Adding Java apps to the Motorola K1m For Free

I've got a Motorola K1m running on the President's Choice Financial pay as you go program. (It's resold Bell Mobility services) Cheap and reliable!

It has a built in browser that works ok for some things, but won't cooperate with the identi.ca microblog I post to.

I tripped over an interesting pair of applications that looked like they might work from the Substance Of Code blog. Mobidentica and Twim. Now how the heck can I install those on my phone? It's a somewhat locked down system. :-)

Turns out the latest version of Bitpim (1.06) for Leopard will actually talk to my phone. I'd tried with earlier versions and had no luck, but this time I was able to get a working connection.

Since Bitpim won't automatically discover the phone, what I found to work was this - use a USB cable, plug it in, and under preferences you'll have to manually specify the K1m and pick a COM port. Go for the one marked 'modem' - in my case it was /dev/cu.usbmodem5d11

Now, under the 'View' menu turn on the 'View File System' option. Pick the new 'File System' entry on the left side of the main window pane and start twisting the little triangles next to the '/' entry. Confusingly only files show in the next column, sub directories only appear under the '/' entry AFTER you twist the triangle. Harder to explain than do - just try it.

Navigate to /brew/mod/jbed/preinstall Don't worry about the hacky looking path, that's really what's already there. Right click in the last column and 'add files' to add the .jad and .jar files you download from the Substance Of Code site. You'll see the progress on the bottom right as it uploads the files to your phone. Quit Bitpim, and start Java on your phone. It will discover and compile the programs, quit Java and then restart on it's own. Now your application is available along with the sample games etc.

See this post for most of the info I've just provided here.

I'm sure this will apply to other Java phone applications too. I'll be keeping an eye out for more possibilities! Hope that helps someone.

Brian