The most important piece of information from the Wednesday's phoneME development session: The correct pronunciation of phoneME. (No, not "phone-me" but something along "foh-neh-mee", incorrect phonetic transcription by the author).

But seriously speaking, there were some good tidbits about working with the open sourced Java ME environment.

First of all, if you want to play with phoneME, it is much easier using Linux. It is possible to get the project built on Windows machines too, but that requires some hacking. Apparently Terrence Barr has somewhere instructions how to make it work, but I did not yet find those instructions on the Web.

phoneME comes in two flavors: phoneME Feature (CLDC/MIDP stack) and Advanced (CDC stack for smarter phones - this is the version which has been ported to N800 Internet Tablet too...).

Tools you need to build and play with the project are: make, gcc, and ant 1.6.5.

When checking out the source from the repository (Subversion), don't just check out the whole thing. You will end up with about hundred copies of the source code. Instead check out multiple trunks (the components you need using "svn go")

The bug fixes made to the phoneME source will not end to the real devices (unless manufacturers start to use phoneME or correct the bugs in their own source trees).

phoneME uses GPL 2 licensing. To be more precise, the package is dual-licensed also with a commercial license, enabling proprietary use.

The couple of blog entries I have so far written (and will still write for the next few days) from JavaOne has been shamelessly written from mobile mobile perspective. It is important to remember that the event is still far more Java EE, and Java SE event, than event for mobile developers. Don't get me wrong, there is a great selection of mobile sessions on the mobility track and the presentations have been generally good. However the masses are attending other presentations. The long queues have been to the Web 2.0 and AJAX sessions like last year.

Similarly the expo bookstore is carrying only a few mobile Java related books, but tens of different books dedicated to server and desktop Java issues. However the expo floor seems to have a little more mobility related stands (although I still have not found time to walk around the show floor to visit other booths...).

And if I am not mistaken the audience numbers in mobility related technical sessions are a little higher than last year (or then I just remember wrong...)

At the Nokia booth I have had a number of discussions with people asking general Java ME related questions. Like last year many of the questions are from people who are not yet mobile developers, but are interested in moving over. However only a few people have been interested on the APDU stand, which I have been manning, but instead they have been flocking to see the device showcase and the OSGi demo on N800 Internet Tablet. I guess our APDU demo is not flashy enough.