What are the best remote access technologies for mobile apps?

Question

I have java-back-end, which should provide services to clients working in the following environments:

• J2me
• Windows mobile
• iPhone

I am looking for the best tool for every platform.
I am not looking for technology that works everywhere.
I need something "lightweight", adapted to access the Internet at low speed.

I am using SOAP now. It is verbose and not easy to parse on a mobile phone. The problem is that I have not seen a real alternative.

Is there a format that works out of the box with one of these platforms?
I would prefer not to use a bloated library that will significantly increase the load time of the application.

Everyone seems to agree with JSON. Has anyone implemented a JSON-based solution that works with Objective-C, J2ME, Windows Mobile?

Note: the Hessian is still the best solution. It works well on Windows Mobile and Objective-C / iPhone. The big problem is J2ME. The implementation of J2ME Hessian has serious limitations. It does not support complex objects. I wrote another question.

If you have any ideas, we are very happy.

Answer 1

Sackcloth. http://hessian.caucho.com . Implementations in several languages ​​(including ObjC) are ultralight and do not require the use of dom / xml parsers to translate from wire models to objects. When we found Hessian, we forgot that we ever knew XML.

Answer 2

JSON . HTTP REST.

JSON Java, C ( ). , JSON -.

XML XML-RPC (, SOAP, ).

Answer 3

REST + XML JSON . , . , - . SOAP , . , .

Answer 4

JSON. Stringtree JSON reader J2ME. JSON, 5 JSON CLDC, Hashtable Vector. AJAX J2ME.

Answer 5

XML (, , POX)?

JSON. .

Perhaps, since you work in an environment that is limited by both computing and network resources, and with a statically typed language, Googles protocol buffers would be preferable for you. (Just ignore RPC crud there, RPC is an attractive nuisance, not a useful technology.)

The problem with your question is that you didn’t have much context about what kind of data it is and what your use cases are, so it’s hard to say anything other than very vague generalities.