BREW – A Unique Platform for Mobile Application Development

The basic advantage of this platform allows the developers to easily port their applications among all the Brew devices by providing a set of application programming interfaces. This platform has been described as a pseudo operating system, but not a true mobile operating system.

This is a perfect platform for software programmers, as it has a full set of application programming interfaces that enables the developers to make software applications in C, C++, Java and is supported by a circuit called an application specific integrated circuit.

Brew application development

Brew application environment supports event-driven architecture which is similar to Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and other operating systems.The developers are allowed to develop two types of applications using Brew. One is ‘Applet’ which is a GUI application that has a user interface and other is the ‘Extension’ which is a reusable code module written by OEMs and other third-party software vendors. These third-party software includes additional functionality in the handsets.

Features of Brew

• The brew is supported by all Qualcomm handsets, but like other application development platforms it can be ported to other non-Qualcomm handsets. Brew runs on top of hardware platform and has a high degree of compatibility which ensures easy portability to different hardware platforms. The mobile device manufacturers can integrate Brew into their devices using the Brew Porting Kit provided by Qualcomm.
• Brew provides a robust application development platform and can exist simultaneously with any other mobile operating system.
• This platform gives high performance mobile applications by enabling high execution speed. If we have a look at the size, it is about 150K smaller than other mobile operating systems available in the market.
• It can run on CDMA and GSM/GPRS handsets but currently is running only on CDMA handsets. This platform enables native application development in C, C++, and Java.
• Brew is not a virtual machine, but still runs the native code. Recently, IBM has come up with a Java virtual machine for Brew.

Advantages of Brew

• As Brew runs in the top of hardware layer, the mobile applications run and are executed faster compared to other application frameworks.
• This platform is consistent across supported handsets and works more efficiently than any other application frames works like Java Mobile edition.
• The mobile device manufacturers added some new features called ‘Brew extensions’ which fixes the bugs over-the-air to the already deployed mobile devices. These extensions are the additional codes written by the third-party software vendors and OEMs to add additional functionalities in the existing devices.
• The platform allows direct access to the screen buffer, using which, the developers can create Graphic-intensive applications and games with a lot of control.

Drawbacks of Brew

• The developers are not allowed to test the applications on Brew handsets directly, as other mobile device platforms. Only Brew authenticated developers can test the applications in the handsets. To become a Brew Authenticated Developer, one needs to go through a set of complex procedures which is not freely available.

Due to the difference in hardware environments and emulation, it is very difficult to test and debug the Brew applications.

Source by Anand Raju