera Mini Forums is that the Java and BlackBerry versions of Opera Mini 6.5 can open saved pages created by previous versions. Up to now, most new Opera Releases were unable to open pages saved with prior versions. Opera didn't say which older version's pages 6.5 can read. The saved page feature was introduced with Opera Mini 4.1 in 2008. I'd be surprised if the new compatibility goes back that far, but hopefully it supports at least Mini 6.0, which came out in March of this year.

Another notable change is that users can override Opera Mini's choice of using the socket and HTTP connection protocols on the Java and BlackBerry platforms. Opera Mini 6.1 introduced completely automatic protocol selection, which did not work on some networks. This release reverts to allowing manual protocol overides.

The Symbian version of Opera Mini 6.5 has a new option settings option (image below, left) to enable display of the Symbian status bar at the top of the screen. The status bar (image top, left) displays the signal strength, battery state, notifications and in Symbian Belle, the current time.

Also new in the Symbian release of Mini is the ability to use amd import bookmarks from the native browser (image below, right).

Like Mini, Mobile 11.5 gets the new Data Usage View and support for viewing the Symbian Status and Notification bar.

Opera Mobile's rendering engine has been updated to 2.9.201 in 11.5. It adds support for ECMAScript 5.1, including strict mode, HTML5 microdata, the CSS 2.1 display:list-item attribute and performance and memory optimizations.