Hi!

[Important: Over-The-Air downloads Requires BES/MDS or when your carrier upgrades to 4.0]
[Note: It is reported T-Mobile users are able to do OTA downloads for apps 70 kilobytes or less, without needing BES/MDS]
[Please post if your carrier appears to let you do any OTA downloads.]

Just so you remember, Blackberry supports J2ME, and MIDP 1.0 which means you can pretty much use any J2ME and MIDP 1.0 software including those originally designed for Nokia, Siemens, Samsung, Sharp, etc. cellphones. Not all of them works, but a surprising number of them actually do:

Being generic cellphone software, they don't advertise as being Blackberry comatible, but many items actually are compatible with Blackberry after all! I was able to test out a few pieces of software for my Blackberry, by following these instructions:

http://j2me-software.com/
http://www.midlet.org/index2.jsp

1. Use Blackberry's own Browser (WAP or HTML) to go to one of the above sites.
   
2. Go to the software section you want. (Example: Games)
   
3. Go to the category (Example: Strategy)
   
4. Click on the link to the .jad file (Example: Minesweeper)
   
5. If no link is found, go to the main menu of the website and click "Select Device". Try "All Devices" first, but if that doesn't work, masquerade your Blackberry as a different model of a cellphone, then try the above steps again.

Now I have Minesweeper and Space Invaders on my Blackberry! Even though it wasn't designed to run on a Blackberry, it was designed in the Java micro edition that Blackberry is compatible with.

Over-The-Air Download Tests Made (All the below apps requires MDS):

VIRCA - IRC Chat Software
Website: http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/virca/
OTA Download: http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/virca/Virca.jad
Note: It seems to work much better than WLIrc! But you must not idle for more than 2 minutes if using Mailstreet (120 second timeout)

VNC - Remote access similiar to PCAnywhere / GoToMyPC
Website: http://j2mevnc.sourceforge.net/
OTA Download: http://j2mevnc.sourceforge.net/downloads/VNCen.jad
Note: Programmers still fixing mouse-button bugs

IM+ Trial - MSN/ICQ/AIM/Yahoo chat
Website: http://midlet.org/category.jsp?parentLevel=222
OTA Download: http://midlet.org/repository/shapese...full_trial.jad
Note: Appears to work on my Blackberry, competitor to WebMessenger (prefer WebMessenger though)

I should warn, this only works with BES/MDS or when your carrier upgrades to the 4.0 software.

I also got Space Invaders and Minesweeper over the air too, from this site:
http://midlet.org/category.jsp?parentLevel=1

Via more complex install steps (Rather than Over-The-Air download), many of the games work even if you do not have MDS but you will have to "Save To Disk" and then follow more complex instructions using javaloader.exe (convert .jad/.jar to .cod first).

Another FAQ item...
Q: How do I remove applications dowloaded over-the-air?
A: Remove them by going to Options -> Apps on the actual Blackberry itself.

Sweet, I'm trying this out.. thanks for the solid instructions mark!

so with my crappy bwc I'm outta luck till sept/nov???
I did the rbro hack....but I still get an 406 error when trying to download evey game on all these sites!!
JAD and JAR files!!

come on rogers catch up pls.........!!! :twisted:

Yes, you need BES/MDS to download software Over-The-Air!

You'll just have to hold your breath till 4.0 deployment or temporarily get http://www.myblackberry.us at about $10 JSD per month.

Are you sure? I installed a bunch of (crappy) games on my berry a few months ago (OTA) and I wasn't on a BES/MDS at the time...

Interesting. Some carriers may be already permitting the OTA download option, assuming they have a properly configured BWC.

I think the only limitation I had was the size of the applet, anything over 70kb and it doesn't download.,

Interesting to know. Thanks. Which carrier are you on, again?

T-mo

Thank you thank you thank you, Mark, for posting Midlet!!! I most certainly do NOT wear the pants in the family (Mrs. C is much meaner than I) and therefore get to do all the shopping. If the shopper 1.04 application works as well as I hope it does, I will owe you for all eternity.

I think some clearification is needed with regards to this 4.0 browser(s) and OTA version.

4.0 offers:

3 different browsing capabilities which depend on the BB OS Version and what infastructure your on [ 1&2 from older versions ] .

1. WAP Browser ( No BES/MDS ) using carrier WAP Gateway
2. BB Browser - corporate hosted BES/MDS
3. Internet Browser ( new in 4.0 ) - MDS hosted by carrier.

You can't download a .jar file via the WAP browser because the regular midlet needs to be converted to a BB .cod file ( .cod = code ), which can only be done ( for OTA ) via the BES/MDS.

So its not just a matter of updating you BB OS to 4.0 but a function of the entire infrasture being updated as well.

Hopefully that clarifies.

For those of you who cannot do OTA downloads with your carrier yet, you can manually download the .jad/.jar files in Internet Explorer and then use these instructions to convert .jar files to .cod files.

More and more carriers are now permitting OTA downloads now. Rogers and TMobile (at least some users) are now permitting it without needing BES, and I suspect Verizon is.

Can anybody confirm OTA downloads today for these carriers?
- Verizon?
- Nextel?
- TMobile?

I have no problems at all downloading games/apps from midlet.org. Some work - some dont. Its luck of the draw.

With Tmobile on my 7100 I have been able to download a few things OTA but not everytime. Rarely I'll get an error saying that the file is 0 bytes and there is something wrong with the .jar file. But most of the time, as said in the post above me, its pretty much luck of the draw.

Tmo allows me to dl anything.

Blackberry JDE to convert .jar/.jad files to .cod and .alx

Check here. If it works for anyone, please let me know

http://www.blackberry.com/knowledgec...4&vernum=0

Cheers.

I have a non-BES T-Mobile account, and I've had no luck downloading MIDlets to my 7230.

Mark, how about starting a sticky thread for feedback from forum members who have been able to install MIDlets OTA? Each message could explain where the file is located and whether or not it ran on a particular model Blackberry. That could save us all a lot of time, as many MIDlets appear to be incompatible apart from our ability to download them or convert them to COD files.

DavidE
www.davidenglish.com

I have the 7100t w/ T-Mobile. I have been able to download most of the .jar files and install. Unfortunately the MindSweeper games are very hard to see on my screen so my dream is not quite realized yet.