As we mentioned earlier in this section, KJava is a proprietary Sun API. It was not intended as a complete fully featured profile, but rather as a demonstration of how a profile could work with CLDC. According to the CLDC Release Notes included with the CLDC download:

The GUI classes provided in package com.sun.kjava are not part of the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC). Official GUI classes for Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition will be defined separately through the Java Community Process and included in J2ME profiles.

In spite of this fact, the KJava profile has been widely used by early adopters.

At the 2001 JavaOne Developer Conference, Sun announced Early Access availability of MIDP for Palm OS (initial releases of the MID Profile had focused mostly on wireless phones). The specification of MIDP for Palm OS was defined by the Java Community Process (JCP) and is, therefore, vendor independent. One of the current restrictions -- which will disappear over time -- is that MIDP for Palm OS requires the latest Palm OS, version 3.5.

At the time of this writing, the specification of MIDP for Palm OS is still under development by the JCP, and the details are subject to change. Although no date for its release has been set, when it becomes available it will eliminate the need for KJava.