Designed for mobile phones, the Mobile Information Device Profile includes a GUI, and a data storage API, and MIDP 2.0 includes a basic 2D gaming API. Applications written for this profile are called MIDlets. Almost all new cell phones come with a MIDP implementation, and it is now the de facto standard for downloadable cell phone games. However, many cellphones can run only those MIDlets that have been approved by the carrier, especially in North America.

 

JSR 271: Mobile Information Device Profile 3 (Final release on 09 Dec, 2009) specified the 3rd generation Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP3), expanding upon the functionality in all areas as well as improving interoperability across devices. A key design goal of MIDP3 is backward compatibility with MIDP2 content.

[edit]Information Module Profile

 

The Information Module Profile (IMP) is a profile for embedded, "headless" devices such as vending machines, industrial embedded applications, security systems, and similar devices with either simple or no display and with some limited network connectivity.

 

Originally introduced by Siemens Mobile and Nokia as JSR-195, IMP 1.0 is a strict subset of MIDP 1.0 except that it doesn't include user interface APIs — in other words, it doesn't include support for the Java package javax.microedition.lcdui. JSR-228, also known as IMP-NG, is IMP's next generation that is based on MIDP 2.0, leveraging MIDP 2.0's new security and networking types and APIs, and other APIs such as PushRegistry and platformRequest(), but again it doesn't include UI APIs, nor the game.