One of the most annoying thing about today's mobile phones, is the fact that they are an evolution of yesterday's mobile phones. The industry has done a lot of work on things that have been called "convergence", and "smartphones", "mobile computers", and "web 2.0/3.0", however one problem remains: the software in use today has been incrementally developed over time. A consequence of this is that whenever there's a need to do major upgrades to the software, one has had to launch a new phone model to deliver the new software to users.

People in ICT are not dumb, so they (us) have tried to make many improvements in this area. For example, Nokia has made a number of architectural improvements to the Symbian S60 software over times separating underlying HW and OS components from middleware, and again separating middleware from application APIs. A major architectural leap was done this sping when re-arranging both Symbian OS and S60 user interface platform to the 12 technolody domains and more than 100 software packages in preparation for Symbian Foundation and the open source model of working.

However, even after these changes we still have a lot to learn about working with software in the way that PC software industry is doing it: by releasing updates and patches as business as usual. When you log onto your computer, you think it's normal for the computer to tell you that there are several software updates available for the various programs you are running. Nothing to it. So why can't we have a similar system available for mobile devices?

A step into this direction is the recent availability of Java runtime as a separate downloadable component. Nokia Java Runtime 2.0 for S60 (they should really change the name into Symbian, btw) became available from Nokia Beta Labs on Wednesday. This means, that anyone can go and download the latest Java onto your phone to experience the full capabilities of applications written in newer versions of Java than what your device currently supports. For Java developers, this also means that they don't need to always be waiting for the new devices to come out before they can true test their apps.

Other software updates available for Nokia phones can be downloaded from Nokia Software and Support pages. A shortcut directly for most popular device updates here, includes - among others - imaging and email enhancements for N96, and new camcorder features for 5800 xrpess music. Enjoy!