Question : Mobile Phone Programming

Experts,

I'm a VB chappy with no experiance of Bluetooth technology, but i'm looking to teach myself to build an app for a mobile device.  I'm looking to build an app that uses bluetooth between mobile devices to copy information and do some other stuff, eventually control a stock system but that is in the future.

I'm assuming it will all need to be built in java, but have no idea of how to go about such a task.

So what i'm after is some pointers.

Bluetooth technology achitecture
Java for mobiles IDE (if there is such a thing)
Sample programmes with source code
Is the device OS the same across the board, due to the fact it will be java this should't matter
anything else I may require to get started

I think to start with, I need to understand how 2 mobile devices can communicate and how to program such an event, so i'm looking to start by copying a file from one device to another.

I have programmed mobile devices in the past, but they have always been windows based, and in eVB using 802.11 with winsocks for communications


Thanks in advance.

Answer : Mobile Phone Programming

J2ME is now the most widely supported VM,but then there are Low spec ,mid spec and low spec devices.
And according to the specs there will be a mix of api's and capabilities of the devices.
But J2ME will make your app really portable and most widely supported but if you want to do some real low level stuff,it would be bestto check out other base OS capabilities.Now that brings us to other OS's like Symbian,Palm,Linux and WinCE.But as you are just one guy with a normal life span lets just stick to J2ME ;).
Your other queries :
>>1. Bluetooth technology architecture : You can get the specification at http://www.bluetooth.org/foundry/adopters/document/Core_v2.0_EDR/en/1/Core_v2.0_EDR.zip
But it would be better to skim through the exaplaination provided by SDK about BT,as the core specification is very huge and your target would be quite a small part of it.
>>2. Java for mobiles IDE (if there is such a thing) :
Eclipse is the answer.Also you would need WTK and then device specific SDK's for development.
>>3. Sample programs with source code : Thes usually ship with the SDK's
Two useful resources would be http://forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/6e772b17-604b-4081-999c-31f1f0dc2dbb/S60_Platform_SDKs_for_Symbian_OS_for_Java.html
http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=3
http://developer.sonyericsson.com/site/global/home/p_home.jsp
http://developer.motorola.com/products/handsets/ - Can see the tools required for each handset.

>>4. Is the device OS the same across the board, due to the fact it will be java this should't matter
Yes the Device OS would not matter but as I said earlier the J2ME version as well as the JSR's supported by the device would matter.
Hope this helps.
--eminemence.