Cellphone emulators

This article is a never-ending list. It will always need updates and will likely have new content added to it on a consistent basis. Because of this, it can never truly be a finished article.

Before the smartphones we know today were staples of mainstream culture, mobile phones, and their technology were pretty rudimentary and often relied on apps made in Java seeing as the language was designed to be portable (though Windows Mobile and Symbian were also somewhat popular as proto-smartphone platforms of choice). This didn't keep games from being developed for these platforms. Casual simplistic games and rip-offs of retro franchises thrived, but it attracted some genuinely fun games that forever remained obscure, such as those from Gameloft.

The situation is quite different in Japan where mobile hardware was much more developed, and major video game developers were much more invested in creating unique and high-quality content that's most obscure and unpreserved, let alone emulated, today. Those are the very different Galapagos mobile phones (like NTT DoCoMo i-mode, KDDI ezWeb, SoftBank...). Some of these games got ported to the inferior Western hardware but these are in the tiny minority.

Platform(s)	File extension
J2ME	.jar (.jad descriptor)
Symbian	.sis, .sisx
N-Gage	.blz (BLZ Installer required)
N-Gage 2.0	.n-gage
ExEn	.exn, .ctc, .jar
Mophun	.mpn
Flash Lite	.swf
BlackBerry OS	.bar, .cod (.alx descriptor)
WebOS	.ipk
MRE (previous VRE)	.axf, .vxp (later)
UMI	.jra
MORE	.moz, .mz
PalmOS	.prc, .pdb
MiniJ	.mrp
Windows Mobile (older than 7)	.cab, .zip
Windows Mobile (newer)	.xap
Windows Phone	.xap, .appx (later), .appxbundle
Android	.apk (.apks, .apkm, .xapk), .obb, .aab
iOS	.ipa, .app, .pxl (legacy), .deb (jailbroken apps)
MotoEZX	.pkg (.mpkg)
MotoMAGX	.mgx, .mpkg, .pep
BREW (and later EZweb)	.mod (.mif descriptor)
i-mode (Doja)	.jar (.jam descriptor)
EZplus	.kjx
WIPI	.jar
Maemo	.deb
MeeGo	.deb
Danger Hiptop	.bndl
WGE	.wga (.wgc descriptor)
Tizen	.tpk

Oracle

Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME)

Main article: J2ME emulators

Nokia

Monochrome mobile phones (S30/S40)

Earlier black & white cellphone games (both in Japan and worldwide) didn't get as much love either when it comes to emulation and preservation of game binaries. There were, however, recreations of Snake and Space Impact for Nokia phones on their website at one time, along with remakes of the aforementioned games for Android and iOS. There are several Nokia phone models with MAME support, though they are preliminary at best with most models displaying a "CONTACT SERVICE" error if not a white screen.

There however exists an SDK for the Nokia 3410, an enhanced variant of the infamous 3310 with a higher-resolution screen and support for MIDP applications. A fixed rip of the simulator can be downloaded on the Internet Archive, though it may have some issues especially on later Windows versions.

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Accuracy	Recommended
Nokia DCT3 Emulator	git Template:Nokia DCT3 Emulator version	✓	GPLv2	High	✓
Noks	git Template:Noks version	✓	MIT	High	✓
Nokia 3410 SDK	1.0	✗	Proprietary	Mid	~

Symbian and N-Gage

Main article: N-Gage emulators

Asha OS

A semi-smart operating system targeted to replace Series 40 Series.

See https://nokia-asha-sdk.software.informer.com/1.0b/ for it’s closed source SDK.

Maemo

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Recommended
The Maemulator		24.9.18	✗	?		?
QEMU			?	?		?

The Maemulator: A compatibility layer for running Bounce Evolution on modern Linux-based systems using qemu user-space emulation. This is not an official port.
QEMU: See http://www.rkeene.org/projects/info/wiki/106 for how to do it. https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2008/04/11/nokia-n800-emulation/ and https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2008/08/01/nokia-n8x0-emulation-part-ii/ may alternatively be followed.

MeeGo

A Linux-based smartphone operating system, inherited from Intel's Moblin and Nokia Maemo.

See https://mirror.thecust.net/meego_1.2_harmattan_developer_documentation/html/guide/html/Developer_Library_Developing_for_Harmattan_Developer_tools_Emulation_tools_for_Qt_SDK_Using_QEMU_with_Qt_SDK.html

Nokia X

Not to be confused with HMD-Nokia X, or Symbian-based Nokia Xseries.

An Android distribution created by Nokia, featuring a UI that closely resembles Windows Phone 8 for ease of transition among users of the Nokia Lumia series, which are based on Windows Phone 8/10.

An emulator is available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20140627005455/http://developer.nokia.com/nokia-x/downloads

Jolla

Sailfish OS

See https://docs.sailfishos.org/Tools/#sailfish-platform-sdk

In-Fusio

Execution Engine (ExEn)

ExEn was a freeware solution developed by French company In-Fusio around 2000 and later the company re-developed the ExEn V2 engine in 2002, which further improved the speed and expressiveness of mobile. It was first Java-based game engine entirely dedicated to mobile devices itself as an alternative to the limitations of J2ME's game development (offering missing feautures like sprite zooming, parallax scrolling, rotations).

The API is based on Java and is very similar to J2ME, but is optimized for game development and deployment instead. Even the programming style is almost the same. Its significance is very similar to the Mophun platform. The ExEn API has various gaming specific classes that are absent from J2ME. ExEn was the first mass market downloadable game engine to be made available in Europe. It achieved relative success and widespread hardware support in Europe, and was also used in China. It's not as widely distributed though, and according to In-Fusio's website, it isn't available on Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung or Motorola handsets.

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Accuracy	Recommended
EXEN-V2 Generic Simulator		0.1		Proprietary		Low	?

EXEN-V2 Generic Simulator: An official ExEn implementation from the otherwise-lost SDK. Doesn't properly work at the correct speed on modern Windows, requiring the use of a virtual machine with an old Windows version such as Windows XP. Crashing issues have also been reported.

BlackBerry

BlackBerry OS

A QNX based operating system used in BlackBerry devices.

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Recommended
BlackBerry Simulator Series		BlackBerry 10 Blackberry 7 Blackbery 6 Various (Official)^[1]^‡ Various (B8kifB73erD's archive) Lunar (The BlackBerry Preservation Project) CrackBerry Forum	?			✓

Palm

Palm OS

Main article: Palm OS emulators

Palm OS is a mobile operating system developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996.

LG

webOS

Palm launched webOS, then called Palm webOS, in January 2009 as the successor to Palm OS. The first webOS device was the original Palm Pre, released by Sprint in June 2009. In April 2010, HP acquired Palm, then in 2013 LG acquired them to make webOS for TV, Smartwatch, and Smartfridge. For LG's webOS see Smart TV emulators.

TODO: this section is broken, check the history of this section and restore the present metadata but keep the emulator images.

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Accuracy	Recommended
PC
webOS SDK emulator	5.0	✓	Proprietary		✓
webOS SDK simulator	6.0	✓	Proprietary		✓
Mobile
Preenv	Wiki 0.6.9 preenv 0.1.7 git	✗	?	Mid	~
Image
webOS SDK Emulator Images	here	✗	?	High?	✓

Also see https://liliputing.com/phoenix-devices-gets-open-webos-to-run-as-an-android-app/

WebOS Ports

LuneOS

Samsung

Bada

Bada (바다) is a mobile operating system developed by Samsung Electronics for devices such as mid- to high-end smartphones and tablet computers. The name is derived from "바다 (bada)", meaning "ocean" or "sea" in Korean. All phones running Bada were branded with the name Wave, unlike Samsung's Android devices which are branded as Galaxy.

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Recommended
Bada SDK		2.0.6	✗	?		~

Tizen

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Recommended
PC
Tizen Studio	5.1	✓	Proprietary	✓
Mobile
TizMee	0.1	✗	(Source code may be lost)	?

Tizen Studio: Has both a Tizen emulator (more accurate) and a Tizen simulator (more usable for slower computers).
TizMee: Tizen compatibility layer for meego

Google

Android

Main article: Android emulators

Apple

iOS

Main article: iOS emulators

MediaTek

MAUI Runtime Environment

MediaTek MRE

Developer	MediaTek
Release date	2011
Discontinued	2016
Emulated	~

Being the turnkey solutions firm that they are known for, as their chips are used on millions and millions of el-cheapo "Shanzhai" devices all over the world (especially counterfeit Nokias and Goophones among other things), Mediatek has also come up with their own mobile platform and API known as the MAUI Runtime Environment. It is targeted for so-called "smart" feature phones, i.e. those that offer similar functionality to standard mobile operating systems like Android, but are watered down for entry-level users. Games and applications for this platform are in .VXP format and other applications appear to be available on the usual WAP sites.

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Accuracy	Recommended
Mediatek MRE SDK		3.0.00.20	?	Proprietary		Mid	~
MREmu		git	?	MIT (Permissive)		Low	~ (WIP)

Mediatek MRE SDK: Includes seven phone simulators with various screen resolution presets and user interfaces. Can only run VXP files compiled for the x86 architecture, i.e. apps built for phones will not run.
MREmu: Open source emulator that can run VXPs compiled for ARM. In early development.

Motorola

MotoEZX / OpenEZX

MotoMAGX

MOTOMAGX (stylized as MotoMagx) is a Linux-based mobile platform developed by Motorola for its mid- to high-end feature phones between 2007 and 2010. It was built on MontaVista Mobilinux, a mobile-focused Linux distribution, and replaced the earlier EZX (Chameleon UI) platform. Originally known internally as LinuxJava, MOTOMAGX debuted with the Motorola ROKR Z6 and was used across various Motorola GSM and UMTS devices.

Synergenix

Mophun

Mophun is an even more hardware-efficient free European-centric mobile gaming solution developed by Swedish company Synergenix Interactive AB. There are two versions of Mophun, 2D for low-end (Sony Ericsson T2xx, T3xx and T6xx series) and 3D for high-end handsets (Symbian S60 and UIQ3 phones), and it's often used to provide embedded (pre-installed) games on mobile phone handsets.

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Accuracy	2D	3D	Recommended
PC
Mophun emulator	2.5.4 alpha 2(Tuxality_mod) 2.5.4 (Special version for Hitman)	~ (Tuxality mod)	Proprietary	Mid	✓	✓	✓
Wolphun	0.2.0 Beta	✓	GPLv3	Mid	✓	✓	~
Nofun	0.0.3	✗	Apache 2.0 (Permissive)	Mid	✓	✓	✓
Mophun SDK	2.5	✗	Proprietary	Mid	✓	?	~
Mophun ActiveX Control	1.0	✗	Proprietary	Low	✓	✗	?
MoRePhun	git	✗	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	Low	✓	✗	?
Mobile
Wolphun	0.2.0 Beta	✓	GPLv3	Mid	✓	✓	~
Mophun Games Launcher	1.01 1.01 v2008 1.0.4	✗	Proprietary	Mid	✗	✓	✓
Nofun	0.0.3	✗	Apache 2.0 (Permissive)	Mid	✓	✓	✓
Blaze Mophun Emulator	N-Series Edition (Russian) N90 Special Edition by 100565	✗	Proprietary	Mid	?	?	~
Mophun (Playfun.ru Edition)	v1	✗	Proprietary	Mid	?	?	~
4Mophun	1.1 2003SE Edition	✗	Proprietary	Mid	?	✓	?
Mophun (traced & powered by zg)	6.011 mod by zg	✗	Proprietary	Mid	?	✓	?

Mophun Games Launcher: Only compatible with 13 games, all of which use the 3D engine and were released for Symbian S60 and UIQ devices.

4Mophun: Does not work with games that are locked (e.g. have a predefined IMEI recognition algorithm) or do not use the 3D engine.

Wolphun: An open-source Mophun emulator written in Java. It reimplements the Mophun PIP2 virtual machine along with its 2D/3D SDK, and includes built-in DRM decryption so commercial titles run directly. Games such as Honey Cave 2 are fully playable, with MIDI/PCM sound, save states and multi-language support. Originally built for Java SE (desktop), it also has an Android port.

mophun: An official emulator, designed for development and demos. As such, encrypted or compressed games do not boot. However, this has been worked around, both by decrypting the files and decompressing them (except for compressed resources), and modifying the emulator to perform decryption on the fly, albeit only when opening them via the Open menu. Exile is not known to work in any found version of the emulator.

MoRePhun: A new, open source emulator by Luca91. It is only a proof of concept, as only a few opcodes and a couple of SDK APIs are emulated, and there is no heap. There is sprite and input support, as well as support for the collision API. It is compatible with a few small homebrews. Luca91 mentions the SDK API handler needs to be better organized.

Mophun ActiveX Control: The official website for the platform, mophun.com, used to host development demos playable in the browser using the ActiveX platform (crawled demo files here). The mophun plugin itself can run unencrypted .mpn files. Although it is not playable through the web archives of the site, it is expected to be curated for Flashpoint.

Adobe

Flash Lite

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Recommended
PC
Adobe Flash Player	Template:Adobe Flash Player version	✓	(Proprietary)	✓
Ruffle	0.6.0	✓	Dual licensed (Permissive) (Apache 2.0 MIT)	✓
Mobile
Ruffle	0.260720	✓	Dual licensed (Permissive) (Apache 2.0 MIT)	✓

Japanese cellphones

Several Japanese-centric mobile game technologies spawned during the 2000's as part of convoluted all-in-one technological solutions, mostly based on Java.

NTT DoCoMo released DoJa (later renamed to Star), based on Java ME CLDC, but not MIDP. Applications come in the form of .JAR files accompained by a .JAM descriptor.

KDDI released ezplus (later renamed to "EZ-appli (Java)"), based on Java ME extended with proprietary APIs. Applications come in the form of .KJX files. It was later replaced with a BREW-based solution called "EZ-appli (BREW)"

J-PHONE released J-SKY, based on standard J2ME MIDP extended with several proprietary 3D/sound/gfx APIs. It was later renamed to "Vodafone Live!" and "Yahoo! Keitai" as the company got purchased by Vodafone and SoftBank, respectively. Applications come in the form of .JAR and .JAD files.

It is possible to develop applications that work both under ezplus, J-SKY and standard J2ME devices by using only MIDP1.0 APIs

i-mode (DoJa/Star)

Japanese mobile manufacturer NTT DoCoMo released DoJa (DoCoMo's Java) as part of their i-mode set of standards for mobile telephony. It is based on Java ME CLDC, but not MIDP. The profile received several updates, being later renamed to "Star". It was used on DoCoMo's mova and FOMA series of mobile phones, being first featured on the mova 503i from 2001.

While i-mode phones were made available in a limited fashion in Europe, with various games for DoJa "Overseas Edition" seeing release, the services didn't prove popular enough and were shut down in a matter of years. The main reason for the limited support was the fierce push back by Nokia and other western mobile hardware manufacturers refusing to support the DoJa software standard until very late.

DeNa (Mobage), Namco (Tales of Mobile) and Level-5 (RoiD) set up Steam-like game distribution portals specific to some cell-phone models yet i-mode based.

Applications were denominated "i-αppli" (Japanese: iアプリ) and come in the form of .JAR files accompained by a .JAM descriptor text file.

Emulators

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Accuracy	Recommended
PC
iDKDoJa	3.13	✗	Proprietary	Mid (DoJa 5.1)	✓
jDKDoJa (Overseas Edition)	1.03	✗	Proprietary	Mid (DoJa 2.5 Overseas Edition)	✓
openDoJa	0.2.2	✓	GPLv3	High	✓
FreeJ2ME-Plus	1.50	✓	GPLv3 BSD-3-Clause	Mid	~
i-JADE	1.2.3	✗	Proprietary	Low (DoJa 1.X)	✗
Jade	0.1.7	✗	Proprietary	Low (DoJa 1.5)	✗
SquirrelJME	0.4.0	✓	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	Aims for 100%	?
Mobile
説明懐かしのiアプリをお手軽実況プレイ！iアプリ・アーカイブス	2.6	✗	Proprietary	Low	✗
Doja iAppli エミュレータ (Browser)	1.1.2	~	Proprietary	?	?

iappli Development Kit for DoJa: Official development kit from NTT DoCoMo, featuring a device emulator. Several releases were archived by Wayback Machine: DoJa 1.5

Also see Rockman DASH: Great Adventure on 5 Islands & Rockman Tennis Preserved in Full.

javaappli Development Kit for DoJa: SDK for the Overseas Edition DoJa profile from NTT DoCoMo, based on iDKDoJa. Several releases were archived by Wayback Machine: DoJa 1.5 DoJa 2.5

i-JADE: iappli development kit from Zentek

Jade: Open-source project implementing several DoJa 1.5 APIs. Low compatibility

SquirrelJME: Open source emulator that can run J2ME software, will be adding i-Mode support in 2022.

KDDI EZplus

Japanese carrier KDDI/Au released ezplus as part of their EZweb set of standards for mobile telephony. It is based on Java ME extended with proprietary APIs. The first device supporting it was released on 2001 (Hitachi C451H). ezplus was later renamed to "EZ-appli (Java)" (Japanese: "EZアプリ (Java)") and gradually replaced with a BREW-based solution called "EZ-appli (BREW)" until 2004 when the last ezplus device was released.

In 2006 an Open Application Player (Japanese: オープンアプリプレイヤー) feature was added allowing to run MIDP 2.0 Java apps on the BREW devices, which were often denominated as オープンアプリ. It lacks support for the original proprietary extensions of ezplus. On 2011, Open Application Player was updated and renamed to "EZ-appli (J)" along EZ-appli (BREW) which became "EZ-appli (B)"

Applications were denominated "ezplus アプリ" (during the ezplus name era) and come in the form of .KJX files.

Emulators

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Accuracy	Recommended
PC
ezplus emulator	1.0	✗	Proprietary	Mid	~
Mobile
J2ME Loader	Template:J2ME Loader version git Dev	✓	Apache 2.0 (Permissive)	Mid	✓
JL-Mod (JL fork)	[1]	✓	Apache 2.0 (Permissive)	Mid	✓

ezplus emulator: Official development tool from KDDI, developed by Zentek.

J2ME Loader: Now J2ME Loader support ezplus apps that only support 128x160 resolution and font option recommend is (9 - 13 - 15).Installation guid and here

J-SKY

Japanese service provider 'J-PHONE' released the J-SKY platform as part of their set of standards for mobile telephony. It was based on J2ME and MIDP extended with several proprietary 3D/sound/gfx APIs called JSCL. J-PHONE had been purchased by Vodafone on 2001, which two years later took over the original branding renaming the carrier to Vodafone KK. The J-SKY technology became then known as "Vodafone Live!" and it was extended with the VSCL set of APIs. On 2006, Vodafone KK was purchased by SoftBank Group, getting this technology rebranded again as "Yahoo! Keitai".

Applications were called "Java™ App" (Japanese: Java™アプリ) during the J-SKY era, "V-Appli" (Japanese: Vアプリ) during the Vodafone era and "S! Appli" (Japanese: S!アプリ) during the SoftBank era. They come in the form of .JAR accompained by a .JAD descriptor text file.

Emulators

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Accuracy	Recommended
MEXA Emulator		2.3.1	?	Proprietary			~
J-SKY Application Emulator		1.3B	?	Proprietary		Mid	✗

J-SKY Application Emulator: Official development tool from J-PHONE, developed by Zentek. It does not supports any of the later APIs.

MEXA Emulator: Developed by SoftBank for S! Appli.

Korean cellphones

SKT (Sunkyong Telecom) provided two development platforms: GVM and SK-VM. GVM based on Mobile C, and SK-VM based on Java. SK-VM was a Java-based development platform, but the execution speed was slower than GVM due to the nature of Java. SK-VM is a J2ME (Java 2 Micro Eidtion) Java execution environment developed

GVM (General Virtual Machine): GVM1X, GVM2X Mobile platform created based on Mobile C (modified to fit the mobile environment, such as reduction of pointer and union functions in the existing C language) developed by Shinji Soft.

GNEX (General & Next Multimedia Player): GVM3X A mobile platform that eliminates the limitations of the existing GVM and further strengthens functions such as file system, network, and graphics. GNEX is an upgraded version of GVM, and has the advantage of having few capacity restrictions and fast speed, but its penetration has fallen significantly compared to GVM. Therefore, when releasing a GNEX version of a game, we developed both the GVM version and the GNEX version to support phones that do not support GNEX

KTF (Korea Telecom Freete) provided Qualcomm's BREW. The biggest advantage is that it is based on C/C++, and unlike other development platforms, it is executed in the form of a native binary rather than being executed based on a VM. it is an integrated platform, but it has been divided into SKT-WIPI, KT-WIPI, and LGT-WIPI. For example, SKT-WIPI and LGT-WIPI supported C/C++, while KTF-WIPI supported only C. Aside from that, many other aspects differed from carrier to carrier.

LGT (Lucky Goldstar Telecom) - MIDP [JAVA] A mobile platform that adds additional functions such as sound to J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) of LG MIDP JAVA SUN. LGT's platform is sometimes called MIDP and JAVA

- SKT's WIPI-JAVA

- SKT's WIPI-C

- KTF's WIPI-JAVA

- KTF's WIPI-C

- LGT's WIPI-JAVA (LGT does not support WIPI-C)

Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability (WIPI)

WIPI a national middleware platform standard in South Korea. Almost all cellphone games released in South Korea from 2002 to 2009 were developed as WIPI. SKT (GNEX, SKVM), KTF (BREW), LGT (MIDP-JAVA), etc. are these, and they are currently converting to an integrated platform called WIPI. After conversion to an integrated platform called WIPI, mobile games have higher quality graphics and game ability than before.

Emulators

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Recommended
AROMA WIPI Emulator	1.1.1.8	✗	Proprietary	✓
KTF WIPI	1.1	✗	Proprietary	✓
WIE (WIPI/SKVM/J2ME Emulator)	git	✓	MIT (Permissive)	TBD

Chinese Mobiles

MiniJ (MRP platform)

MiniJ is a lightweight mobile platform developed by Hangzhou Sky Network Technology Co., Ltd. and it's widespread in China (and in some other countries). It has excellent overall performance and could run applications and games smoothly with very limited hardware resources. MiniJ applications are written in C programming language.

Games and applications for this platform are in .mrp format.

Emulators

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Accuracy	Recommended
PC
vmrp	git	✓	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	Mid	✓
iacEmuMrp	0.3.3 0.3.3^[2]	✓	Proprietary	Mid	~
Mobile
Mrpoid2	3.2.30	✗	Proprietary	Mid	✓
Mythras	git 2018 2021	✓	?	Mid	✓
iacMrp	1.9.56 1.9.56^[2]	✓	Proprietary	Mid	~
iacMrp	0.7.6	✗	Proprietary	?	~
iacEmu (iacMrp2)	?	?	Proprietary		TBD

KaiOS

KaiOS is a mobile Linux distribution for keypad feature phones. It is developed by KaiOS Technologies (Hong Kong) Limited.

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Recommended
KaiOS RunTime Simulator (Kaiosrt)		simulator	✓	?		✓

HarmonyOS

Huawei's operating system. Has very controversial advertising.

Older HarmonyOS (<4.0.0 ?) has compatibility with Android applications (and is commonly doubted as nothing more than an Android fork due to architecture similarities) while newer Harmony OS NEXT removed native Android support (instead Android applications are run in containers similar to Docker) and is supposed to have a different OS kernel and architecture.

OpenHarmony is the open-source fork of Harmony OS NEXT.

HarmonyOS applications are written in ArkTS programming language which is a fork of TypeScript. Applications packages are in .hap format.

DevEco Studio is the official tool for developing HarmonyOS applications, which comes with an emulator.

Emulators

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Accuracy	Recommended
DevEco Studio		6.0.2.640^[3]	✓	Proprietary		?	✗

Qualcomm

Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW)

A mobile development platform by Qualcomm, originally intended for CDMA handsets such as those sold by Verizon. Unlike Java ME, applications and games for BREW use native code as opposed to running in a virtual machine in the case of Java ME. Also, BREW development has a higher barrier to entry due to stringent certification requirements, which led it to be significantly less popular than Java ME even in markets where CDMA has a significant market share, such as in North America. To top it all off, downloaded BREW apps are tied to an individual handset via a digital signature, making piracy or sideloading difficult; it is however possible to unlock certain BREW-enabled CDMA phones to run backups and pirated apps, though downloads for BREW apps and games are rare and hard to find compared to Java ME.

Zeebo is a Brazilian and Mexican video game console and online distribution platform developed and released with developing markets in mind, also runs on BREW. Dumps of the Zeebo and its games exist, and gameplay footage of them have been uploaded on YouTube.

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Zeebo	Recommended
PC
BREW Emulator / BREW Simulator	1.1 (BREW SDK) 7.12.5 (BREW MP SDK)	✗	Proprietary	✗	?
Mobile
Melange	git [2]	✗	Proprietary	✗	✓
Infuse	[3]	✓	Proprietary	✓	~ ( WIP)

Danger

Danger OS

Developed by Danger Incorporated. Danger OS was a Java-based OS used on phones that Danger designed themselves. These devices were sold under many names such as Hiptop, Mobiflip, Sharp Jump, and (most notably) T-Mobile Sidekick. While it could run some J2ME apps (from version 2.3 onward), it also used its own proprietary J2SE-based APIs and SDK; for this reason, anything built using these APIs won't run on a standard J2ME emulator. To aid third-party software design, Danger has released a comprehensive SDK that contains a Hiptop simulator, development installation utilities, and Danger API information.

Danger OS uses special files called "bundles". Bundle files have the extension .bndl. Bundles have inside a custom resource format for storing assets and code which is converted from Java bytecode into a custom bytecode format. Each bundle file is linked to a specific operating system version and build number. For example, a bundle file for v3.4/155053 (T-Mobile Sidekick 3) would be denied installation on a v3.3/149695 device (T-Mobile Sidekick iD). Installation of bundles require a developer key to be installed on your device if you are using a Production OS. Internal OS builds do not require developer keys.

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Recommended
Danger Hiptop/Sidekick SDK Simulator	SDKs		Mid	Proprietary		~

Danger Hiptop/Sidekick SDK Simulator: Official SDK from Danger Inc with built-in simulators for testing. These simulators can't run the special bytecode format used on real devices.

Microsoft

Windows CE

Windows Mobile (Pocket PC)

Main article: Pocket PC emulators

Windows Phone 7.x

Microsoft's official Windows Phone Developer Tools Emulator is limited in functionality and only supports running self-compiled apps.

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Recommended
Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools	(Windows Vista and 7 only)	Windows Phone 7.0 Windows Phone 7.1	✗	Proprietary		~

Windows Phone 8.x & Windows 10 Mobile

Name	Latest version	Active	License	Recommended
PC
Windows Phone SDK	Windows Phone 8.0 Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 Windows 10 Mobile Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary Update Windows 10 Mobile Fall Creators Update	✗	Proprietary	✓
WPR	git mediaexplorer74's fork	~	?	~
Mobile
WPR	git	~	?	~

TTPcom

Wireless Games Engine (WGE)

WGE (Wireless Game Engine) was a proprietary mobile gaming engine developed by TTP Communications Ltd. (TTPCom) around 2001 and discontinued in 2003. Unlike J2ME, WGE executed native C/C++ binary code without a virtual machine, allowing much faster performance and lower memory usage on early mobile phones.

The engine supported high-quality 2D graphics, basic 3D, sound, networking, and multiplayer, and enabled secure OTA downloads with DRM. Its WGI API exposed device features through modular components such as graphics, sound, input, and networking, and could be accessed via C++ or Java. WGE also included J-WGE, which accelerated Java games using native code.

WGE saw limited adoption on devices from Innostream, Panasonic, LG, and TTPCom, with around 22 known games, many of which are now lost.

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Accuracy	Recommended
WGE SDK			?	Proprietary		Mid	TBD

Mozilla

Firefox OS

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Recommended
Firefox OS Simulator		git WebIDE add-ons Firefox OS 1.1 Simulator	✗	MPL 2.0 (Copyleft)		✓

Amazon

Fire OS

Fire OS is a mobile operating system developed by Amazon for their Fire line of devices. It is basically a heavily-modified Android distribution with extensive dependency on Amazon services. Apps sold on the Amazon App Store should run fine on any Android emulator with little to no issue. (Stock) Windows Subsystem for Android is recommended as it includes Amazon-exclusive frameworks.

Siemens

Siemens & BenQ-Siemens phones

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Active	License	Compatibility	Recommended
pmb887x-emu		v0.0.17 git	✓	GPLv2 (Copyleft)		✓

pmb887x-emu: Emulates phones based on the Infineon PMB8875/PMB8876 chipset (BenQ-Siemens EL71, CF130, E71, C81, M81, Siemens S75). A pre-compiled release is available for Windows. The emulator must be compiled manually for Linux and macOS.

Notes

References

↑ The swdownloads server has been removed from the internet by BlackBerry. They've also updated all the legacy notification pages with text similar to: -Downloads for BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry OS devices and legacy Enterprise software is [sic] no longer available.- and all the links to BlackBerry Desktop (etc.) software have now been cleansed.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 Download available in ③MTK_冒泡(.mrp)/⓪模拟器 folder.
↑ Requires a developer account to download, and requires authentication & approval to enable HarmonyOS emulator.

External links

Micro Java Game Development, mentions Japanese i-mode emulators that are currently dead, like i-tool.

A 2003 article from GameDev.net about the major Western mobile phone systems.

Article about DoCoMo Java programming.

[1] The swdownloads server has been removed from the internet by BlackBerry. They've also updated all the legacy notification pages with text similar to: -Downloads for BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry OS devices and legacy Enterprise software is [sic] no longer available.- and all the links to BlackBerry Desktop (etc.) software have now been cleansed.

[iPadOnly-2] 2.0 ^2.1 Download available in ③MTK_冒泡(.mrp)/⓪模拟器 folder.

[permission-3] Requires a developer account to download, and requires authentication & approval to enable HarmonyOS emulator.

[1]

[2]

[3]

Cellphone emulators

Oracle

Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME)

Nokia

Monochrome mobile phones (S30/S40)

Symbian and N-Gage

Asha OS

Maemo

MeeGo

Nokia X

Jolla

Sailfish OS

In-Fusio

Execution Engine (ExEn)

BlackBerry

BlackBerry OS

Palm

Palm OS

LG

webOS

WebOS Ports

LuneOS

Samsung

Bada

Tizen

Google

Android

Apple

iOS

MediaTek

MAUI Runtime Environment

Motorola

MotoEZX / OpenEZX

MotoMAGX

Synergenix

Mophun

Adobe

Flash Lite

Japanese cellphones

i-mode (DoJa/Star)

Emulators

KDDI EZplus

Emulators

J-SKY

Emulators

Korean cellphones

Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability (WIPI)

Emulators

Chinese Mobiles

MiniJ (MRP platform)

Emulators

KaiOS

HarmonyOS

Emulators

Qualcomm

Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW)

Danger

Danger OS

Microsoft

Windows CE

Windows Mobile (Pocket PC)

Windows Phone 7.x

Windows Phone 8.x & Windows 10 Mobile

TTPcom

Wireless Games Engine (WGE)

Mozilla

Firefox OS

Amazon

Fire OS

Siemens

Siemens & BenQ-Siemens phones

See also

Notes

References

External links

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