Looks like it’s good to go! Innaworks, a New Zealand company, has entered the beta testing period for their alcheMo product. It enables standard J2ME applications to run on the iPhone and iPod.

Here’s additonal information from their press release:

Innaworks, a premier provider of development tools for the mobile game and application industry, today announced the beta programme for alcheMo for iPhone, the newest addition to its successful alcheMo family. alcheMo for iPhone is designed for simultaneous Java ME and iPhone development. Initially targeted at game publishers, alcheMo for iPhone is fully automated and designed to instantly port a standard Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) mobile game to iPhone and iPod touch without the need for further manual adjustments. Innaworks will showcase its products in booth 1557 at the CTIA Conference, being held 1-3 April in Las Vegas.

iPhone and iPod touch have sparked the imagination of game developers; the mobile game industry is already feeling their impact. However it remains a fact today that Java ME is commercially the most significant mobile platform. To maximize market availability, mobile game publishers and developers must make their content available on multiple mobile platforms. With the addition of alcheMo for iPhone, the alcheMo product family allows you to address iPhone, BREW and Java ME with a single code base. alcheMo for iPhone is an effective method to develop immersive and high-performance native iPhone games in Java while taking advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer and multi-touch features.

Stephen Cheng, CEO of Innaworks said “With the expected introduction of iPhone’s AppStore in June, iPhone is emerging as a serious gaming platform. We are amazed by the effectiveness of the touch screen and accelerometer on enhancing gaming experience. We expect the early backers among game publishers to significantly benefit from their first mover advantage. alcheMo for iPhone will help mobile game publishers to reach the eagerly awaiting gamers with quality games on iPhone and iPod touch.”

alcheMo for iPhone incorporates a patent-pending optimizing translator to convert Java ME application source code to equivalent application source code for iPhone. Compiled using an iPhone tool-chain and linked with alcheMo’s optimized run-time library, a native iPhone application is produced. alcheMo for iPhone is capable of converting Java ME applications utilizing an extensive subset of Java ME CLDC 1.1 and MIDP 2.0 (including touch screen support) and supports several JSR extension APIs including the JSR-256 mobile sensor API. Advanced language features such as Java-style exception handling, multithreading, synchronization, interfaces, and inner classes are supported. alcheMo’s run-time library incorporates a garbage collector for automatic memory management.

The translation technology behind alcheMo for iPhone has been time tested on alcheMo for BREW, which powers many of the high profile BREW game titles today. “Urban Attack is one of Vivendi’s most technologically complex games. This award winning first person shooter provides an immersive 3D gaming experience on even low end handsets.” said Eric Huynh, CTO of Vivendi Mobile Games of alcheMo for BREW. “It was therefore an incredible achievement that alcheMo enabled a Vivendi J2ME engineer with no previous BREW experience to deliver Urban Attack onto a wide spread of BREW handsets. The alcheMo-optimized BREW SKUs delivered a very smooth gaming experience despite the complex graphics and heavy computation.”

The private beta programme for alcheMo for iPhone is immediately open. We are inviting qualifying game publishers and game developers to join this programme. Please contact us at alcheMo-sales@innaworks.com to register your interest.