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2.2 TAO Intent MIDlet manager

Another M3G-capable KVM is the TAO Intent MIDlet manager, of which I’ve already published a lengthy tutorial HERE. You’ll want to download the latest, 11.1.7.1036 version (direct CAB link), unless you have a non-Phone Edition Pocket PC, in which case you’ll want to get version 1023 (direct CAB link). Finally, if you have a Smartphone, you’ll want to forget it altogether as it’s only the non-M3G-compliant 10.1.x series that is compatible with the “dumber” platform.

As with Jblend (and, for that matter, Jbed, to be introduced below), it’s simple to install: just get the CAB file and install it. As with Jblend (and unlike Jbed), if you install it on a storage card, it’ll also deploy the MIDlets on the card to save built-in storage memory. That is, make sure you install it on a storage card if you have little built-in storage left.

Unfortunately, the TAO Intent MIDlet manager is, gaming-wise, pretty bad and you’ll only want to use it in few cases (most importantly, when you only have a non-phone-enabled Pocket PC). For one, it has pretty bad music emulation. While it’s certainly better than that of Jblend (the latter has no music emulation at all), it’s WAY worse than that of Jbed. What is even worse, it doesn’t support softkeys in most games (and many applications as is the case with, say, Teashark reviewed HERE), which means you just won’t be able to run these games if they do depend on softkeys (and most do – very few games can be played / menus can be navigated without them).

2.3 Esmertec Jbed

This MIDlet Manager doesn’t directly support the M3G library. However, as it’s without doubt the best KVM out there right now, particularly music emulation and WM5 softkey-compliance-wise, it’s still worth mentioning it in here. The reason for this is pretty simple: some of the popular 3D titles aren’t strictly M3G-based (that is, based on JSR 184). These titles may run under Jbed as well, which means, in general, superior music and/or sound and, sometimes, speed compared to Jblend and, on top of all this, softkey support, compared to TAO Intent.

While there’re some purchasable Jbed distributions at Handango, I don’t know whether they’re updated at all (their last-updated field are all 2005) and, despite my several mails sent to my Esmertec contact, in the last month I haven’t received a definite answer to this question. Therefore, for the time being, you’ll want to use an OEM version of Jbed version 20070802.2.1 available HERE. Unfortunately, this version is pretty buggy. Should you want to use it for other purposes (most importantly, for Opera Mini 4 beta 2, by far the best MIDlet-based Web Browser and one of the best Web browsers even on Windows Mobile), be aware of that it doesn’t support for example cookie handling, unlike previous, but not any more working versions. This, however, won’t have any affect on running games, where it’s really excellent at.

Jbed is, just like Jblend, compatible with both WM5+ Pocket PC Phone Edition and Smartphones. It is NOT compatible with regular Pocket PC’s without a built-in phone. Sorry. Hope as soon as the Esmertec folks contact me back, I’ll be able to provide more info on which Handango Jbed distributions support non-phone Pocket PC’s.

2.4 Co-existing on the same Windows Mobile devices

All these KVM’s (and, for that matter, additional ones like IBM J9, Esmertec Jeodek etc.) can co-exist on the same Windows Mobile device – they won’t have any influence on the other MIDlet managers. The only restriction will be that, should you click a JAD or a JAD file on either the Web or the local file system, the last-installed KVM will be invoked and it will deploy the given MIDlet.

However, you can easily remake a given KVM the default KVM to be invoked when clicking JAD / JAR files. No, you don’t even need to reinstall the given KVM – you will only need to import a given Registry import file, which changes the JAD / JAR file associations. I’ll provide these files in the final version of the Bible.

In the meantime, keep the following in mind: if you download the JAR file of all MIDlets you’d like to use (you do NOT need the JAD files!), you can easily deploy them under any KVM’s.

Fortunately, this is pretty easy in two of the three KVM’s (in addition to the, in this respect, inferior Jblend, it’s only with the, here, not discussed IBM J9 that it’s a pain in the back to deploy a MIDlet to if you don’t have set up the file associations or they’re pointing to another KVM: in there, you must enter the full path and name of the JAR file by hand and can’t even use any file system browser tool). The Jbed and TAO KVM’s have a “deploy local files” option; you go there; in there, you are listed the JAR files in the file system. Your only task is selecting the one to deploy and all is done – after this, you will only need to let the KVM deploy the stuff (answer Yes to the security questions and, with Jbed, to the question of the target folder). These menus are as follows:

Jbed: Menu / Install / Local Files (another screenshot of the list and the desployment / optimization process)

TAO Intent: Menu / Install / Local (a list of the MIDlets found, just click the one you’d like to deploy). Note that it’ll only find JAR files residing in the root directory of your storage card(s), NOT in subdirectories, unlike Jbed.

The fact that Jblend doesn't have file browing capabilities also means that, should you want to keep all the three KVM’s on your phone, you’ll want to install Jblend last so that its file associations remain the default.

3. Compatibility info & chart

I've made some VERY thorough tests with ALL the 3D games available HERE. Feel free to give these titles a try. You only need to download the JAR files off the Web site; don’t bother with JAD files. Note that you won’t be able to access the page with the standard desktop Internet Explorer (as is also pointed out in my Windows Mobile Web Browser Bible) because it isn’t WAP-compliant. Therefore, if you do access it on the desktop (in order to download the JAR files to your desktop and, then, transfer these JAR files onto your Windows Mobile handheld in order to deploy them), make sure you use either Opera or Mozilla to access these pages.

You will find the compatibility results in the chart available HERE. Sorry for not including it in here – it’s way too big and, after all, it’s only an additional click away. I’ve tested the latest, above-linked versions of Jblend, TAO Intent and Jbed. With Jblend and Jbed, I’ve run the tests with the HTC Vox (s710) Smartphone (I’ve chosen a Smartphone because of the directly and easily accessible dialpad on the front). For the (few) TAO Intent tests, I had to use a WM6 VGA HTC Universal because 1, it also has numeric hardware keys so I could still test controllability via dialpad (numeric) keys 2, it’s a Pocket PC, and the 11.1.x, that is, M3G-compliant series of TAO Intent only supports Pocket PC’s.

3.1 Dynamic screen stretching

Note that I’ve tested ALL the games compatible with Jblend that dynamically use (stretch) the full available screen estate on the WM6 VGA HTC Universal Pocket PC as well. I’ve done this STRICTLY in Portrait mode (in Landscape, there were graphics problems with Jblend). The aim of this was to find out whether the given games are able to adapt to HUGE screens like those of VGA devices. As can clearly be seen, while all dynamic stretching-capable games were able to dynamically adapt to QVGA screens (from inherently smaller screen sizes), the situation was quite different with four times bigger (VGA) screens. Note that this isn’t a problem with the Universal itself but with the given titles’ inability to dynamically stretch themselves onto “huge” VGA screens. That is, they won’t run on other VGA Pocket PC’s either, let alone Pocket PC’s with even bigger screens (for example, the WVGA (800*480) Toshiba G900 or the, hopefully, forthcoming HTC Omni).