(February 28, 2003) - North America's very first wireless J2ME-based software app for viewing and sharing photos on Java-enabled mobile phones has been announced. Called "MyMobilePix," the application is the joint work of Tira Wireless, a publisher of wireless Java apps for mobile phones, and Photogra, a provider of online digital imaging solutions.

Leveraging Photogra's back-end Web-based service, MyMobilePix enables consumers to upload, store, share, and print digital images. Users can download and store photos on their handsets, then view them without connecting to the network. MyMobilePix is also MMS (multimedia messaging services) compatible, so users can edit and add text messages to their favorite photos and send them to friends via MMS - if MMS services are available from their carrier. Users can also share their favorite photos with friends and family by sending an e-mail link to a PC.

The business model is this: by offering MyMobilePix, operators can potentially boost their revenues from image sharing even if they have not deployed MMS or have customers without camera-enabled phones. Handset manufacturers are happy too, since when such an app becomes popular, it drives demand for upgrades to new, high-end, color mobile phones, thus increasing revenues for them.

The app will be available first on the AT&T mMode network and through other Tira channels, including the Java Jumpstart program offered by Tira and Handango. It has already been certified for deployment on the Motorola T720, Nokia 7210, 7650, 3650, and Nextel's iDEN i95cl. MyMobilePix will be certified for deployment across other devices in the near future.

WBT's editor-in-chief Bill Ray notes that, "It is clear that the users of camera phones are taking pictures, but that the phones don't generally have the space to store those pictures - so the MMS standard contains specifications for server based photograph albums."

"But getting photographs back on to the phone, and storing them there, is a more complex proposition," he continues, "not to mention editing them on the handset. MyMobilePix service addresses both these issues, in a Java-based client that should work on most modern handsets. Pictures can be rotated, flipped, and colored, but you can't yet add amusing speech bubbles to the pictures of your friends, which is what we're all waiting for."

"It's nice to see real applications in Java," Ray notes approvingly, "rather than one more clone of Tetris."

For more information, see www.tirawireless.com and www.photogra.com