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I've noticed that chinese mobile phones became very popular, perhaps because of their very reasonable price and many modern features (touch screens, advanced multimedia, double sim cards etc).

I'm wondering if there's any way to develop custom solutions for this handsets as independent developer? How to obtain a toolkit and documentation?

I've found some resources, but mainly inconsistent tech notes, often in chinese only. For now I know, that majority of chinese handsets are based on chips from MediaTek (MTK), with operating system based on Nucleus RTOS and MMI (plutoMMI?) framework. Unfortunately, there is no Java RE avaiable (ok, there are some handsets with Java, however, Java isn't something I'm looking for)

Is there any SDK, documentation, emulators/simulators, how-tos, etc avaiable? How to develop, deploy and test custom application for MTK mobile?

juckobee
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  • Hi Juckobee, How can flash application on existing market basic phone(not Featured phone) supported by Nucleaus RTOS. Any suggestion here? – CoDe May 08 '14 at 13:55
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    It's 2019, and I have this problem! I need to develop a custom Java/C/C++ App running on a BlackView BV1000, Nucleus RTOS device. I don't know where to get the SDK, Documentation or even a simple "Hello World" sample. - EDIT - The Nucleus RTOS link from @RzR in the answers below has helped. – Edward Quixote Mar 04 '19 at 11:12

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I am enginner at design company. I have MTK development platform for MT series mobiles with English explanation. The original release and manuals are written in English(About 300mb pdf files). The SDK have simulator written in Visual C++. MMI interface working under nucleus rtos os. The codes are V++.

  • Yeah, that's very interesting. Do you know (and could you tell us of course ;) ) how to manage a SDK purchase for MTK platform? – juckobee Jun 25 '09 at 09:14
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For platform sources this can be a starting point :

https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/downloads/nucleus-source-interest_reg

I have no real experience on RTOS, I am GNU/Linux guy

RzR
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  • I suppose a sole Nucleus SDK will not be enough. Would need dedicated SDK for specific chip family, like MT62xx or some. I work with STM32 controllers and FreeRTOS, but almost sure the rules are the same for all embedded stuff out there. – ogurets Sep 08 '16 at 21:47
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I work with a lot of Chinese mobile phone manufacturers because we export mobile phones from China. I'm really interested in building a new applications, especially an email program, for these MTK based devices. Now it's a bit late to be looking at the 6225 platform because the 6235 platform seems to be where we'll see the most growth moving forward. The major differences that I'm aware of between the 6235 and 6225 are that 6235 supports Wi-Fi, works with EDGE, and is faster.

Steve, you mentioned the G2. I think that Android will be the breakout OS for Chinese phone manufacturing. Once their local engineers and designers get a handle on it a plethora of both ridiculous and useful applications and models will flourish and there won't be major export (customs) problems as we see now with the Windows Mobile devices (because the Chinese typically don't offer licensed software).

Brad Larson
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user104550
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The MTK service is charged. You need to contact them and pay for the chip, software SDK, document, and technical support.

I don't know where you get the "some resource", but it must be leaked by some customer of their, thus using these resource will be considered as illegal.

Francis
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  • I know, that's why I'm asking here for your help. I'm able to pay for SDK and documentation, but the question is whom? Mediatek keeps quiet for all my tries to contact... Maybe should I ask any Chinese mobile reseller instead of them? – juckobee May 19 '09 at 07:33
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    The question still remains unanswered. How do you go about contacting MTK? I have myself tried several times to contact MTK but they don't respond to queries. – Mponnada Apr 04 '11 at 06:46
  • Again, how do you contact them? An MTK6250 power watch has arrived in our R&D department, and I am trying to source the SDK. I have contact MediaTek and a company called MRE with no luck. Any have a url or contact information to source this MTK OS SDK? – Stuart Eske Feb 09 '15 at 16:09
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I'm in same wagon like you, trying to select an smartphone with WIFI and available SDK, low cost (lower thatn 40$). Also contacted Mediatek without results. I can give you a piece of advice, in reality is what I'm doing now. Try to negotiate a bulk purchase with a supplier together with access to SDK and documentation. I did that before with an ARM based Thinclient and worked, but I had to buy 30 pcs.

ruhalde
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I just bought a SciPhone G2 Dream and have done some initial investigation. This particular phone runs J2ME applications but I am also wondering what can be done (if anything) with native applications. Ideally I would like to get my Bluetooth GPS to work with this phone.

This page discusses getting GCC to work with Nucleus but I'm not sure whether this is useful.

Mentor (the makers of Nucleus) have a trial version of their developer suite available. I have just requested a free trial. It is a bit concerning that the website makes no mention of the cost. They also have an emulator.

What sort of phone did you get and what sort of applications are you planning to develop?

Steve
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I'm not exactly sure of what you mean by a 'Chinese' phone. However, you may be talking about ODM phones. Most of the time, these phones are system clones of regular phones with some customisation. It may be a good idea to just buy one and take it apart to see what platform it runs on. Maybe it uses OMAP or something else? In which case, you probably have more knowledge on how to proceed. Maybe it is even compatible with Linux.

sybreon
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  • Well, I got one of them. As I said, majority of these phones are based on MTK chips (i.e. MTK6625) with Nucleus RTOS and MMI framework from Pixtel. There are some Linux or Windows based, but they are hard to obtain (with Linux, Windows is more popular) and significantly more expensive. I'm looking for a cheap device to develop custom solution on it with bluetooth, WI-FI and touchscreen interface. – juckobee May 06 '09 at 20:12