Mobile Developer's Guide To The Galaxy Vol.7

Don’t Panic
Mobile Developer’s Guide
to the Galaxy

Table of Contents

7 Introduction

10 An Overview of Application Platforms
10 Native Applications
13 J2ME / Java ME
13 Flash Lite and Alternative Flash-compatible Platforms
14 BREW
14 Widgets
16 Websites
16 SMS Text Messaging

17 Programming Android Apps
18 Prerequisites
19 Implementation
21 Testing
22 Signing
22 Distribution

23 Programming bada Apps
23 Prerequisites
24 Implementation
25 Testing
26 Distribution

27 Programming Native Blackberry Apps
27 Prerequisites
29 Coding Your Application
29 Services
30 Testing
30 Porting
31 Signing
31 Distribution

32 Programming Flash Apps
33 Prerequisites
34 Tips & Tricks
36 Testing
37 Packaging and distribution

38 Programming iPhone Apps
39 Prerequisites
42 Implementation
42 Testing
44 Distribution
45 Books
46 Community

48 Programming J2ME / Java ME Apps
49 Prerequisites
50 Implementation
51 Testing
52 Porting
55 Signing
56 Distribution

58 Programming Qt Apps
60 Prerequisites
60 Creating Your Application
62 Testing
3

63 Packaging
64 Signing
65 Distribution

67 Programming Native Symbian Apps
68 Prerequisites
68 Carbide.c++
69 Symbian/S60 Software Developer Kits (SDKs)
69 Porting to Symbian
70 Testing
70 Signing
71 Distribution

73 Programming WebOS Apps
74 Prerequisites
74 Implementation
75 Testing
78 Distribution

80 Programming Windows Phone 7 Apps
80 Development
84 Functions and Services
85 Distribution
85 Resources
85 Testing

86 Programming Mobile Widgets
87 Widget Characteristics
89 Prerequisites
90 Writing Your Code
92 Testing
92 Signing
93 Distribution

4

94 Developing Accessible Apps
94 Built-In Accessibility Features
96 Developing Accessible iOS Apps
96 Developing Accessible BlackBerry Apps
97 Developing Accessible Symbian / Qt Apps
97 Developing Accessible Android Apps

98 Programming With Cross-Platform Tools
99 Limitations and Challenges of Cross Platform Approaches
108 Cross Platform Solutions

112 Creating Websites for Mobile Usage
115 A History on the Mobile Web
116 Content adaptation
118 Satisfy the Browser
122 Device Categories
126 Use GPS in the Browser
126 Testing your Mobile Website
128 Hybrid Apps
129 Learn More – On the Web

130 Implementing Rich Media
132 Streaming vs download
134 Progressive download
134 Ringtones
134 Media Converters
135 Flash (Lite)
136 HTML5

137 Implementing Location-based Services
137 How to obtain Positioning Data
139 How to obtain Mapping Services
140 Implementing Location Support on Different Platforms
141 Tools for LBS Apps

5 5

142 Testing Your Application
142 Testability: the Biggest Single Win
143 Headless Client
143 Separate the generic from specific
144 Test-Driven Development
144 Physical Devices
145 Remote Control
146 GUI Test Automation
146 Beware of Specifics
146 Crowd Sourcing
147 Web-Based Content and Applications
147 Next Steps

148 Now what — Which Environment Should I Use?

152 Epilogue

153 About the Authors
159 Imprint/Contact

This Developer Guide is licensed under the
Creative Commons Some Rights Reserved License.

6

Introduction
Welcome to the 7th edition of our Mobile Developer’s Guide
To The Galaxy. When we started this project in 2009, a lot of
people thought the mobile ecosystem’s fragmentation was a
temporary phenomenon and that by 2011 a guide, such as this
one, would be needed no longer. They thought that one, maybe
two, platforms would dominate the market. The opposite is
happening: New platforms continue to be introduced, others
are evolving and spreading to new device classes so fast that it
would be naive to assume one platform will dominate anytime
soon.
We think that the need for this guide is therefore greater than
ever. We hope that it will help you make the right decision
about entering the mobile market and guide you through the
first steps on the platform of your choice.
For this edition, we updated almost all the content and added
new chapters on BlackBerry and webOS development.
This means that all the principal mobile platforms are covered
in this guide.
With so many different platforms for developers to consider,
one approach is becoming increasingly popular: Cross-platform
development. Another new chapter covers this topic; it discusses
the potentials of the technologies and how to determine if this
approach is right for your development. Furthermore you find a
new chapter about how to create accessible mobile applications.
We would like to thank all writers and sponsors, our special
thanks go out to Richard Bloor this time.

We are looking forward to receiving your feedback and input
at developers@enough.de and hope to welcome many new
contributors for the forthcoming editions.
7

An Overview of Application
Platforms
There is a wide selection of platforms with which you can realize
your mobile vision. This section describes the most common
environments and outlines their differences. More detailed de-
scription follows in the platform-specific chapters.

Native Applications
There are many mobile platforms used in the market – some
are open source, some are not. The most important native
platforms are (alphabetically) Android, bada, BlackBerry,
MeeGo, iOS, Symbian, webOS and Windows Mobile/Windows
Phone. All these platforms enable you to create native appli-
cations without establishing a business relationship with the
respective vendor.
The main benefits of programming apps natively include bet-
ter integration with the platform’s features and often better
performance. Typical drawbacks are the effort and complexity
of supporting several native platforms (or limiting your app to
one platform).
Most mass market phones are, however, equipped with embed-
ded operating systems that don’t offer the opportunity to create
native applications. Examples include but are not limited to
Nokia Series 40, Samsung SGH and Sony Ericsson Java Platform
phones.

10

The following table provides an overview of the main mobile
platforms:

Platform Language(s) Remarks
Android Java, C, Open Source OS (based on Linux)
C++ developer.android.com

bada C, C++ Samsung’s mobile platform
running on Linux or RealTime OS
developer.bada.com

BlackBerry Java J2ME compatible, extensions
enable tighter integration
na.blackberry.com/eng/developers
C, C++
iOS Objective-C, Requires Apple Developer
C Account
developer.apple.com/iphone

MeeGo Qt, Web Apps, Intel and Nokia guided open
C++, others source OS (based on Linux)
meego.com/developers

Symbian C, C++, Java, Open source OS built from the
Qt, WebApps, ground up for mobile devices
others www.forum.nokia.com/symbian

webOS HTML, CSS, Supports widget style
JavaScript, C programming, (based on Linux)
developer.palm.com

Windows C#, C .NET CF or Windows Mobile
Mobile API, most devices ship with
J2ME compatible JVM
developer.windowsmobile.com

Windows C#, VB.NET Silverlight, XNA frameworks
Phone create.msdn.com

11

J2ME / Java ME
Around 80% of all mobile handsets worldwide support the
mobile Java standard (J2ME/Java ME), making it by far the
most widely distributed application environment. In contrast
to many other environments, J2ME is a standard rather than a
product, which can be implemented by anyone (who pays Oracle
the corresponding license fees that is). Standardization is the
strength of J2ME but at the same time it’s the source of many
fragmentation problems.
On many feature phones, Java ME is the only way to realize
client side applications. With the increasing penetration of
smartphones, J2ME has lost some of its importance, at least
in the US and Europe. However, for many emerging markets it
remains the main option to target the mass market.

Flash and Alternative Flash-
compatible Platforms
Historically, Flash Lite was the mobile edition of Flash, an older
version of Adobe’s web Flash product with ActionScript 2.0 sup-
port. Adobe is phasing out Flash Lite for mobile and simply
using the full version of Flash. Flash is favored by many de-
signers, since they know the tools already and it can be used
to create engaging, powerful user interfaces (UIs). It’s rela-
tively easy to code thanks to the ActionScript language, which
is very similar to JavaScript. The drawbacks of Flash on mobile
devices used to be poor performance, suboptimal integration
into host devices and small market share in comparison to Java
ME. However, all these things are improving: There are millions of
feature phones supporting Flash today and many smartphones
and tablets can support some Flash content including MeeGo,
Symbian, iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices.

13

BREW
The Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) is a pro-
gramming environment promoted by Qualcomm1.
BREW services are offered by more than 60 operators in 28 coun-
tries, but it’s most popular within the US with CDMA devices
launched by Verizon, US Cellular and Metro PCS, among others.
While previous versions supported C development only, the
Brew Mobile Platform (Brew MP), supports applications written
in Java, Flash, TrigML or native C code2.

Widgets
The main advantage of widget environments is they offer sim-
ple, straightforward programming based on web markup and
scripting languages.
There are, however, several widget environments and some re-
quire a player to be installed. This situation is changing, with
a trend towards standardization, based on W3C standards. The
move to standard web technology based widgets is alleviating
the main drawback of widgets: lack of integration with the
underlying platform. The standards-based environments are
increasingly offering APIs that enable widgets to access de-
vices data, such as location or contacts, among others. All
these environments use XML, a script language (usually Java
Script) and a page description language (usually HTML) to realize
a widget.

1) www.brewmp.com
2) developer.brewmp.com

14

The following table provides an overview of popular widget
frameworks:

Environment Language(s) Remarks
Web Runtime XML, Standard web technology based
Widgets on HTML, CSS, widgets, with a proprietary
Symbian JavaScript packaging standard. JavaScript
APIs offer high degree of
access to platform features.
www.forum.nokia.com/Develop/Web

Skylight HTML, CSS, Open Source widget platform for
JavaScript featurephones and smartphones,
still under development.
www.skylightmobile.org

WAC / JIL XML, HTML, A joint initiative by Vodafone,
JavaScript, China Mobile and other
CSS companies are pushing the W3C
widget standard
www.jil.org

Samsung XML, HTML, innovator.samsungmobile.com
CSS,
JavaScript
PhoneGap HTML, CSS, Cross platform widget platform
JavaScript www.phonegap.com

Sony Ericsson HTML, CSS, Based on PhoneGap
WebSDK JavaScript developer.sonyericsson.com

BlackBerry HTML, CSS, na.blackberry.com/eng/developers
JavaScript

15

Websites
The browsing of webpages is supported by most phones, so in
principle this should be the environment of choice to get the
widest possible reach (after SMS texting). However, the sheer
number of browsers and their varying feature sets can make
this approach challenging. Some browsers are very powerful
and support CSS as well as JavaScript, others are less sophisti-
cated and support XHTML only. Thankfully the old WAP standard
with its WML pages doesn’t play any significant role nowadays.
The main drawback of web pages is that they are available when
the device is online only and their access to device features is
extremely limited.
With the introduction of HTML5, this situation is improving:
Offline browsing and new device APIs are now becoming avail-
able for mobile websites, such as location information in the
Opera Mobile browser. The main benefits of the mobile web as a
platform are the ease of development and that, generally, you
control the deployment.

SMS Text Messaging
Almost everybody who has a mobile phone is also texting.
Texting limits interactions to less than 160 characters; and it
can be quite costly to send out text messages in bulk. On the
positive side, SMS enjoys a global audience of all ages and plays
an important role especially in the emerging markets where
SMS payments are a common usage scenario.

16

Programming Android
Apps
The Android platform is developed by the Open Handset
Alliance led by Google and publicly available since November
2007.
Android is an operating system and an application framework
with complete tooling support and a variety of preinstalled
applications. In late 2010, Google announced that every day
300,000 Android devices are shipped to end users. Since the
platform is supported by many hardware manufacturers, it is
the fastest growing smartphone operating system.
Additionally, Android is used (or planned to be used) for
tablets, media players, setup boxes, desktop phones and car
entertainment systems. It is also growing very fast when it
comes to the platform features: Each new release usually
includes many new features. For example, Android 2.3 (so-
called “Gingerbread”) introduced NFC and VOIP communica-
tion, better game development and a lot more1, Android 3.0
(“Honeycomb”) has been especially designed for deployment
on tablets and other devices with larger screens.

1) developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.3-highlights.html

17

Prerequisites
The main programming language for Android is Java. But be-
ware, only a subset of the Java libraries is supported and there
are lots of platform specific APIs. You find answers to your What
and Why questions in the Dev Guide1 and to your How questions
in the reference documentation2.

To get started, you need the Android SDK3, which is available
for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It contains tools to build,
test, debug and analyse applications. You will probably also
want a good Java IDE. Eclipse or IntelliJ seem a good choice
as there is good support for development, deployment and es-
pecially, so-called library projects that allow to share code and
resources between several projects.
Command line tools and Ant build scripts are also provided so
you can concoct almost any development and build process.

1) developer.android.com/guide
2) developer.android.com/reference
3) developer.android.com/sdk

18

Implementation
An Android application is a mix of activities, services, message
receivers and data providers declared in the application mani-
fest. An activity is a piece of functionality with an attached
user interface. A service is used for tasks which should run in
the background and is therefore not tied directly to a visual
representation. The message receiver can handle messages
broadcast by the system or other applications. The data provider
is an interface to the content of an application and thereby
abstracts from underlying storage mechanisms. An application
may consist of several of these components, for instance an
activity for the UI and a service for long running tasks.

Communication between the components is done by intents.
An intent bundles data like the user’s location or an URL with
an action. These intents trigger behaviours in the platform. For
instance, the intent of showing a web page will open the brows-
er activity. The nice thing about this building-block philosophy
is that functionality can be replaced by other applications and
the Android system will use the preferred application for a spe-
cific intent.

19

For example the intent of sharing a web page triggered by a
news reader app can open an email client or a text messaging
app depending on the user’s preference and on the applications
installed. Any application that declares the sharing intent as
their interface can be used.

To aid development, you have a lot of tools from the SDK at
your disposal, the most important ones are:

— android: Create an initial project or manage virtual
devices and versions of the SDK.
— adb: Query devices, connect and interact with them (and
virtual devices) by moving files, installing apps etc.
— emulator: Start it with a virtual device and it will
emulate the defined features. It takes a while to start so
do it once and not on every build.
— ddms: Look inside your device or emulator, watch log
messages, and control emulator features like network
latency and GPS position. View memory consumption or
simply kill processes. If this tool is running, you can
also connect the Eclipse debugger to a process running in
the emulator.

These tools and more – e.g. to analyze method trace logs, in-
spect layouts, or to test apps with random events or backup
functionality – can be found in the tools directory of the SDK.

The user interface of an application is separated from the code
in Android-specific xml layout files. Different layouts can be
created for different screen sizes, country locales and device

20

features without touching Java code. To this end, localized
strings and images are organized in separate resource folders
and the IDE plugins may help to manage all these files.

Testing
The first step to test an app is to run it on the emulator or
device and debug it if necessary through the ddms tool. Android
is built to run on different devices and OS versions without
modification but hardware manufacturers might have changed
pieces of the platform1. Therefore, testing on a physical device
is paramount.

Automated Testing
To automate testing, the Android SDK comes with some capable
and useful testing and instrumentation2 tools. Tests can be
written using the standard JUnit format with some Android
mock objects that are contained in the SDK.
The Instrumentation classes can monitor the UI, send system
events like key presses, et cetera. You can test for the status of
your application after these events occur. The automated tests
can be run on physical devices or in a virtual device. Open-
source testing frameworks such as Robotium3 can complement
your other automated tests; it can even be used to test binary
apk files, if the source is not available. A maven plugin4 and a
helper for the continuous integration server Hudson may also
assist your testing5.

1) For an overview see e.g. www.androidfragmentation.com
2) developer.android.com/guide/topics/testing/testing_android.html
3) code.google.com/p/robotium
4) code.google.com/p/maven-android-plugin/
5) wiki.hudson-ci.org/display/HUDSON/Android+Emulator+Plugin and
hudson-labs.org/content/getting-started-building-android-apps-hudson

21

Signing
Your application will always be signed by the build process,
either with a debug signature or a real one. Your signature may
be self-signed, so forget about signing fees (and security). The
same signature is required for updates of your application.

Distribution
After you have created the next killer application and tested it,
you should put it in the Android Market. It is a good place to
reach both customers and developers of the Android platform,
to browse for new exciting apps, and to sell your own apps.
It is used by other app portals as a source for app meta data.
Furthermore, it is part of the Google Backup Service1, the
Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM)2 and the License Verification
Library (LVL)3. To upload your application to the Android
Market, start at market.android.com/publish.
You are required to register with the service with your Google
Checkout Account and a $25 registration fee. Once your reg-
istration is approved, you can upload your application, add
screenshots and descriptions to finally publish it.
Make sure that you have defined a versionName, versionCode,
an icon and a label in your AndroidManifest.xml. Furthermore,
the declared features in the manifest (uses-feature nodes) are
used to filter apps for different devices. As there are lots of
competing applications in Android Market, you might want to
use alternative application stores. They provide different pay-
ment methods and may target specific consumer groups4.

1) code.google.com/android/backup/index.html
2) code.google.com/android/c2dm/index.html
3) developer.android.com/guide/publishing/licensing.html
4) www.wipconnector.com/index.php/appstores/tag/android

22

Programming bada Apps
bada is Samsung’s own mobile platform introduced in late
2009 and released to endusers in June 2010. bada can run
either on a Linux kernel for high-end devices or on real-time OS
kernels for low-end devices. Samsung promotes bada handsets
as the “smartphones for everybody” aiming to replace feature-
phones with bada handsets.
The UI is based on TouchWiz, already known from Samsung’s
Android handhelds. Over 5 million bada phones were sold
between June and December 2010. For the future, Samsung
plans to sell about 20 million bada-phones per year. Currently
there are 5 bada-based devices available with the Wave S8500
being the flagship.

Prerequisites
In order to start developing for bada you need to register at
developer.bada.com and download the latest bada SDK. The
SDK includes the bada IDE (based on eclipse CDT), a simulator
and a GNU toolchain to provide developers with a popular and
known developing system. Also the IDE offers a GUI Tool, for
designing the UI of your app.
Furthermore there is a bada Widget SDK included, which sup-
ports BONDI JavaScript libraries.

23

Implementation
Inside the IDE you will find a lot of code examples, which you can
copy with one click into your own workspace. These examples
provide a really good entry point for beginners on the platform.
Native bada apps are developed in C++, but Samsung has imple-
mented some restrictions. For example, the API does not use
exceptions. Instead, return values and a combination of macros
are used for error handling. Also RTTI is turned off, so for ex-
ample dynamic_cast does not work on bada.
When creating bada apps, you need to understand memory
management basics, because the API often leaves this to the
developer. The API only uses some parts of STL, but Samsung
claims that you could use STL in your own code.

Note that bada’s STL version is missing some parts, so you
might need to use STLPort for full STL support. Porting other
modern C++ Libraries like boost to work on bada is possible,
but the lack of RTTI and exceptions can make it hard.

The bada API is wrapped in a number of namespaces. The API
offers UI Control and Container classes, but there are no UI
Layout classes, so all your UI must be positioned by hand
or within the code. You need to provide an UI layout for
the landscape and/or the portrait perspective. The API also
provides most standard classes for XML, SQL or Network and
resembles a pretty complete framework. Also make use of the
callbacks for important phone events in your application class,
like low battery level or incoming calls.

24

If you want to write games for bada, the SDK supports OpenGL
ES 1.1 and 2.0. Also the SDK wraps parts of OpenGL for use in its
own classes, so you can also easily port existing OpenGL code
to bada. The bada API has some easy patterns, like that you
have to delete any pointer returned by a method ending in ‘N’.
You should also make sure that each of your own new variables
has its delete:

“MyType* var = new MyType(); // call delete
MyType* array 0 new MyType[10];// call delete[]
MyType type, stackarray[];
// variable on stack will be destroyed by
//scope, no delete”

The central resource for bada developers is developer.bada.com.
The biggest independent bada website and forum is currently
BadaDev.com where you will find great tutorials about coding
for bada. There is an IRC channel #bada at irc.freenode.net, and
of course there are groups for bada on most social networks.

Testing
The bada API offers its own logging class and an AppLog
method, so you should make extensive use of logging in debug
builds. The AppLog will show up in the IDE directly. With the
IDE you can test and debug in the simulator or on a device. As
mentioned in other chapters of this guide, we strongly recom-
mend testing on real devices in general.
Otherwise you can never be sure how the app performs and it
also might turn out that the code that worked perfectly on the
simulator will not do so on the handset.

25

Samsung provides the bada Remote Test Lab (RTL) which is
available for all registered developers and can be installed as
Eclipse-plugin.
Tools and frameworks for unit testing are available within
the IDE/SDK. For details about these tools, check out the
„bada Tutorial.Development Environment.pdf” included in the
documents folder in the SDK base directory.

Distribution
The bada ecosystem is a closed platform with the Samsung
App Store as its only distribution channel. Similar to Apples
AppStore, there are quite strict acceptance rules applied.
Check them out in the „Samsung Apps Publisher Guide“, down-
loadable after you registered at the Samsung Apps Seller Office.
Once your app has made it to the App Store, you will get 70%
of the revenue. Since January 2011, Samsung also allows you to
include third party ad network contents in your bada applica-
tion.

26

Programming Native
BlackBerry Apps
The BlackBerry platform is developed by the Canadian company
Research In Motion (RIM)1 and was launched in 1999. The popu-
larity of BlackBerry devices arose because they were traditionally
equipped with a full keyboard for comfortable text input (which
spawned a condition named BlackBerry Thumb2) and their long
battery life. Add PDA applications such as address book, mail,
calendar, tasks and memopad to these features and you will un-
derstand why the platform is very popular among business users.
Over the last couple of years, BlackBerry increased its popular-
ity among mainstream users, especially in the US where it’s the
second most popular smartphone platform behind iOS3.

Prerequisites
Depending on the type and nature of your planned project
you need to choose an approach for developing a BlackBerry
application. For mid-sized to large applications native Java
development is the first choice. Small apps can also be developed
with the BlackBerry Widget SDK.
The next generation BlackBerry OS is based on QNX Neutrino
Realtime OS (RTOS) which will suppport Adobe AIR Flash pro-
gramming, Java and most likely (but not yet announced) widget
development. However, this chapter focuses on Java develop-
ment, for more information on widget and Flash programming,
please see the respective chapters in this guide.

1) www.rim.com 2) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackberry_thumb
3) gs.statcounter.com

27

Java SDK
As for all Java-driven applications and development, you need
the Java SDK1 (not the Java Runtime Edition).

IDE
For native Java development, you first need to decide which
IDE to use. The first option is one of the BlackBerry IDEs.
BlackBerry devices run on different OS versions, ranging from
version 4.0 to 6.0. For each of these versions, there is a
BlackBerry Java Development Environment (JDE) available2.
These JDEs are complete environments enabling you to write,
compile, package and sign your applications. Device simulators
are included as well.
To compensate for shortcomings in these JDEs (such as the lack
of syntax checking and code completion), the currently pre-
ferred option is the BlackBerry Plugin for the Eclipse IDE3.
To use this plugin, you obviously need to install the Eclipse
IDE first.

Desktop Manager
You should download and install the BlackBerry Desktop Man-
ager4 also. It enables you to deploy your app package on a de-
vice for testing. For faster deployment, you might also use the
tool javaloader that comes with the JDE.

1) www.oracle.com/technetwork/java
2) us.blackberry.com/developers/javaappdev/javadevenv.jsp
3) us.blackberry.com/developers/javaappdev/javaplugin.jsp
4) us.blackberry.com/apps-software/desktop/

28

Coding Your Application
The BlackBerry JDE is partly based on J2ME and some of its
JSR extensions: Integrated into the SDK is the MIDP 2.0
standard with popular JSR extensions that provides APIs for
UI, audio, video, and location services among others1. This
means that one option is to create BlackBerry apps with
J2ME technologies alone.
Another option is to use BlackBerry’s proprietary extensions
and UI framework that enable you to make full use of the
platform. Native UI components can be styled to an extent,
however they inherit their look from the current theme (unless
you override the Field.applyTheme() method).
From OpenGL-ES over homescreen interaction to cryptography
the BlackBerry APIs provide you with everything you need to
create compelling apps. In addition to the official BlackBerry
tools, there are third party extensions that enable you to en-
hance your apps, for example J2ME Polish2 enables you to de-
sign and animate your UI using CSS.

Services
BlackBerry offers many services that can be useful in develop-
ing your applications including advertising, mapping, payment
and push services.
The push service3 is useful mainly in mail, messaging or news
applications. Its benefit is that the device waits for the server
to push updates to it, instead of the device continuously poll-
ing the server to find out if updates are available and then pull-
ing the updates from the server. This reduces network traffic,
battery usage and – for users on metered data plans – costs.

1) www.blackberry.com/developers/docs/6.0.0api/index.html
2) www.j2mepolish.org
3) us.blackberry.com/developers/platform/pushapi.jsp
29

The push service works as follows: Your server sends a data
package of up to 8KB to the BlackBerry push infrastructure.
The infrastructure then broadcasts the message to all or a group
of clients (for content such as a news report) or to one specific
client (for content such as a chat message). The device client
then receives the message through BlackBerry’s Push API and
confirms receipt back to the infrastructure. BlackBerry offers
the push mechanism as a free service, with a premium paid
extension that offers more features.

Testing
BlackBerry provides simulators for various handsets in the JDE
and plug-ins as well as separate downloads. These simulators
enable you to run an app on a PC in the same way it would be
run on a device. To assist with testing, the simulators include
features such as simulating incoming calls and setting the sig-
nal strength enabling you to check how your application reacts
if a device is outside network coverage. Applications running on
the emulators are fully debuggable with breakpoints.
As a great plus, BlackBerry devices provide the capability to
perform on-device debugging with all the features that you en-
joy from the simulators.

Porting
Porting between BlackBerry devices is easy because the OS is
made by a single company that has been careful to minimize
fragmentation issues. However, this does not entirely eliminate
challenges:

— Some classes and functionalities are available on specific
OS versions only. For example the FilePicker that is used
to choose a file is available on OS 5.0 onwards only.
30

— You need to handle different screen resolutions and
orientation modes (landscape and portrait).
— You need to handle touch and non-touch devices. In
addition, the Storm devices use a touchscreen that is
physically clickable, so there is a distinction between a
touch and a click on these devices. BlackBerry’s more
recent touch devices don’t use this technology anymore.

Porting to other Java platforms such as J2ME and Android is
complicated as it’s not possible to port the BlackBerry UI.
Self-written classes for server communication and storage
among others might be reused on J2ME and Android in certain
cases. In general, cross-platform portability strongly depends
on how frequently your app uses native BlackBerry compo-
nents. For example it is not possible to reuse BlackBerry push
services classes on other platforms.

Signing
Many security-critical classes and features of the platform (such
as networking or file APIs) require an application to be signed
such that the publisher can be identified. To achieve this, you
need to obtain a signing key directly from BlackBerry1. The
signing itself is undertaken using the rapc tool which also pack-
ages the application.

Distribution
BlackBerry’s own distribution channel is called App World2
where you can publish your apps. For paid applications, you’ll
get a 70% revenue share. In addition, GetJar3 is a well known
independent website that publishes BlackBerry apps.

1) us.blackberry.com/developers/javaappdev/codekeys.jsp
2) appworld.blackberry.com 3) www.getjar.com
31

Programming Flash Apps
Developing Flash applications and Flash animations for use
within mobile websites, widgets and applications for mobile
devices doesn’t differ significantly from developing browser-
based Flash applications for desktop computers. You must,
however, be aware of the requirements of the target device.
A Flash application (or Flash movie) may consist of two distinct
pieces of software: The animation engine that renders deter-
ministic graphics for the display and the ActionScript engine
that uses input events (time, keyboard, mouse and XML) to
make runtime decisions about whether animations should be
played Flash-internally or externally. ActionScript is a scripting
language based on ECMA-Script available in three versions.

The Adobe Flash players installed within the firmware of mobile
devices are not upgradable in the field. This means that you
must author Flash content to match the Flash player in the
device. Flash-compatible engines and players from alternative
Flash-compatible SDK and tool vendors vary in the functional-
ity provided.
Flash support on mobile devices varies widely from full support
to no support. We anticipate that Flash support will become
standardized on most mobile devices, as the hardware platforms
include faster CPUs and GPUs with OpenGL ES graphics accel-
eration. Until then, you have to find a way to deal with this
fragmentation: Be sure to save your Flash animation in a format
that is compatible with your target device’s software.

32

Many feature phones have support for Flash Lite. The Flash Lite
players provided are compatible with Flash 3, 6 or 8 depending
on when the device was manufactured. These are perfect for
simple Flash games (e.g., puzzle and card games). Some smart-
phones and tablets also have a Flash player pre-installed: Full
Flash support has been announced for Android-based devices
and RIM’s BlackBerry devices. BlackBerry’s tablet OS fully sup-
ports Flash and native UI elements and events allow you to
integrate visually nicely. For the iPhone, Adobe has released
a packager that enables Adobe AIR applications to run on iOS
devices.
You should be aware of the restrictions of each platform and of
the fact that there are a number of alternative Flash-compatible
products that can enable Flash to operate on a number of these
devices – often with better performance.

Prerequisites
Adobe open sourced the Flash specification, permitting inde-
pendent developers and companies to develop Flash-compatible
engines and players. Authoring can be done using the Adobe
Flash Professional or Adobe Creative Suite (CS) software. CS 5
supports ActionScript 3 and Flash 10.1 offering the full 3D and
2D feature set on some smartphones and tablets. If you want
to utilize features such as 3D and ActionScript 3 compatibility,
using the CS5 package and tools is the way to go.
However, as stated earlier, one potential drawback is poor per-
formance: Large binary files may run slowly on less powerful
devices resulting in a poor user experience. Adobe CS 3, 4 and 5
can be used to author Flash content that runs on Alternative
Flash-compatible SDKs, engines and players.

33

These alternative Flash-compatible SDKs generally support
ActionScript 2 and Flash 8 with a full 2D feature set. Note
that video and audio playback support was a feature introduced
in Flash 6.1, so all players have the ability to support video
playback.
Adobe CS5 has a built-in smartphone emulator also. This en-
ables developers to virtually test their application on selected
handsets and tablets.
Pay special attention to the design of your Flash application.
Adobe Creative Suite provides the option to choose between
developing a browser-dependent or a standalone Adobe AIR
application. An Adobe AIR application is essentially a Flash
player, browser engine, and the native device’s APIs wrapped
into one executable file, so that it conforms to the developer
terms and security requirements of many mobile platforms.
Alternative Flash-compatible SDKs go further and integrate
Flash content into existing 2D and 3D software applications.
There are also open source versions including Gnash1 and
GameSWF2 that are designed for desktop systems. Many of the
alternative Flash platforms run outside the browser environment,
working directly with a device’s native APIs.

Tips & Tricks
As it’s mentioned often in this guide, it’s crucial to consider
battery life when creating applications for mobile devices, Flash
is no exception. You should never create memory-intensive
animations purely for the sake of fancy effects. A Flash animation
using ActionScript 3 will create a binary that could be more
than 3 times larger than that for an ActionScript 2 animation
and will likely result in poor performance.

1) www.gnashdev.org
2) tulrich.com/geekstuff/gameswf.html

34

In general, you should think carefully about whether you need
ActionScript 3: It’s a completely different scripting language to
ActionScript 2 and requires a lot more development know-how
and experience to implement efficiently.

You might also want to remember the following to avoid your
Flash app causing excessive battery drain:

— Avoid sliding a Flash object across the screen, unless you
know it performs well. Redrawing every pixel
multiple times in a frame without the support of a GPU is
a performance killer. Select a SDK toolkit that minimizes
CPU utilization to preserve battery life. If the Flash
animation is not changing, the SDK toolkit should show
0% CPU utilization.
— If the target smartphone has one display resolution, use
correctly sized 2D bitmaps to replace SVG objects that
will never change size.
— Minimize network connectivity to that which is required
only.
— Use OS APIs with care. The greater number of OS APIs and
independent software you use, the more work is being
done and the faster the battery runs out of power.
— Design the application to recover gracefully from power
failures. Many of the alternative Flash-compatible SDKs
have additional APIs to support power failures and
include database tools that you can implement in
an application (e.g. saving and restoring settings). These
tools mean your user doesn’t need to re-key data after a
power failure.

35

Testing
The best approach for initial testing is determined by your
chosen architecture: If you have developed an Adobe Flash
browser-based application or Adobe AIR application, then it’s
best to test the application using the Adobe tools.
However, if you have developed a Flash animation (with or with-
out ActionScript) or Flash animations that will be integrated
into another 2D or 3D application, you should consider testing
the application with one of the alternative Flash-compatible
SDKs or tools.

In general: Always test on devices to gain information on how
much memory and battery is being used by the application.

36

Packaging and distribution
When you design Flash content for use in a mobile website,
packaging and distribution is straightforward: You simply follow
the same rules and procedures you would use in deployment for
use in a desktop browser.
Using Flash in a web widget is similar also. Generally you include
the Flash content in the widget as you would for a website,
package the widget and deploy the resulting application in line
with the widget environment’s requirements – for more infor-
mation see the Chapter Programming Widgets.
When the platform offers a built in Flash player that runs Flash
content as an application the packaging requirements can
be more complicated. At the simple end of the spectrum is
Nokia Series 40, where the packaging requirements are quite
simple1:
You create some metadata, an icon and pack these with the
Flash content into a zip file with the extension *.nfl.
At the complex end of the spectrum is packaging for Symbian
devices, where the Flash app has to be given a Symbian C++
launcher and packed in a Symbian SIS file.
While some developers will do this manually, Nokia does provide
an online packaging service that does the heavy lifting for you2.
Generally, when the packaging seems complex, it can often be
simplified by using the platform’s widget option to package
and deploy the content.

In general, once Flash content has been packaged into the cor-
rect format for the platform, it can then be distributed through
any appstore that services that platform.

1) bit.ly/aqEmvv
2) esitv008song.itlase.com/sispack

37

Programming iPhone Apps
The iPhone, along with the iPod touch and iPad, is a highly
interesting and very popular development platform for many
reasons, a commonly named one being the App Store. When
it was introduced in July 2008, the App Store took off like
no other marketplace did before. Now there are far more than
300,000 applications in the App Store, and the number is
growing daily. This reflects the success of the concept but it
also means that it is getting more and more difficult to stand
out in this mass of applications.
Users have downloaded more than 8 billion iOS apps until end
of 2010, and with device sales reaching new all-time highs just
about each quarter, there is no sign of the current volume of
about half a billion downloads per month slowing down. Over
120 million sold devices paired with the users’ willingness to
try apps and pay for content makes the App Store the most
economically interesting target for mobile app development.
The iOS SDK offers high-level APIs for a wide range of tasks
which helps to cut down on development time on your part.
New APIs are added in every major update of iPhone OS, such
as MapKit in iPhone OS 3.0 or (limited) multitasking in iPhone
OS 4.0.
Since the iPad, which went on sale in April 2010, uses the
same operating system and APIs as the iPhone, skills acquired
in iPhone development can be used in iPad development. A
single binary can even contain different versions for both plat-
forms with large parts of the code being shared. Since iOS ver-
sion 4.2 was released in November 2010, all currently sold iOS
devices use a common firmware version, which makes develop-
ment of universal apps for multiple device classes even more
feasible.
38

Prerequisites
Apple’s iOS SDK
In order to develop iPhone (and iPod Touch and iPad) apps,
you will need the iOS SDK, which can be downloaded at
developer.apple.com/iphone. This requires a membership, which
is available for free. If you plan to test your apps on your
device or distribute your apps on the App Store, you need to
sign up for an account starting at 99USD/year.
The iOS SDK contains various applications that will allow you
to implement, test, and debug your apps. The most important
applications are:

— Xcode, the IDE for the iOS SDK
— Interface Builder, to build user interfaces for iPhone app
— Instruments, which offers various tools to monitor app
execution
— iOS Simulator, which allows the developer to test his or
her apps quicker than by deploying to a device.

The iOS SDK will work on any Intel-based Mac running Mac OS
X 10.5 (Leopard) or 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
A guide to get you started and introduce you to the tools is
included, as is a viewer application for API documentation and
sample code. References and guides are also available online at
developer.apple.com/iphone/library/navigation.

39

The SDK includes a large number of high-level APIs separated
into a number of frameworks and libraries, which include,
among others:

— Cocoa Touch, which consists of the UI libraries, various
input methods such as multi-touch and accelerometer.
— Media frameworks, such as OpenAL, OpenGL ES, Quartz,
Core Animation and various audio and video libraries.
— Core Services, such as networking, SQLite, threading and
various other lower level APIs.

The list of available frameworks constantly grows with each
major release of the iOS firmware, which usually happens once
a year in June or July.

Alternative 3rd party development environments
Since Apple relaxed their App Store distribution guidelines,
development using other tools than Objective-C, Cocoa Touch
and Xcode is officially permitted again and most commonly used
in game development, for example using the Unreal Development
Kit1, which Epic released for iOS to much fanfare in December
2010.

1) www.udk.com

40

Using third party development environments and languages
for iOS development offers a number of advantages and
disadvantages compared to the official way of producing iOS
apps. The major advantage being that it is easy to support
multiple platforms from a single code base without having too
much of a maintenance burden. However, as experience with
desktop software has shown, cross-platform software develop-
ment rarely produces outstanding quality and in most cases has
to concentrate on the lowest common denominator, resulting
in a product which doesn’t feel like it really belongs on any of
the platforms.
For an overview on cross-platform technologies in general,
please see the corresponding chapter in this guide.

There are, however, third party development environments
which focus solely on iOS development, such as MonoTouch1.
The platform allows developers to build iOS apps using
C# and .NET while taking advantage of iOS APIs, making it
the alternative that comes closest to what the original SDK
has to offer and still allowing code re-use, for example
when creating similar Windows Phone 7 apps.
Some of those alternative IDEs might, however, carry additional
fees in addition to Apple’s yearly $99 for access to the de-
velop program and Apple’s 30% cut of all sales. As the per-
ceived quality of mobile apps comes in large part from a usable
and beautiful user interface, cross-platform development using
third party IDEs makes the most sense for games, which can
share almost all their code between different platforms.

1) www.monotouch.net

41

Implementation
Usually, you will want to use Apple’s high-level Cocoa Touch
APIs when developing for the iPhone. This means that you will
write Objective-C code and create your user interfaces in Inter-
face Builder, which uses the proprietary XIB file format.
Objective-C is, as the name suggests, a C-based object-oriented
programming language. As a strict superset of C, it is fully
compatible with C, which means that you can use straight C
source code in your Objective-C files.
If you are used to other object-oriented languages such as C++
or Java, Objective-C’s syntax might take some time getting used
to, but is explained in detail at developer.apple.com1. What
separates Objective-C most from these languages is its dynamic
nature, lack of namespace support and the concept of message
passing vs. method calls.
A great way to get you started is Apple’s guide “Your First
iPhone Application”, which will explain various concepts and
common tasks in an iPhone developer’s workflow2. Also check
out some of the sample code that Apple provides online3 to find
out more about various APIs available to you.

Testing
As performance in the iPhone Simulator may be superior to
actual devices by several orders of magnitude, it is absolutely
vital to test on devices. It is highly recommended that you have
at least one device available to test on for each class of devices
you want to deploy your apps on.

1) developer.apple.com/iphone/manage/overview/index.action
2) developer.apple.com/iphone/manage/distribution/distribution.action
3) developer.apple.com/iphone/library/navigation/SampleCode.html

42

For example, an iPhone-only app shouldn’t need to be tested
separately on an iPad, unlike an universal app. However, it
cannot hurt to have several classes of devices, including older
models, since problems such as excessive memory consumption
sometimes will not present themselves on newer hardware.
Testing on real devices is also important because touch-based
input is completely different from a pointer–driven UI model.
You can distribute builds of your application to up to 100 testers
through Ad-Hoc Provisioning, which you can set up in the Pro-
gram Portal1. Each iPhone (and iPad/ iPod touch) has a unique
identifier (UDID – universal device identifier), which is a string
of 40 hex characters based on various hardware parts of the
device.
If you choose to test using Ad-Hoc-Provisioning, simply follow
Apple’s detailed set-up instructions2. Every single step is vital
to success, so make sure that you execute them all correctly.

With iOS 4.0, Apple has introduced the possibility for de-
velopers to deploy Over-The-Air (OTA) Ad-Hoc builds of their
apps to beta testers. There are open source projects3 to facili-
tate this new feature, as well as commercial services4.
Google Toolbox for Mac5 runs the test cases using a shell
script during the build phase, while GHUnit6 runs the tests
on the device (or in the simulator), allowing the developer to
attach a debugger to investigate possible bugs. In version 2.2
of the SDK Apple included OCUnit; an example of how to
create the unit tests is available online7.
1) developer.apple.com/iphone/library/referencelibrary/GettingStarted/
Learning_Objective-C_A_Primer/index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007594
2) developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/
iPhone101/Articles/00_Introduction.html
3) github.com/therealkerni/hockey
4) www.testflightapp.com
5) code.google.com/p/google-toolbox-for-mac
6) github.com/gabriel/gh-unit
7) www.mobileorchard.com/ocunit-integrated-unit-testing-in-xcode
43

In version 4 of iOS Apple introduced a new tool, UIAutomation
which aims to automate the testing of your application by
scripting touch events. UIAutomation tests are written in
JavaScript and a full reference is available in the iOS Reference
Library1. Several other third party testing automation tools for
iPhone applications are available as well, including FoneMon-
key2 and Squish3.

Distribution
In order to reach the broadest possible audience, you should
consider distributing your app on the App Store. There are other
means, such as the Cydia Store for jailbroken iOS devices, but
the potential reach isn’t nearly as large as the App Store’s.
To prepare your app for the App Store, you will need a 512x512
version of your app’s icon, up to five screen shots of your app,
and a properly signed build of your app. Log in to iTunes Connect
and upload your app according to the onscreen instructions.

After Apple has approved your application, which usually
shouldn’t take more than 2 weeks, your app will be available
to customers in the App Store. Due to several rejections in the
past, the approval process receives more complaints than any
other aspect of the iPhone ecosystem. A list of common rejec-
tion reasons can be found on www.apprejections.com. Recently,
Apple has released their full App Store testing guidelines in
order to give developers a better chance to estimate their app’s
success of being approved. Also, the restrictions were relaxed
and apps which were previously rejected were approved after
being re-submitted.

1) developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/DeveloperTools/Reference/
UIAutomationRef/_index.html
2) www.gorillalogic.com/fonemonkey
3) www.froglogic.com/products

44

Books
Over the past years, a number of great books have been written
on iOS development. Here is a short list of good tutorials and
references which makes no attempt to be complete:

Beginner books
These books are best for someone looking into getting started
with iOS development.
— iPhone SDK Development by Bill Dudney and
Chris Adamson
— Beginning iPhone 3 Development by Dave Mark and
Jeff LaMarche

Intermediate books
Books suited for those who have had some exposure to the
iOS SDK and are looking for deepen their knowledge of the
platform.
— More iPhone 3 Development by Dave Mark and
Jeff LaMarche
— Programming in Objective-C 2.0 by Stephen Kochan

Professional books
If you already have some good knowledge of the iOS SDK,
one of these books is sure to increase even your skills.
— Cocoa Design Patterns by Erik M. Buck and
Donald A. Yacktman
— Core Data by Marcus Zarra

45

Companion books
Books that every aspiring iOS developer should call their own
because they impart knowledge besides programming, such as
the importance of user experience using case studies and per-
sonal experiences.
— Tapworthy by Josh Clark
— App Savvy by Ken Yarmosh

Community
One of the most important aspects of iOS development is the
community. A lot of iOS developers are very outspoken and
open about what they do, and how they did certain things.
This is even more visible ever since Twitter and Github gained
momentum and became widely-known.
Search for iPhone, iPad or any other related search terms on
Github.com and you’ll find a lot of source code, frameworks,
tutorials, code snippets and complete applications — most of
them with very liberal licenses which even allow commercial
usage.

Practically all of the most important and most experienced
iOS developers use Twitter to share their thoughts about the
platform with others. There are many comprehensible lists
of iOS developers out there, a notable and well-curated one
being Robert Scoble’s list1. Following a list like that means
staying up to date on current issues and generally interesting
things about iOS development.

1) www.twitter.com/Scobleizer/iphone-and-ipad

46

What makes the community especially interesting is that many
iOS developers pride themselves on taking an exceptional interest
in usability, great user experience and beautiful user interfaces.
You can usually find out about the most interesting trends on
blog aggregators such as CocoaHub.de and PlanetCocoa.org

47

Programming J2ME / Java
ME Apps
Here’s the naked truth: compared to native mobile platform APIs,
such as those on Android, iPhone and Symbian, J2ME offers a
less powerful API, often runs on less powerful hardware and
tends to generate less money for the developer.
So why would you want to develop for J2ME? Mostly for one
reason: market reach.
With over 80% of phones worldwide supporting it, J2ME (which
is officially called Java Mobile Edition or Java ME) is miles ahead
of the competition in this regard. If your business model
relies on access to as many potential customers as possible,
or on providing extra value to existing customers via a mobile
application, then J2ME is a great choice.
However, if your business model relies on direct application
sales, you might want to consider targeting a different platform
(such as Android, Blackberry, iPhone or Symbian).
That being said, it should be noted that J2ME’s capabilities
are constantly improving thanks to the Java Community Pro-
cess1 that standardizes new APIs. In addition, J2ME-compatible
hardware is becoming more powerful and less expensive all the
time. Overall the platform is evolving and changing for the bet-
ter, though admittedly at a slower pace than the competition.

1) www.jcp.org

48

Prerequisites
To develop a J2ME application, you’ll need a couple of things:

— The Java SDK1 (not the Java Runtime Environment) and
an IDE of your choice, such as Eclipse Pulsar for Mobile
Developers2, NetBeans3 with its Java ME plug-in or
IntelliJ4.
— An Emulator, such as the Wireless Toolkit5, the Micro
Emulator6 or a vendor specific SDK or emulator.
— Depending on your setup you may need an obfuscator like
ProGuard7. If you build applications professionally you
will probably want to use a build tool like Maven8
or Ant9 also.
— You may want to check out J2ME Polish, the open source
framework for building your application for various
devices10.

1) www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javame/downloads/index.html
2) www.eclipse.org
3) www.netbeans.org
4) www.jetbrains.com
5) www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/download-135801.html
6) www.microemu.org
7) www.proguard.sourceforge.net
8) maven.apache.org
9) ant.apache.org

49

A complete installation and setup guide is beyond the scope of
this guide, please refer to the respective tools’ documentation.
Beginners often like to use NetBeans, with the Java ME plug-in
installed. Also download and read the JavaDocs for the most
important technologies and APIs: You can download most Java-
Docs from www.jcp.org. There are a couple of useful vendor
specific APIs that should be tracked down manually from the
vendor’s pages (such as the Nokia UI API and Samsung APIs).

Implementation
The J2ME platform is fairly straight-forward: it’s formed by the
Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) and the Mobile
Internet Device Profile (MIDP), which are both quite easy to
understand.
You can create the UI of your app in several ways:

— Highlevel LCDUI components: you use standardized UI
components, such as Form and List.
— Lowlevel LCDUI: you manually control every pixel of your
UI using low-level graphics functions.
— SVG: you draw the UI in scalable vector graphics then use
the APIs of JSR 226 or JSR 2871.

In addition, you will find that some manufacturers provide
additional UI features. For example, Nokia recently introduced
the Touch and Type UI to its Series 40 platform. To enable
developers to make best use of this UI in their applications,
the Nokia UI API was extended to provide features to capture
screen gestures and provide controlling data for UI animations.
Similarly Samsung provide pinch zoom features in their latest
Java ME APIs.
1) www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=287

50

There are also tools that can help you with the UI development.
All of them use low-level graphics to create better looking and
more powerful UIs than are possible with the standard high-
level LCDUI components.

— J2ME Polish1: compatible with the highlevel LCDUI
framework. This tool separates the design in CSS and you
can use HTML for the user interface.
— LWUIT2: a Swing inspired UI framework.
— Mewt3: Uses XML to define the UI.
— TWUIK4: A powerful “Rich Media Engine”.

There is a rich open source scene in the J2ME sector. Interest-
ing projects can be found via the blog on
opensource.ngphone.com.You will also find interesting projects
on the Mobile and Embedded page of java.net5, for example the
Bluetooth project Marge6.

Testing
Because of the fragmentation in the various implementations
of Java ME, testing your applications is vital. Test as early and
as often as you can on a mix of devices. Some emulators are
quite good (personal favorites are Black-Berry and Symbian)
but there are some things you have to test on devices.
Thankfully vendors like Nokia and Samsung provide subsidized
or even free remote access to selected devices7.

2) lwuit.dev.java.net
3) www.mewt.sourceforge.net
4) www.tricastmedia.com/index.php?s=twuik
5) mobileandembedded.dev.java.net
6) marge.dev.java.net
7) www.forum.nokia.com/rda
and innovator.samsungmobile.com/bbs/lab/view.do?platformId=2
51

Automated Testing
There are various unit testing frameworks available for J2ME,
including J2MEUnit1, MoMEUnit2 and CLDC Unit3; System and UI
testing is more complex given the security mod-el of J2ME,
however JInjector4 is a flexible byte-code injection framework
that supports system and UI testing. Code coverage can also be
gathered with JInjector.

Porting
One of the strengths of the mobile Java environment is that it’s
backed by a standard, so it can be implemented by competing
vendors. The downside is that the standard has to be inter-
preted, and this interpretation process can cause differences in
individual implementations. This results in all kinds of bugs and
non-standard behaviours. In the following sections we outline
different strategies for porting your J2ME applications to all
J2ME handsets and to different platforms.

Direct support
The best but hardest solution is to code directly for different
devices and platforms. So you create a J2ME app for MIDP
devices, a native BlackBerry app, a native Windows Mobile app,
a Symbian app, an iPhone app, a Web OS app, and so on. As
you can imagine, this approach has the potential to bring the
very best user experience, since you can adapt your application
to each platform’s UI. At the same time your development costs
will skyrocket. We advise the use of another strategy first, until
your application idea has proved itself to be successful.

1) www.j2meunit.sourceforge.net
2) www.momeunit.sourceforge.net
3) snapshot.pyx4me.com/pyx4me-cldcunit
4) www.code.google.com/p/jinjector

52

Lowest Common Denominator
You can prevent many porting issues by limiting the function-
ality of your application to the lowest common denominator.
In the J2ME world this usually means CLDC 1.0 and MIDP 1.0.
If you only plan to release your application in more developed
countries/regions, you may consider targeting CLDC 1.1 and
MIDP 2.0 as the lowest common denominator (without any
additional APIs or JSR support).
Depending on the target region for the application you might
also consider using Java Technology for the Wireless Industry
(JTWI, JSR 185) or the Mobile Service Architecture (MSA, JSR
248) as your baseline. Both extensions are designed to ensure
common implementations of the most popular JSRs, are sup-
ported by many modern devices and provide many more capa-
bilities to your applications. However, in some regions such as
Africa, South America or India you should be aware that using
these standards may limit the number of your potential us-
ers, because the more common handsets in these regions don’t
implement the extensions.

Using the lowest common denominator approach is typically
easy: There is less functionality to consider. However, the user
experience may suffer if your application is limited in this way,
especially if you want to port your application to smartphone
platforms later. So this approach is a good choice for simple
applications – for comprehensive, feature-rich applications it
may not be the way to go.

53

Porting Frameworks
Porting frameworks help you deal with fragmentation by auto-
matically adapting your application to different devices and
platforms. Such frameworks typically feature the following
ingredients:

— Client libraries that simplify development
— Build tool chains that convert code and resources to
application bundles
— Device databases that provide information about devices
— Cross compilers to port your application to different
platforms

In the J2ME world there are various frameworks to choose
from:
Celsius from Mobile Distillery1 is licensed per month, Bedrock
from Metismo2 provides a suite of cross compilers on a yearly
license fee. J2ME Polish from Enough Software3 is available
under both the GPL Open Source license and a commercial
license. Going in the other direction (from C++ to Java ME) is
also possible with the open source MoSync SDK4.
For more information about cross-platform development and
available toolsets, please see the respective chapter.
Good frameworks enable you to use platform and device
specific code in your project, so that you can provide the best user
experience. In other words: A good porting framework doesn’t
hide device fragmentation, but makes the fragmentation more
manageable.

1) www.mobile-distillery.com
2) www.metismo.com
3) www.enough.de
4) www.mosync.com

54

Signing
The mobile Java standard differentiates between signed and
unsigned applications. Some handset functionality is available
to trusted applications only. Which features are affected and
what happens if the application isn’t signed but uses one of
those features largely depends on the implementation.
On one phone the user might be asked once to enable this
functionality, on another they’ll be asked every time the feature
is used and on a third device they won’t be able to use the
feature at all without signing. Most implementations also
differentiate between the certification authorities who have
signed an application:
Applications signed by the manufacturer of a device enjoy
the highest security level and can access every handset feature
they desire. Applications signed with a carrier certificate
are on a similar level.
Applications signed by JavaVerified1, Verisign2 or Thawte3 are
on the lowest security level. To make matters worse, not every
phone carries all the necessary root certificates. And some well
known device vendors have even stripped away all root
certificates in the past. The result is something of a mess,
so consider signing your application only when required, e.g
when deploying to an app store or when you absolutely need
access to security constrained features. However, in some cas-
es an app store may offer to undertake the signing for you, as
Ovi store does.
Another option is to consider using a testing and certification
service provider and leaving the complexity to them. Intertek4
is probably the largest such supplier.

1) www.javaverified.com
2) www.verisign.com
3) www.thawte.com
4) www.intertek.com/wireless-mobile

55

Distribution
J2ME applications can be installed directly onto a phone in
a variety of ways; the most commonly used methods are over
a Bluetooth connection, via a direct cable connection or Over-
the-Air (OTA). However, app stores are probably the most ef-
ficient way to distribute your apps.: They manage the payment,
hosting and advertisements, taking a revenue share for those
services. Some of the most effective stores include:

— Handmark1 and Mobile Rated2 provide carrier and vendor
independent application stores.
— GetJar is one of the oldest distributors for free mobile
applications3 – not only for Java applications.
— LG distributes apps on www.lgapplication.com
— Ovi store4 targets Nokia users worldwide and provides a
revenue share to the developer at 70% from credit card
billing and 60% from operator billing
— Carriers are in the game also, such as Orange5 or O26.
Basically almost everyone has announced an app store.

1) store.handmark.com
2) www.mobilerated.com
3) www.getjar.com
4) www.publish.ovi.com
5) www.orangepartner.com/site/enuk/mobile/application_shop/
p_application_shop.jsp
6) www.o2litmus.coma

56

An overview of the available app stores (not those selling J2ME
apps alone) can be found in the appstore Wiki on wipwiki.com.
Furthermore there are various vendors who provide solutions for
provisioning of Java applications over a Bluetooth connection,
including Waymedia1 and Futurlink2.

1) www.waymedia.it
2) www.futurlink.com

57

Programming Qt Apps
Pronounced cute — not que-tee — Qt is an application frame-
work that is used to create desktop applications and even a
whole desktop environment for Linux — the KDE Software
Compilation. The reason many developers have used Qt on the
desktop is because it frees them from having to consider the
underlying platform — a single Qt codeline can be compiled to
run on Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, and Linux.
When Nokia bought Trolltech — the company behind Qt — it
was with the goal of bringing this same ease of development
for multiple platforms to Nokia’s mobile devices. Today, Qt can
be used to create applications for devices based on Symbian,
Maemo and, in the near future, MeeGo, an open source platform
initiated by Nokia and Intel. In fact, Qt can now be thought of
as a platform in its own right — you will create a Qt application
and deploy it to devices utilizing a number of different underly-
ing operating systems.

The challenge when developing with C and C++ is that these
languages place all the responsibility on you, the developer. For
example, if you make use of memory to store some data in your
application, you have to remove that data and free the memory
when it is no longer needed (If this is not done, a dreaded
memory leak occurs).
Qt uses standard C++ but makes extensive use of a special pre-
processor (called the Meta Object Compiler, or moc) to deal with
many of the challenges faced in standard C++ development. As
a consequence Qt is able to offer powerful features that are
not burden by the usual C++ housekeeping. For example, instead
of callbacks, a paradigm of signals and slots is used to simplify

58

the communication between objects1; the output from one ob-
ject is a “signal” that has a receiving “slot” function in the
same or another object.
Adding Qt features to an object is simply a case of including
QObject (which is achieved by adding the Q_OBJECT macro
to the beginning of your class). This meta-object adds all
the Qt specific features to an object. Qt then provides a
range of objects for creating GUIs (the QWidget object),
complex graphical views (the QGraphicView object), managing
network connections and communications, using SVG, XML
parsing, and using scripts among others.

Many developers who have used Qt report that applications
can be written with fewer lines of code and with greater in-
built reliability when compared to coding from scratch in C++.
The result is that less time is needed to create an application
and less time is spent in testing and debugging. For mobile
developers using Qt is free of cost. It benefits also from being
open source, with a large community of developers contributing
to the content and quality of the Qt APIs. Should you wish to
get involved the source code is made available over Gitorious2.

1) doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7-snapshot/signalsandslots.html
2) qt.gitorious.org

59

Prerequisites
Setting up a development environment to create applications
for Nokia’s Symbian devices is time consuming, although things
are improving. The Maemo environment is a little easier, but if
you had ambitions to create a cross platform version of your
application, then you would have required a Microsoft Windows
PC for Symbian and Linux computer for Maemo.

The Nokia Qt SDK installs everything you need to create, test,
and debug applications for Symbian and Maemo from a single
package. It’s also future proofed for MeeGo apps development.
All versions offer tools for compiling Symbian and Maemo apps,
with Symbian apps being compiled in the Linux and Apple Mac
versions using the Remote Compiler service.

Creating your application
The Qt SDK is built around the Qt Creator development tool.
Using Qt Creator you define most of your application visually
and then add the specific program logic through a code editor
that offers full code completion support and integrated help.
One of the neat features of Qt is QML, a language for declarative
UI definition. While QML generally simplifies UI development,
its biggest advantage is that the tools within Qt Creator enable
the UI to be defined by graphic designers who do not have to
be aware of the technical programming aspects.
In the past, one of the challenges with cross platform applica-
tions for mobile has been accessing platform features: Anytime
you want to find the device’s location or read a contact record
it’s been necessary to revert back to the platform’s native APIs.
This is where the Qt Mobility APIs come in. The APIs provided
by Qt Mobility offer a common interface to device data such as

60

contacts, location, messages, and several others. This means
that if you, for example, need the device’s location the same
API will obtain the location information on both a Symbian and
Maemo device. (The Nokia Qt SDK also enables you to integrate
the full platform SDKs so you can use native APIs if you want to.)
As with Qt in general, working with the mobility APIs is quite
straightforward. The following code, for example, shows that
only a few lines are needed to access a device’s current location:

void positionUpdated
(constQGeoPositionInfo&gpsPos) {
latitude = gpsPos.coordinate().latitude();
longitude = gpsPos.coordinate().longitude();
}

However, do be aware that Qt does not yet insulate you from
all the differences between platforms. For example, the X and
Y axes reported from the device accelerometers are transposed
between Symbian and Maemo devices. A simple enough issue to
address with an #IFDEF, but still an issue to be aware of.

61

If you are already familiar with C++ development on the desktop,
creating Qt applications for Symbian or Maemo will be straight-
forward. Once you have mastered the Qt APIs you should
find you can code much faster and with fewer of the usual
C++ frustrations. Qt has many interesting features, such as
WebKit support enabling you to integrate web content into
your app and scripting that can be used to add functionality
quickly during development or change runtime functionality.
It’s also worth pointing out that, because Qt applications are
compiled to the platform they will run on, they deliver very
good performance and usability also. For most applications
the levels of performance will be comparable to that previously
achieved by hardcore native applications only.

Testing
The Nokia Qt SDK includes a lightweight simulator enabling ap-
plications to be tested and debugged on the development PC.
The simulator includes tools that enable device data, such as
location or contacts records, to be defined so that the applica-
tion’s functionality can be fully tested. The simulator does not,
however, eliminate the need for on device testing.
In addition, the Nokia Qt SDK includes tools to perform on-
device debugging on Symbian and Maemo devices. This feature
can be handy to track down bugs that come to light only when
the application is running on a device. Such bugs are rare and
tend to surface in areas such as comms, where the Qt simulator
uses the desktop computer’s hardware, hardware that differs
from the equivalent technology on a mobile device.
QTestLib provides both Unit testing and extensions for testing
GUIs. It replaced QtTestLib, however you may find useful tips
by searching for this term. A useful overview is available at
qtway.blogspot.com/2009/10/interesting-testing.html

62

Packaging
For a Qt application to run on a mobile device the Qt API
framework has to be present. The Nokia N900 has the Qt APIs
built in. In addition, Maemo and MeeGo devices provide an
update mechanism that will install the necessary framework
components should there be newer versions needed by the app.

For Symbian devices the situation is a little different. Symbi-
an^3 devices have the APIs built in. However, Symbian doesn’t
include a built in mechanism to add the APIs to earlier devices.
The solution is Smart Installer, which is included automatically
in Symbian apps built with the Nokia Qt SDK. As an app is in-
stalled on a Symbian device, Smart Installer checks for the pres-
ence of the necessary Qt packages and, if they are not there,
downloads and installs them. Using this mechanism, Qt apps
can be easily targeted at almost all recent S60 and Symbian
devices.

63

Signing
As Qt applications install as native applications on Symbian and
Maemo devices they need to comply with each platform’s sign-
ing requirements. In the case of Maemo this means that signing
is not required. For applications to be installed on Symbian
devices, signing is necessary. If you choose to use Ovi Store
to distribute your app, Nokia will organize for your app to be
Symbian Signed, at no cost.
The process is straightforward and described in full in the
Distribute section of the Forum Nokia website2, but in summary:

— You sign up as an Ovi publisher
— You provide up to five device IMEIs and request a UID for
your application
— The Ovi team provides you with a “developer certificate”
and a UID for your app
— Now you create your app with the UID provided, sign
your app during development to run it on one of the
five devices elected and test it to ensure it complies with
the Symbian Signed Test Criteria2
— Once tested, you submit an unsigned copy of the app to
the Ovi publishing portal

1) www.forum.nokia.com/Distribute/Packaging_and_signing.xhtml
2) www.symbiansigned.com/app/page/overview/testcriteria

64

Distribution
Ovi Store is the latest iteration of the Nokia app store solution,
with a history stretching back to 2003. Importantly, once an
application has met their quality requirements — beyond re-
moving indecent or illegal applications — there is no restriction
on the applications that can be hosted.
So you will find many applications in Ovi Store that compete
directly against offerings from Nokia, such as alternative
browsers, music players, and email applications.
To use Ovi Store you need to register and pay a one-time €1
fee — registration is open to both companies and individuals.
When your application starts selling the revenue depends on
how the user makes the purchase:

— For credit card payments you get 70% of revenue after
any applicable taxes and costs
— For operator billing purchases you get 60% of revenue
after applicable taxes and costs.

While the reduced revenue from purchases made through oper-
ator billing may seem a disadvantage, where operator billing
is available for each $1 in credit card revenue on average
developers will receive over $10 — so operator billing can be
the most lucrative option. (Developers who really don’t like the
idea of losing the 10% can opt to sell apps through credit card
purchases only.)

65

Programming Symbian
Apps
The Symbian platform is an open-source software platform for
mobile devices. It consists of an operating system (formerly
known as Symbian OS), middleware and user interface layers
(formerly known as S60). Its development is stewarded by
Nokia.

As a third party developer you can create applications and
middleware in Symbian C++, the native programming language
of the Symbian platform. Symbian C++ is a specialized subset of
C++ with Symbian-specific idioms.
However, it has a steep learning curve and your first steps can
be more frustrating than in other environments. It’s for this
reason that Nokia is promoting Qt as the primary app-
lication development for Symbian (and MeeGo).
So unless you have specialist development requirements, such
as low level video manipulation, we would suggest you go to
the Programming Qt Apps chapter and skip this section alto-
gether.
That said, native Symbian C++ APIs provide the most compre-
hensive access to device features and enable rich application
development. They provide fine-grained control over all aspects
of the operating system, including memory, performance and
battery life; and deliver a consistent performance advantage
over other runtimes. For these reasons Symbian C++ is still
of interest to many developers.

1) www.symbian.org
2) developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian_C%2B%2B_Quick_Start
67

Prerequisites
The official desktop development platforms for Symbian C++
are Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Vista
and Windows 7. All of the kits and tools supplied for Symbian
development are free. If your computer meets the requirements,
setting it up for Symbian C++ development is as simple as
downloading:

1. Symbian^3 SDK for Nokia devices1 and installing it
2. Installing ActivePerl version 5.6.1.6382 from the SDK
3. Installing Carbide.c++3

Linux and Mac OS X are not officially supported platforms. One
way around this is to use a virtual machine that hosts Windows.
Other options are more complex, but information can be found
online4.

Carbide.c++
Carbide.c++ is designed for developers who wish to create
applications that run on production phones - that is “on top” of
the Symbian platform. Typical users include professional appli-
cation and games developers, professional service companies,
hobbyist developers, students and research groups. Carbide.c++
is intended for use with one or more SDKs.

1) www.forum.nokia.com/Develop/Other_Technologies/Symbian_C++/Tools
2) found in the Symbian^3 SDK at epoc32toolsdistribActivePerl-5.6.1.635-
MSWin32-x86.msit
3) www.forum.nokia.com/Develop/Other_Technologies/Symbian_C++/Tools/
4) www.forum.nokia.com

68

Based on Eclipse, Carbide.c++ includes the GCCE compiler, a de-
bugger that enables debugging on both the emulator and pro-
duction devices, analysis tools, and more.

Symbian/S60 Software Developer
Kits (SDKs)
The Symbian and older S60 SDKs contain the libraries and head-
er files that enable you to develop applications. These SDKs
provide access to APIs that are guaranteed to work across a
broad range of Symbian-based devices today and in the future.
Once you have installed the SDKs for the Symbian/S60 versions
you wish to build for, you can use the built-in application wiz-
ard to build, debug and run your first native application, and
download it to a Symbian phone, without writing a single line
of code.

Porting to Symbian
The Symbian platform includes standard libraries that enable
developers to build POSIX-compliant C code and use near-ISO
standard C++, including the Standard Template Library. These
libraries can substantially reduce the time and effort required
to port POSIX-based software to the Symbian platform. They are
especially useful for porting existing C++ or C-based software
from the desktop environment and increase the scope for cross-
platform software development using C/C++ code.
Existing standards-compliant code will work on the Symbian
platform with some minor changes and a rebuild. This means
that Developers can benefit from an open-source codebase
instead of having to create everything from scratch. The C
language support comprises four ‘base’ libraries (libc, libm,

69

libpthread and libdl), five additional libraries (libssl, libz, lib-
crypto, libcrypt and libglib) and related tools.
For standard C++ support, the platform provides the popular
STLport version of the Standard Template Library and a small
but useful subset of the Boost libraries.
There are no standard C/C++ APIs for the UI or application
engines, such as Calendar, Contacts and Messaging, and no
access to most handset-specific features such as multimedia
or telephony. To access these features you need to use the
Symbian APIs or take advantage of the APIs offered by Qt and
Qt Mobility.

Testing
For automated unit testing, googletest1 works on Symbian, and
other Mobile C++ platforms.

Singing
Symbian uses a trust-based platform security model. This means
some APIs are protected by platform security “capabilities”. If
you use APIs protected by capabilities, your application will
need to be signed before it can be distributed. In addition it’s
necessary to sign an application during development in order
to install it to a device: This is done using a “development
certificate”. For most applications, signing and the provision of
“development certificates” will be provided for free as part of
the submission to Ovi store (see the chapter on Programming
Qt applications for more information).For a limited number of
applications using more advanced APIs, it will be necessary to
obtain Certified Signed through the Symbian Signed website2.

1) www.code.google.com/p/googletest 2) www.symbiansigned.com

70

Distribution
Nokia Ovi Store will probably be your primary distribution chan-
nel (see the chapter on Programming Qt applications for more
information), but of course you can also distribute applications
independently or through a number of operator and third-party
application stores.

71

Programming WebOS
Apps
WebOS is a multitasking mobile operating system based on a
Linux kernel introduced January 2009 by Palm. They introduced
the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi which are webOS driven. In Spring
2010, Palm was bought by Hewlett Packard who are now in-
troducing webOS based tablets to increase the market share
(in December 2010, only 1,3% of US smartphones supported
webOS1).
Since early 2011 the protoype-based WeOS framework “Mojo” is
replaced by “Enyo”. Enyo improves the performance of your apps
and enhances the layout handling. Probably the biggest advan-
tage of the platform is that there are very few prerequisites
needed and that it is very easy to get started, especially when
you have a little experience withweb developing:
WebOS applications can be built using common web standards
like JavaScript, html and CSS. For implementing advanced tech-
nologies like 3D graphics, you will code in C language.

1) blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/us-smartphone-battle-heats-up

73

Prerequisites
First step of implementation is downloading the HP webOS SDK
(which also includes a PDK installer) and VirtualBox (needed
for the Palm Emulator) from developer.palm.com. The SDK/PDK
is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
There is no need to sign up for an account at this point, but you
will need one for publishing your application later on. It is also
helpful to have a look into the user interface guidelines before
starting your project.

Implementation
Before you start developing you need to be aware of which
Development Kit answers your needs.

SDK (Software Development Kit) PDK (Plug-in Development Kit)

Javascript, CSS, Prototype based
framework (Enyo) C, C++

No compiling needed (no compiling Porting applications from other
errors) platforms

Implementing 3D graphics with
Easy developing for web developers OpenGL and SDL

Ares1, an online interface builder via Integrate C/C++ code into apps built
drag&drop and a built-in editor with web technologies

Easily swap between Ares and hand-
built workspace (since Enyo) Eclipse plugin

Pre-configured Xcode template with
Source is viewable for users headers and libraries for MAC machines,
source is not viewable for users

1) ares.palm.com

74

For using Ares you need to sign up for a free account at
developer.palm.com. The source code is saved online so you can
access it and continue your work from anywhere you want.

Some major Ares features:

— Drag-and-drop interface builder
— Code editor
— Visual debugger
— Log viewer
— Source control integration
— Drag-and-drop calls to phone services and sensors
— Preview apps in the browser
— Run apps directly on the webOS emulator or device
(requires SDK installation)

Testing
There are various ways of testing and debugging. For testing
you can always run your application on the device or on the
emulator using these command-line tools.

— palm-generate: Generates an empty project with the
necessary files and directory structure.
— palm-package: Creates an installable application
package.
— palm-install: Installs an application package on the
device.

75

The debugging tools depend on which Development Kit you
decide to use:

1. If you are building with web technologies the most
common and easiest way of debugging is on-browser-
development: You can run your application on any
(webkit standards) browser and use its native tools for
debugging (e.g. Chrome inspector). This is especially
useful for developing for different devices and different
screen resolutions. Just resize the browser to the
resolution you need and the application automatically
behaves like on a device of that resolution.

2. The Palm Inspector is another SDK debugging tool.
It allows to examine the DOM of an application running
on the emulator. First you need to launch the app using
the -i option with the palm-launch command
(palm-launch -i com.myapplication.app), then start
the Palm Inspector.

3. WebOS also provides on-device debugger C,C++ apps.
In order to use them, you need to shell into the device or
the emulator.
Use novaterm on Mac OS X and putty (putty -P 10022
root@ localhost) on Windows. Type debug to launch the
debugger, or gdb for a standard linux debugger. You can
use breakpoints, display variables, and trace the stack.

76

Distribution
Be sure to have a look into the app submission checklist on
developer.palm.com to ensure you are following the HP guide-
lines. There is a SDK and a PDK app submission checklist related
to the application type you want to submit. Before you can
submit any application you need to create a developer account.
There are three different types, all of them are free.
Since you cannot change the membership type afterwards,
choose carefully:

Account type Fees Publish Software

Full account Free Yes

Community
account Free No

Open source
Free Yes
account

78

Access forum Revenue Share Notes

Yes 70%

This type is obsolete.
It has no advantages
Yes N/A
but you cannot pub-
lish any software.

All software must be
Yes 70%
open source

79

Programming Windows
Phone 7 Apps
Microsoft is making a fresh start with the Windows Phone 7
platform. The former Windows Mobile operating system was
declining in both user acceptance and market share, so the
need for innovation was clearly felt. The OS is geared towards
consumers rather than business users, and has a simple user
interface that is focused on typography and content. A market-
ing budget of 500 million USD has been spent to promote the
new platform and 1.5 million handsets have been sold in the
first six weeks since launch. Although Apple sold more devices
of the iPhone 4 within just three days, Windows Phone 7 shall
still be considered as a relevant player.

Development
Windows Phone 7 development is done in C# or VB.NET, using
the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE. Depending on the type of
application you are developing, you will use one of two plat-
forms – Silverlight for event-driven applications, or XNA for games
driven by a “game loop”. Both platforms are present in the
Windows Phone 7 OS layer as shown in the following figure:

80

Windows Phone 7 Series Framework

Sensors FMRadio

PhoneApplicationFrame PhoneApplicationPage PushNotification

Camera Device Integration Launchers & Choosers

Bing MapControl Pause / Resume

Silverlight Presentation
and Media XNA Frameworks

Controls Drawing Media Input Media

Markup Isolated Storage Content GamerService

Navigation Shapes Graphics Audio

Application Object

Common Class Library

Threading Collections Configuration Linq

Text IO Net Diagnostics Security ComponentModel

Location Reflection Runtime Resources Globalization

81

It is important to consider which platform you should lever-
age when building your application.

Use Silverlight if… Use XNA if…
…you want to create an …you want to create a 2D
event-driven application. or 3D game.

…you want to use standard …you want to manage
Windows Phone 7 controls. art assets such as models,
meshes, sprites, textures, or
animations.

…you want to target both …you want to target
Windows Phone 7 and the Windows Phone 7, Windows,
web, re-using some code. and Xbox 360, re-using lots
of code.

82

Functions and Services
Windows Phone 7 applications have access to input such as
location, multi-touch screen, accelerometer, and microphone.
Available services include media playback and push notifica-
tions that can update application tiles (widgets that reside on
the start page of the phone).
Windows Phone 7 currently does not support multitasking, and
instead encourages developers to implement best practices
regarding saving and restoring application state (“tombston-
ing”). This means the onus will be on the developer to cache
and restore things like data and UI state when resuming the
application, to create the appearance of an application that
never stopped running.
In contrast to Windows Mobile, developers cannot execute
native code or access the Windows API directly. While this
ensures applications are sandboxed and cannot do anything
that will permanently affect the usability of the phone, it re-
stricts the extensibility of the platform and limits the type of
applications that can be developed. For example, core platform
features such as the dialer and on-screen keyboard can gener-
ally not be replaced or extended.
There are currently several native controls that are not included
in Silverlight, such as pivot, panorama, and context menu. At
phone.codeplex.com you can download an intermediate solu-
tion if you want to use such controls.

84

Distribution
Applications for Windows Phone 7 are distributed through a
single endpoint, Microsoft’s Marketplace service. While appli-
cation content is reviewed and restricted similar to the Apple
App Store, Microsoft provides fairly comprehensive guidelines
for submission, available at create.msdn.com.

Resources
Visit create.msdn.com for news, developer tools, and forums.
The development team posts on their blog windowsteamblog.
com/windows_phone.

Testing
You can unit test applications using the Windows Phone Test
Framework2 or the Silverlight Unit Test Framework3. Check the
web for several public articles on unit testing Silverlight and
Windows Phone applications4.

1) www.wptestlib.codeplex.com
2) www.silverlight.codeplex.com
3) live.visitmix.com/mix10/sessions/cl5 and
dotnet.dzone.com/news/test-driven-development and
www.smartypantscoding.com/a-cheat-sheet-for-unit-testing-silverlight-apps-
on-windows-phone-7

85

Programming Mobile
Widgets
We have mentioned that some approaches to mobile develop-
ment require you to learn multiple languages and the unique
features of individual platforms. One of the latest approaches
to solving this problem, and offering one development
technology for many devices, is web widgets. Web widgets
are based on the scripting and mark-up languages used for
websites (HTML, CSS and JavaScript).
To run a web widget a device needs to provide browser runtime
environment. Most devices have a browser that supports web
languages, so it is a small step in the technology to make
almost any device capable of running widgets.
The biggest advantage of widgets is that they offer probably
the easiest route into mobile development. Web developers are
able to create widgets using their existing web design skills and
code in the languages they already know. Equally, for anyone
taking their first steps into mobile development or first steps
into programming, HTML, CSS, and the JavaScript language
are a lot easier to learn than the relatively complex native
languages.

86

Widget characteristics
In general, a widget can be characterized as a small website
installed on a device. But if that’s the case, why not simply use
a website? Well, there are several advantages of a widget com-
pared with a web page:

— Widgets can be more responsive than websites: In a
widget you work with raw data not HTML pages, the
reduction in data overhead means widgets make better
use of mobile network bandwidth.
— Widgets are already first class apps on some phones:
Although widget environments vary, a user can
open a widget in just a few clicks, there is no URL to type
or bookmark to find. For example, on Symbian or Black-
berry devices widgets are installed and accessed in the
same way as native applications are.
— Widgets can look like native applications: Some widget
environments include features that replicate the
device’s native menus and UI. Widgets that behave like
native applications are much easier to use than websites.
— Widgets can run on a device’s home screen: Some widget
environments, such as Symbian, are able to provide
summary views users can add to their device’s homepage
while others, such as Samsung’s Touchwiz can incorporate
arbitrarily sized widgets.
— Widgets can use device data: The ability to use device
data, such as location or contact records, enables
widgets to offer information that has context, such as
identifying social network contacts based on the entries
in the device’s address book.

87

— Widgets can generate revenue: They can be packaged and
distributed via application stores so you can sell them
just like native applications.

If there is a challenge in creating widgets, it’s the the lack
of universal support for a common standard. W3C, together
with WAC/ JIL is pushing forward with the definition of
standards. This standardization is still underway and infor-
mation on its progress can be found in the W3C Wiki1.
Because the standards are not complete, it’s important to be
aware that each widget technology has slightly different
ways of implementing the draft specifications and not all en-
vironments implement all of the draft standards. In general,
a widget that follows the specifications given by the W3C will
enable you to target these widget environments:

— Blackberry (v5.0 or later):
bit.ly/blackberry-widgets
— Nokia WRT (Selected S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2,
S60 5th Edition and Symbian^3 devices):
bit.ly/nokia-wrt
— Vodafone360: bit.ly/vf-widgets
— WAC/ JIL: www.jil.org
— Windows Mobile (v6.5): bit.ly/winmo-widgets

To port your widget over to for example iPhone and Android,
you can use tools like PhoneGap2, Titanium from Appcelerator3,
and Rhomobile4 among others. Of these options, PhoneGap of-
fers a solution that is closest to the W3C approach.

1) www.w3.org/2008/webapps/wiki/WidgetSpecs
2) www.phonegap.com
3) www.appcelerator.com
4) www.rhomobile.com

88

Prerequisites
Widgets, just like websites, are created entirely in plain text.
These text files are then packaged as a zip archive. This makes
it possible to create widgets using a text editor, zip applica-
tion, and a graphics application (to create an icon and graphics
for the widget). If you have a tool for web development it can
be used for widget development. The primary advantage of us-
ing a web editor is the support these tools provide for compos-
ing HTML, CSS, or JavaScript.
There are also a number of tools specifically designed for de-
veloping widgets. These may be delivered as plug-ins to web
authoring tools, such as the Nokia WRT plug-ins for Aptana
Studio; Dreamweaver; and Visual Studio, or as standalone tools
like BlackBerrys Widget SDK1. These tools provide template
projects, preview environment, validation, packaging, and de-
ployment features.

1) us.blackberry.com/developers/browserdev/widgetsdk.jsp

89

Writing your code
In general, there are no special requirements for writing code for
a widget. The principal area where a widget differs from a website
is the variety of relatively small screen sizes it has to work on.
Devices running widgets may offer WVGA, nHD, QVGA, or other-
resolution screens. CSS provides an elegant solution to reformat-
ting information to accommodate these varying screen sizes.

By the way: Try to use CSS3 whenever possible and remove
any old compatibility code or you may run into issues.

You can start by simply:
1. Creating index.html and config.xml files.
2. Zipping them at the command line using zip
myWidget.wgt index.html config.xml.
3. Opening the myWidget.wgt ﬁle in Opera.

90

Of course, your widget can also use AJAX and one of the vari-
ous JavaScript libraries, such as jQuery, MooTools, YUI, Dojo,
or Guarana.
Depending on the widget platform you are targeting you may
be able to use more advanced technologies such as Canvas,
SVG, Flash Lite, or even HTML5 features such as the
<audio> and <video> tags.

In addition, each environment’s APIs for retrieving device
information, accessing user data, storing data, or other en-
vironment specific tasks will need to be mastered. In most
cases these APIs follow JavaScript conventions and are easy
to learn. For example, the following code uses Nokia Platform
Services 2.0 APIs to asynchronously determine a device’s loca-
tion:

serviceObj = nokia.device.load(“geolocation”);

serviceObj.getCurrentPosition(success_callback,
error_callback,positionOpts);
…
function success_callback(result){
Lat = result.coords.latitude;
Long = result.coords.longitude;
}

While standards are still to be finalised, overall the APIs are
moving in very similar directions. The W3C Geolocation API
Specification proposes an almost identical API for the same
task:

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition
(successCallback,errorCallback,
positionOptions);

91

All the widget runtimes are advancing quickly, with new fea-
tures being added regularly. While keeping up with these de-
velopments may be a challenge it is certainly worth while if you
want to create leading edge widgets.

Testing
It is always good to be able to test on a PC and you can do this
for your W3C compliant widgets in Opera 9 or later. However,
if your widget includes device integration or platform specific
features you will need to look to other tools and fortunately
most widget development tools provide a computer based
preview environment as well. These preview tools enable you to
display widgets in various screen resolutions and orientations,
issue device triggers (such as removal of a memory card) to the
widget, and testing against simulated device data (such
as contacts and location data). Of course, once you finish desk-
top testing, final testing on your own phone will be essential.
The way a widget looks and behaves can only be fully assessed
on a real screen, under realistic lighting conditions, and in a
real network.

Signing
Currently most widget environments don’t require widgets to be
signed. This situation may change as the APIs to access device
features become more advanced. It is worth noting that the
W3C standards include a proposal for widget signing.

92

Distribution
While the W3C is working on standards that will enable widgets
to be discovered from websites, in very much the same way RSS
feeds are today, there is no universal mechanism for widget
discovery, yet.
However, some widget environments enable you to add a link
to a widget on a website so that the widget installs directly into
the environments or device when downloaded. For example,
by identifying a Nokia WRT widget with the MIME type AddType
x-nokiawidget .wgz downloading the widget will automatically
initiate the installation process.

Distribution via a website is not the only option. Many appli-
cation stores welcome widgets. As we went to press, the only
store that supports W3C widgets is the Vodafone Widget store1,
but by packaging your widgets appropriately you can upload
them into Nokia Ovi store2, the Windows Marketplace3 or RIM
Blackberry AppWorld4. You can use tools, such as PhoneGap,
to port your widget to a native application environment, thus
gaining the option to use other stores, such as Apple AppStore
and Android Market among others.

1) widget.vodafone.com
2) store.ovi.com
3) www.windowsmarketplace.com
4) appworld.blackberry.com/webstore

93

Developing Accessible Apps
Regardless of the technology you choose to develop your apps,
you’ll want to ensure that your app can be used by as many
people in as many different markets as possible.
Many of your potential users have a range of disabilities which
make it more difficult for them to use mobile technology. These
disabilities include but are not limited to various levels of sight
or hearing impairments, Cognitive disabilities, dexterity issues
or things like technophobia.
The challenge then, is to design your apps accessibly to enable
as many people to use/purchase your application as possible.

Built-In Accessibility Features
Depending on the platform you are using, there are various
accessibility features built-in to handsets to help both the user
and the developer to make best use of your apps. For example,
the iOS devices include:

— VoiceOver, which speaks the objects and text on screen,
helping blind users who cannot see the screen.
— Zoom. This magnifies the entire contents of the display
screen.
— White on Black. This inverts the colours on the display,
which helps many people who need the contrast of black
and white but find a white background emits too much
light.

94

— Captioning and subtitles, for people with hearing loss.
— Audible, visible and vibrating alerts, to enable people
to choose what works best for them.
— Voice Control. This enables users to make phone calls
and control music playback using voice commands.

Users often rely on 3rd party applications such as Talkback
on the Android platform available from the market place or
Talks from nuance for the Symbian platform which provides
screen reading and screen magnification features.

Some of the platforms have Accessibility APIs to help you en-
able your app to work along side assistive technology that
may be running on the user’s phone along side your app. In
general however, the following guidelines will help your apps
to be more accessible.

— Use standard rather than custom UI elements where pos
sible
— Follow the standard UI guidelines on your platform.
— Label all images with a short description of what the
image is such as “Play” for a play button etc.
— Avoid using colour as the only means of differentiating
an action. For example a colour-blind user won’t be able
to correct the red form fields.
— Use the Accessibility API for your platform if there is one.
This will enable you to make custom UI elements more
accessible and will mean less work on your part across
your whole app.
— Test your app on the target device with assistive
technology such as Voiceover on the iPhone.

95

Developing Accessible iOS Apps
iOS has good support for accessibility. However, it only works
well if the accessibility guidelines1 have been followed. This
document details the API and provides an excellent source of
hints and tips for maximizing the user experience with your
apps.

Developing Accessible BlackBerry
Apps
BlackBerry also provides good and extensive information about
the use of the accessibility API and many hints on accessible
UI design on their website for developers2.

1) developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserExperience/
Conceptual/iPhoneAccessibility
2) docs.blackberry.com/en/developers/deliverables/11936

96

Developing Accessible Symbian /
Qt Apps
At the time of writing, there is no “accessibility API” for the
Symbian platform, however there are several third party apps
which provide good access to many Symbian phones along
with the many of the apps they use.

When developing Native Symbian apps your best chance of
developing an accessible app is to use the standard UI controls
where possible. If you are developing using QT, then at the time
of writing the Symbian port of Qt does not include, Qt’s acces-
sibility API. However this is likely to change soon. Please check
the web for details1.

Developing Accessible Android
Apps
Android has several accessibility features including an acces-
sibility API. Again, when developing Android apps you should
use standard views where possible and make sure users can
navigate your app via the trackball. This will give your app the
best chance of being rendered accessibly by the likes of Talk-
back and other assistive technology applications. For more
information about Android accessibility including how to use
the text to speech API, go to code.google.com/p/eyes-free.
For more information about making your custom views acces-
sible, please see developer.android.com/reference/android/
view/accessibility/package-summary.html

1) doc.qt.nokia.com/qq/qq24-accessibility.html

97

Programming with
Cross-Platform Tools
So many platforms, so little time. This accurately sums up the
situation that we have in the mobile space. There are plenty of
platforms to choose from nowadays: Android, bada, BlackBerry,
iOS, MeeGo, Symbian, webOS and Windows Phone are the most
important smartphone platforms; while Java ME and Brew MP
dominate on feature phones.

Decision makers have to evaluate the market reach, market
potential and cost of development for each platform and weigh
those against the drawbacks of cross platform frameworks.
Don’t confuse the market size of a platform with the market
potential for your application — while Android and iPhone
appear to have the biggest market places at the beginning of
2011, you will also need the biggest marketing effort to get
noticed. So concentrating on seemingly smaller platforms
might be a smart choice for some apps.

However, to quote Queen’s famous lyrics: ‘I want it all, I want it
all, I want it all ...and I want it now!’ In that case you can either
throw money at the problem or adopt a cross platform strategy.

By the way, we are not talking about app stores here, this is
a different market fragmentation problem. The more than 100
app stores, from operators, manufacturers and independent
companies create challenges of their own. This is a topic for a
different chapter that may come in a future edition.

98

Limitations and Challenges of Cross
Platform Approaches
If you want to deliver your app across different platforms you
have to overcome some obstacles. Some challenges are easier
to overcome than others:

Native Programming Languages
By now you will certainly have noticed that most mobile plat-
forms release their own SDKs, which enable you to develop apps
in the platform’s supported programming languages.

99

However, these languages tend to belong to one of a few fami-
lies of root languages and the following table provides an over-
view of these and the platforms they are supported on:

1st Class 2nd Class
Language Target Platforms
Citizen1 Citizen2

First class: bada, Brew MP,
MeeGo, Symbian, Windows Phone
Classic
C, C++ 5 3
Second class: Android (partly,
using the NDK), iOS (partly),
webOS (partly)

Windows Phone and Windows
C 1 0 Phone Classic (formerly Windows
Mobile)

First class: Android, BlackBerry,
Java ME
Java 3 2
Second class: Symbian, Windows
Phone Classic

First class: webOS
JavaScript 1 2 Second class: BlackBerry
(Widget), Nokia (WRT)

Objective-C 1 0 iOS

1) Supported natively by the platform, e.g. either the primary or
only language for creating applications
2) Supported as an option by the platform, e.g. can be used as an
alternative to the native language but generally won’t provide the
same level of access to platform features.

100

Cross platform frameworks can overcome the programming lan-
guage barrier by different means:

— Web Technologies
On most platforms you have direct support for web
technologies by embedding so called webviews. Along
with HTML and CSS this approach supports JavaScript
also.
— Interpretation
Frameworks can also choose to interpret any language
themselves. In the gaming world Lua scripting is quite
popular, for example.
— Cross Compilation
The holy grail of cross platform frameworks, cross
compilation is the most complex technical solution to
this problem. It enables you to write an app in
one language and have it transcoded into a different
language, offering runtime native speed.
Most frameworks also provide a set of cross platform
APIs that enable you to access certain features, such
as the handset’s geolocation capabilities, in a common
way.

101

UI + UX
A difficult hurdle for cross platform approaches is created by
the different User Interface (UI) and User eXperience (UX) pat-
terns that prevail on individual platforms. It’s relatively easy
to create a nice looking UI that works the same on several
platform. Such an approach, however, might miss important
UI components that are available on a single platform only
and could improve the user experience drastically. The other
challenge with a cross-platform UI is that it can behave
differently to the native UI users are familiar with, resulting in
your application failing to “work” for users. Customizing and
tailoring the UI and UX to each platform can be a large part of
your application development effort and is arguably the most
challenging aspect of a cross platform strategy.

Desktop Integration
Integration of your application into the desktop varies a lot
between the platforms; on iOS you can only add a badge with
a number to your app’s icon, on Windows Phone you can cre-
ate live tiles that add any simple information to the desktop,
while on Android and Symbian you can add a full-blown desktop
widget that may display arbitrary data and use any visuals. Us-
ing such integration might improve the interaction with your
users drastically.

Multitasking
Multitasking enables background services and several apps
to run at the same time. Multitasking is another feature that
is realized differently among operating system. On Android,
BlackBerry, Symbian and MeeGo there are background services
and you can run several apps at the same time; on Android
it’s not possible for the user to exit apps as this is handled
automatically by the OS when resources run low. On iOS we

102

have a limited selection of background tasks that may con-
tinue to run after the app’s exit. And then there is a freezing
and unfreezing mechanism on Windows Phone. So if background
services can improve your app’s offering, you should evaluate
cross platform strategies carefully to ensure it enables full ac-
cess to the phone’s capabilities in this regard.

Battery Consumption and Performance
Closely related with multitasking is the battery usage of your
application. While CPU power is roughly doubled every two
years (Moore’s law says that the number of transistors is
doubled every 18 months), battery capacity is doubled
around every seven years. This is why some smartphones
like to spend so much time on their charger. The closer you
are to the platform in a cross platform abstraction layer, the
better you can control the battery consumption and per-
formance of your app. As a rule of thumb, the longer your
application runs in one go, the less abstraction you can afford.

Push Services
Push services are a great way to give the appearance that your
application alive even when it’s not running. In a chat applica-
tion you can, for example, send incoming chat messages to the
user using a push mechanism. The way push services work and
the protocols they use, again, can be realized differently on
each platform.

103

This section outlines some of those strategies you can employ
to implement your apps on different platforms.

Direct Support
You can easily support several platforms by having a special-
ized team for each and every target platform. While this can
be resource intensive, it will most likely give you the best in-
tegration and user experience on each system. An easy entry
route is to start with one platform and then progress to further
platforms once your application proves itself in the real world.

Asset Sharing Levels
When you maintain several teams for different platforms you
can still save a lot of effort when you share some application
constructs:

— Concept and Assets
Mostly you will do this automatically: share the ideas
and concepts of the application, the UI flow, the input
and output and the design and design assets of the app
(but be aware of the need to support platform specific
UI constructs).
— Data Structure and Algorithm
Go one step further by sharing data structures and
algorithms among platforms.
— Code Sharing of Business Model
Using cross platform compilers you can also share
the business model between the platforms. Alternatively
you can use an interpreter or a virtual machine and
one common language across a variety of platforms.

104

— Complete Abstraction
Some cross platform tools enable you to completely
abstract the business model, view and control of your
application for different platforms.

Player and Virtual Machine Concepts
Player concepts typically provide a common set of APIs across
different platforms. Famous examples include Flash, Java ME
and Lua. This approach makes development very easy. You are
dependent, however, on the platform provider for new features
and the challenge here is when those features are available in
one platform only.
Often player concepts tend to use a ‘common denominator’
approach to the offered features, to maintain commonality
among implementations for various platforms.
Generator concepts carry the player concept a step further,
they are often domain specific and enable you to generate apps
out of given data. They often lack flexibility compared to pro-
grammable solutions.

Cross Language Compilation
Cross language compilation enables to code in one language
that is then transformed into a different, platform specific
language. In terms of performance this is often the best cross
platform solution, however there might be performance differ-
ences when compared to native apps. This can be the case,
for example, when certain programming constructs cannot be
translated from the source to the target language automati-
cally. There are three common approaches to cross language
compilation: direct source to source translation, indirectly
by translating the source code into an intermediate abstract
language and direct compilation into a platform’s binary format.
The indirect approach typically produces less readable code.

105

This is important when you would like to continue the develop-
ment on the target platform and use the translated source code
as a starting point.

(Hybrid) Web Apps
While websites are inherently cross platform, they have some
big disadvantages:

1) Websites are not listed in the app stores, so users
don’t find them and monetization is difficult.
(Although you could create a simple application or
widget that opens your website and submit that to a
store, but this will not help with monetization.)
2) Websites only work online.
3) Websites have an inferior user experience compared
to native apps.

There are a couple of web application frameworks that are listed
in the following table. With these frameworks you can create
web apps that behave almost like real apps, including offline
capabilities. Typically you have no access to hardware features
and native UI elements, so in our opinion they don’t count as
‘real’ cross platform solutions: these solutions are therefore not
listed in the table at the end of this article. Web apps have
some advantages over traditional websites:

1) While you cannot put a web app directly in an app
store, you can use web based tools such as PhoneGap in
combination with a web app solution to create a better
experience that is available in the app stores.
2) Web apps also work offline.
3) Web apps can look and behave similar to native apps,
however there are often slight — albeit annoying —
differences compared with their native counterparts.
106

Web App Solution License Target Platforms
Android, bada, BlackBerry, iOS,
jQuery Mobile
MIT and GPL MeeGo, Symbian, webOS, Windows
www.jquerymobile.com
Phone

JQTouch
MIT iOS
www.jqtouch.com

iWebkit
LGPL iOS
iwebkit.net

iUI
BSD iOS
code.google.com/p/iui

Sencha Touch
www.sencha.com/ GPL Android, iOS
products/touch

A step further towards native applications is provided by hybrid
web apps, in which you create a native application that uses a
webview to display a website.
With this approach you can have access to any native function-
ality that you require while keeping most of the functionality
on the server side.
This approach is considerably easier than creating native apps
for every platform and you can extend the native parts of your
app as required in an incremental fashion.

107

Cross Platform Solutions
There are many solutions available now, so it’s hard to provide
a complete overview. You may call this fragmentation, I call it
competition. Word of warning: we don’t know about all solu-
tions here, if you happen to have a solution on your own that
is publicly available, please let us know about it at
developers@enough.de

Solution License Input Output

Android, bada,
Airplay
brew, iOS, Symbian,
www.airplaysdk.com Commercial C++
webOS, Windows
(Ideaworks Labs)
Phone Classic

HTML, CSS,
appMobi
Commercial JavaScript Android, iOS
www.appmobi.com

Android, bada,
BlackBerry, brew,
Bedrock
Consoles, iOS, PC,
www.metismo.com Commercial Java ME
webOS, Windows
(Metismo)
Phone, Windows
Phone Classic

Android, BlackBerry,
Celsius
iOS brew, iOS, Symbian,
mobile-distillery.com
Commercial Java ME Windows Phone
(Mobile Distillery)
Classic

Corona
www.anscamobile.com Commercial JavaScript Android, iOS
(Ansca Software)

EDGELIB
Android, iOS, PC,
www.edgelib.com Commercial C++
Symbian
(elements interactive)

108


id Tech 5
www.idsoftware.com Commercial C++ Consoles, iOS, PC
(id)

Irrlicht
Android & iOS with
irrlicht.sourceforge.net
Open Source C++ OpenGL-ES version,
gitorious.org/irrlicht-
PC
android

J2ME Polish Open Source + Java ME, Android, BlackBerry,
www.j2mepolish.org Commercial HTML, CSS, iOS, J2ME, PC, Win-
(Enough Software) JavaScript dows Phone Classic

Flash
adobe.com/devnet/
Commercial Flash Android, iOS, PC
devices.html
(Adobe)

Mono Touch
monotouch.net Commercial C# iOS
(Novell)

Android, J2ME,
MoSync
Open Source + Moblin, Symbian,
www.mosync.com C
Commercial Windows Phone
(MoSync)
Classic
PhoneGap Android, Black-
HTML, CSS ,
www.phonegap.com Open Source Berry, iOS, Symbian,
JavaScript
(Nitobi) webOS

MeeGo, PC, Sym-
Qt bian, and Windows
Open Source + Phone Classic as
qt.nokia.com C++
(Nokia)
Commercial well as desktop
Windows, Apple
and Linux OS.

Rhodes Android, BlackBerry,
Ruby, HTML, iOS, Symbian,
rhomobile.com/ Open Source +
CSS , JavaS- Windows Phone
products/rhodes Commercial
(rhomobile)
cript Classic

109


SIO2
iOS, other an-
sio2interactive.com Commercial C
nounced
(sio2interactive)

Titanium Android, Consoles,
Open Source JavaScript
www.appcelerator.com iOS, PC

Unity3
unity3d.com Commercial C# Android, iOS, PC
(Unity Technologies)

Unreal
www.unrealtechnol- UnrealScript,
Commercial Consoles, iOS, PC
ogy.com C++
(Epic Games)

Whoop Android, BlackBerry,
www.whoop.com Commercial Drag and Drop iOS, J2ME, Windows
(Whoop) Phone Classic

C++, Java,
XML VM Open Source + Java, .NET,
JavaScript, .NET,
xmlvm.org Commercial Ruby
Python

110

Here are some questions that you should have in mind when
evaluating cross platform tools. Not all of them might be
relevant to you, so weight the answers appropriately.

— How does your cross platform tool chain work? What
programming language and what API can I use?
— Can I access platform specific functionality? If so, how?
— Can I use native UI components? If so, how?
— Can I use a platform specific build as the basis for my
own ongoing development? What does the translated/
generated source code look like?
— Is there desktop integration available?
— Can I control multitasking? Are there background
services?
— How does the solution work with push services?

111

Creating Websites for Mobile
Usage
“Don‘t make me think!“- this title of one of the most popular
books about usability1 summarizes what usability is all about
very well. You should always remember that it does not
matter how fancy a mobile website might be: The user should
be able to use it easily and intuitively.

These 10 basic hints should help you to adapt your content
properly for the mobile user:

1. Mobilize, don’t miniaturize: Create a concept that
utilizes the possibilities of the technology. You won’t
satisfy many people by simply offering a smaller version
of your classic website.

2. Keep all paths open: Leave it up to the user to access
either the mobile or desktop version of your website.

3. Keep it simple: Avoid complex navigation structures,
the users won’t dig that deep anyway while they are on
the go.

4. Avoid text input wherever possible: Text input on
mobiles sucks. If you really need the users to enter text,
use wide input boxes so that they see what they are typ-
ing.

1) Steve Krug: “Don’t make me think - A Common Sense Approach to Web
Usability”, New Riders, 2nd edition, 2005
112

5. Adapt the media: Adapt all pictures, videos and alike
to be displayed properly on the handset (check the
corresponding chapter in this guide: “Implementing Rich
Media“ for more information). Avoid formats such as
.doc and pdf.

6. The user is a creature of habit; respect that: Adapt
usage patterns from classic websites such as linking
logos to the home page or offering corrections to
mistyped search requests.

7. Think of stubby fingers: When optimizing your content
for touch screen phones don’t use clickable areas smaller
than 1cm x 1cm.

8. Use sharp contrasts: Fonts and background colors that
guarantee legibility in any surrounding, including bright
sunlight.

9. Reflect continuously: Ask yourself if you would use the
implemented features yourself. Ask your friends and
colleagues as well before realizing your ideas.

10. Again: Don‘t make the users think. Try to implement
intuitive navigation, don’t force them to make decisions
more often than necessary. Users will often click the first
link in a list anyway.

113

Mobile usage patterns and their consequences
The usage pattern at a desktop computer is often described as
“hunt and gather“. Mobile usage is totally different. When us-
ing internet on a mobile handset, the users are usually on the
move. They usually want to know more about their surrounding
or occupy some spare time. Therefore, mobile internet usage is
often described as “quick enjoyment“.

Applications have to take these differences into account. For
example, a search interface for users at a desktop browser has
to offer comprehensive options, on the mobile handset it has to
be more straight-forward, focused on the primary action.
These adjustments cannot be realized by a machine. This is
one reason why it is indispensable to create special mobile
versions of websites rather than relying on proxy browsers to
reformat content.
Other things to consider during design are that the mobile user
has no mouse, often they have no real keyboard and the size of
the screen is very limited. This means the content of a mobile
website has to be arranged accordingly: Images should not be
too large, all relevant elements should be easily accessible as
the user is not able to move a cursor freely around the site.

It is best to test the usability of a site under real-life condi-
tions: Take your mobile handset to a busy public place and try
to find all the relevant information in your application by using
one hand. You will see very quickly where your mobile site may
need to be trimmed or optimized.
In addition to factors like markup, image formats and naviga-
tion, you should never forget about the most valuable feature
to a mobile user: battery life. Complex websites with many
JavaScript, CSS and Flash elements need a lot of processing
power which means battery power.

114

A History of the Mobile Web
WAP: The stone age of mobile internet
From its very beginning, the mobile internet was expected to
be a cash cow. WAP made it possible to send limited text along
with black and white images in the WBMP format to the mono-
chrome displays of user’s cellphones. The industry charged the
user for that by inventing complicated data transfer rates and
strange subscription models. Many players expected to get rich
by selling information that was already available for free on
the internet.
The Wireless Markup Language WML, which was used at that
time was another reason why the expected breakthrough didn’t
happen quickly: While the different internet browsers (Internet
Explorer and Netscape) allowed a “dirty” html, WML requested
a valid XML structure and proper UTF-8 encoding. The use of
images was limited to black and white pictures which were a lot
less appealing when compared to the images users could see on
their home computers.
The first attempts to lift the mobile internet to the next level
were made by NTT DoCoMo with the invention of CHTML;
and Microsoft’s Windows CE that worked best with HTML/3.2.
Both of these technologies were eventually replaced by XHTML/
MP 1.0.

Current Situation
Today the vast majority of all mobile browsers still support
XHTML/MP 1.0, for many low-end devices this language still
delivers the best results. On the other hand, many devices offer
full web browsers that support HTML/4.0, but these browsers
still have their differences when it comes to content-type or
doctype and choosing views that distinguish between mobile
and desktop websites.

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The next big thing is HTML5 which is still under development.
However, some of the latest browsers already support parts of
this new standard: Scripting, GPS access, CSS3 elements, CSS
animations and the possibility of offline (on-device) data stor-
age. At the same time, the W3C Device APIs and Policy Working
Group (DAP) is defining client-side APIs. These APIs will make
it possible to develop web applications and web widgets that
interact with device services such as calendar, contacts, and-
camera among others.
As such websites might be expected to progressively evolve
to offer the features of web widgets (for more information on
widgets, see the corresponding chapter in this guide).

Content adaptation
Static Version
Of course you can simply ignore the possibilities of automatic
optimization and leave it up to the users: Create different
versions of your content, let the user start with a low-level ver-
sion and let them decide manually which version they prefer for
their devices and usage patterns.
However, since you are dealing with a user who is on the move
and does not want to spend a lot of time discovering which
version suits them best, this is probably not the best way to go.

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Automatic adaption technologies
To adapt the content to different devices, you basically need
two components: The first contains logic that detects the
device and has information on its browser and that browser’s
characteristics — a device database. The second component
uses these characteristics to adjust the content for optimal
usability.

The most popular open source device database is the WURFL
project1 that offers comprehensive information via XML. A
number of tools deliver APIs for detecting the browser, gather-
ing its properties and adjusting the content: the markup and
the images. One example of an open source project that pro-
vides adjusting content is MyMobileWeb2, financed by public
funds and Telefonica.

But of course there are also commercial providers. Again,
some concentrate on device data and detection while others
focus on offering software platforms that adjust the content
accordingly.

Examples of commercial device data and device detection pro-
viders:

— dotMobi3 offers several APIs to access their device data-
base DeviceAtlas4 and intelligent detection
— DetectRight5

1) wurfl.sf.net
2) mymobileweb.morfeo-project.org
3) www.mtld.mobi
4) www.deviceatlas.com
5) www.detectright.com

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Some commercial content adaptation software providers:

— Sevenval1, a platform independent technology which
works via HTTP and markup. This solution is available as
a Service or can be installed on Linux systems.
— Volantis Mobility Server2 is running on a variety of
Java-based web application servers and SQL-compliant
databases. There are two versions available: one Open
Source Community version and one professional version.
— Mobile Interaction Server3 is running on BEA,
IBM WebSphere, JBoss, Tomcat and Caucho Resin.

Satisfy the Browser
Markup
Of course it would be great if there were one universal markup
standard — unfortunately this is not the case. There are many
standards, so be sure of validating your markup by using one of
these tools:

— W3C Markup Validator: validator.w3.org
— W3C mobileOK checker: validator.w3.org/mobile
— dotMobi testing tool: mobiready.com
— Korean MobileOK Test & Validation Service: v.mobileok.kr

As general advice, it´s recommended that you stick to UTF-8 en-
coding. You can also consider going low-level creating a XHTML
MP/1.0 site with WCSS/1.0 and without JavaScript.

1) www.sevenval.com
2) www.volantis.com
3) www.mobileaware.com

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Page width
Always use dynamic layout. Avoid static width settings in pix-
els, it´s better to use percentage values. Even when using de-
vice databases, the browsers still have different display meth-
ods (such as full screen, landscape and portrait) and not all
provide for displaying a scrollbar. The web is dynamic, so is the
hardware landscape — keep your layout dynamic as well.

Images
Not everybody has a mobile data flat rate, so do not use images
too excessively, avoid any unnecessary images. To reduce data
and processor workload, the images should always be scaled on
the server and not by the browser. ImageMagick offers function-
ality to easily scale your images1.

When thinking about the image format, GIF and JPEG are still
the most solid choice. Of course PNG offers more flexibility, but
when it comes to transparency, you cannot always be sure to
what degree it is supported.

Tables
For desktop web pages, tables are no longer used for web de-
sign. In the mobile environment they are still an effective
way to create simple layouts — just avoid unnecessary nested
tables and colspan/rowspan. Even though it breaks the rules
for valid XHTML MP/1.0, some browsers need the attributes
cellpadding=“0“ and cellspacing=“0“ to prevent un-
wanted spaces from being displayed. CSS simply cannot assure
this with all browsers.

1) www.imagemagick.org

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CSS
Do not use CSS excessively. CSS interpretation is sometimes not
properly implemented and shortens battery life. To be on the
safe side, stick to the WCSS/1.0 set.
When determining sizes, avoid defining them in pixels, use
percentage values.

Fonts
Don’t be too adventurous with fonts: Mobile browsers just sup-
port a limited set of font-types. Better to limit the number of
fonts and focus on the font size to create differentiation. Use
relative values (small/medium/large) rather than fixed values
(pixels).

Cookies
You can use cookies and should do so, but when really needed
only. However, don’t put too much trust in cookies: Although
it might work fine during one session, the cookie might not
longer be available at the start of the next.
This is why you should always offer alternatives such as an
URL based parameter or a personalized bookmark for permanent
settings.

Script / AJAX
According to www.device-trends.com, 85% of the mobile web
users who visited the participating websites, were using a
browser that supports JavaScript and most of them were able
to handle AJAX. So it would be prudent to use the possibilities
of these technologies, but you should make sure that your site
works fine without them as well.

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Meta Settings
You can influence the rendering mode by a number of meta settings1:
Viewport Defines view and <meta name=”viewport”
zoom content=”width=device-width;
initial-scale=1.0;”/>
www.quirksmode.org/mobile/tableViewport.html

MobileOptimized Defines width of <meta name=”MobileOptimized”
(Windows Mobile) mobile page content=”width” />
msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms890014.aspx

HandheldFriendly Deactivates zoom <meta name=”HandheldFriendly”
(RIM Browser) content=”true”/>
docs.blackberry.com/en/developers/deliverables/6176/
HTML_ref_meta_564143_11.jsp

Format Detection Numbers won´t <meta name=”format-detection”
automatically be content=”telephone=no”/>
displayed as phone
numbers msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms890014.aspx

Auto Match Numbers won´t <meta name=”x-rim-auto-match”
(RIM Browser) automatically be http-equiv=”x-rim-auto-match”
forua=”true” content=”none”/>
displayed as phone
numbers
1) Please compare learnthemobileweb.com/tag/handheldfriendly

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Device categories
Do you know what kinds of devices your visitors use most? If
not, you should start at the low-level and implement a tool that
detects the devices that are accessing your site.

Several providers are offering this kind of analysis software:

— AdMob www.admob.com
— Bango www.bango.com
— Sevenval www.device-trends.com
— TigTags www.tigtags.com/mobile_analytics/mobile_site_
tracking

Some providers also offer access to the data they collect, which
provides you an insight into which devices are accessing the
mobile web:

— AdMob metrics.admob.com
— mobiForge mobiforge.com/designing/story/
effective-design-multiple-screen-sizes
— Opera www.opera.com/smw
— Sevenval www.slideshare.net/sevenval/tag/devicetrends
— StatCounter Global Stats gs.statcounter.com

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When using this data, bear in mind where they come from and
how they have been generated: In which region have they
been collected, are they really reflecting the users’ mobile web
usage or just the general market share of various devices? Is it
possible that the data reflect the user base of certain operators
or technology platform only? Are these data for page impres-
sions, visits or unique users?
Never trust any report blindly. Use several sources and do your
own analysis.

Simple Devices
It´s likely the majority of your users will access your site with
a basic handset such as described by the W3C in the Default
Delivery Context1 or by Luca Passani in his baseline device de-
scription2.

To fit their needs, these are our recommendations:

— XHTML MP/1.0
— screen size: 176x144 pixels
— GIF and JPEG image
— maximum of 20kb page size (including images and CSS)
— basic Table Support, without “rowspan”,“colspan“ - no nested
tables
— minimal CSS (WCSS 1.0)

However, even these basic characteristics exceed the capa-
bilities of many older handsets, but people who tend to use
the mobile internet usually own handsets that should prop-
erly display pages that follow the guidelines above. Surfing the
internet with much older devices is no fun anyway.
1) www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/#ddc
2) www.passani.it/gap/#baseline

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Full Web Browser-supported Devices
Full web browsers are characterized by their capability to
display any website. These include browsers based on Webkit,
Opera Mobile, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netfront (version 3.4
and later), UCWEB, Nokia Web Browser and Fennec. Devices that
use a full web browser don’t necessarily require any technologi-
cal concessions in website design, but we suggest the following
guidelines:

— HTML/4.0 Strict
— screensize: 240x320 pixels
— GIF, JPEG Images and PNG (without alpha transparency)
images
— maximum of 50kb page size (including images and CSS)
— basic table support, without “rowspan”,“colspan“ - no
nested tables
— keep CSS simple, tables are not bad
— script can be included, but avoid unnecessary/ excessive
script or animation effects – think of the battery
— if available, use AJAX to get content

Touch Devices
Many modern devices with a powerful browser such as the
iPhone, Android or Symbian handsets also offer a touch screen.
Touch UIs offer users the possibility of moving more freely
within a website. At the same time, touch interaction makes
choosing one line from a list and other smaller elements within
a page difficult.

124

If your mobile site complies with the following requirements,
any touch device user will be able to navigate properly:

— HTML/4.0 Strict
— screensize: 320x480 pixels
— GIF, JPEG and PNG (with alpha transparency) images
— maximum of 100kb page size (including images and
CSS)
— full tables
— script is allowed, but not needed
— use CSS, especially Webkit styles for
rounded corners
— if available, use AJAX to get content
— keep the limited battery life in mind
— use a large font size (for example 18px) for links and
clickable lists
— set a default viewport (<meta name = “viewport”
content = “width = device-width”>)

125

Using GPS in the Browser
Devices like the iPhone (firmware version 3 and later), the
Blackberry (firmware 4.2. and later) Opera Mobile and browsers
with Google Gears enable the use of GPS information within
the browser. There is a W3C specification published1, but un-
fortunately this isn’t supported by all devices. Nevertheless you
can still use a simple JavaScript API that overlays the different
implementations2.
For further information about how to use GPS location informa-
tion for web-based apps and services, check out mobiforge3.

Testing your Mobile Website
There are several ways to test your mobile website:

User-Agent / Browser
Several desktop browsers offer the ability to change the user-
agent and thereby enable the emulation of device detection
for the testing of automatic adaption. For Firefox users, the
User-Agent Switcher is available on addons.mozilla.org/en-US/
firefox/addon/59.
mobiForge offers a configuration file for this Add-On which
contains some properties of mobile handsets4.
1) dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source.html
2) code.google.com/p/geo-location-javascript
3) www.mobiforge.com/developing/blog/location-location-location
4) www.mobiforge.com/developing/blog/user-agent-switcher-config-file

126

Emulators / SDKs
Emulators or SDKs offered by manufacturers are the better option
for testing. We have had good results using the following tools:

— Apple iPhone: developer.apple.com/iPhone/program
— Palm Pre: developer.palm.com
— Android: developer.android.com
— BlackBerry: www.blackberry.com/developers/downloads/
simulators
— Windows Mobile:
msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsmobile
— Opera Mini: www.opera.com/mini/demo
— Symbian SDK: www.forum.nokia.com/S60SDK

Additional emulators can be found on
mobiforge.com/emulators/page/mobile-emulators

Remote and Real Device Testing
As mentioned in the other chapters in this guide, it´s best to
test your product under real-life conditions on as many de-
vices as possible. Remote testing is an alternative, particularly
where your access to handsets is limited, consider services like
www.deviceanywhere.com or www.perfectomobile.com.
Crowdsourcing testers, with the help of www.mob4hire.com, is
also worth considering.

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Hybrid Apps
The term “hybrid” is used in many technological fields. The auto
industry combines two technologies and utilizes the ad-
vantages of one system where the other has its drawbacks.
The concept is the same behind the so-called hybrid apps.

In the online world you find the classic web browser which is
combined with the typical native features.The possibilities for
the mobile world are versatile:

— a completely native app that is controlled by the down
stream content (yeah, something like that already exists
and it is called a browser)
— a client that in addition to its existing function, displays
content in a web view format
— applications that give a website a framework to reflect
either lack of browser functions or just to take you to an
App Store

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Learn More — On the Web
If you want to dig deeper and learn more about how to satisfy
the mobile user with your web-based service, check out these
websites:

— Mobile Best Practices / W3C
www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp
— dotMobi Mobile Web Developer‘s Guide / dotMobi
mobiforge.com/starting/story/dotmobi-mobile-web-
developers-guide
— The Wireless FAQ / Andrea Trasatti and others
www.thewirelessfaq.com
— Global Authoring Practices for the Mobile Web /
Luca Passani
www.passani.it/gap

And always remember:
A mobile website is not simply a small website; it is the one
for mobile phone users.
Keep it simple.

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Implementing Rich Media
“So many handsets, so many standards.” - Again this is true for
the list of supported media formats on mobile phones. The
majority of them is found in the table below, however multiple
variations are possible amongst handsets even within one ven-
dor or version of firmware.

OS/Brand Container Protocol

Windows Mobile .wmv or .mp4 http://

Windows Phone 7 .wmv or .mp4 http://

Symbian, Nokia .3gp or .mp4 rtsp://

iPhone/ iPod Touch .mp4 http://

iPad .mp4 http://

Android http:// for audio
.mp4
rtsp:// for video

http:// for audio
ePad .mp4
rtsp:// for video

Blackberry <=OS 4.2 .avi / .mp4 http://

Blackberry >=OS 4.3 .avi / .mp4 / .3gp rtsp://

webOS .flv /.mp4 http://

Other 3G devices .3gp rtsp://

Bada .3gp or .mp4 rtsp://

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Video Codec Audio Codec Typical Resolution
320x240, 176x220,
H264 MP3 or AAC 480x800

MP4, H263, WMV MP3, WMA, AAC 800x600

176x144, 320x240,
H263 AMR_nb or AAC
352×416, 640x480

320x240/320x480,
H264 AAC or AAC+
640x960

H264 AAC or AAC+ 1024x768

320x480, 480x800,
H264 AAC lc, HE-AAC v2
480x854

H264 AAC lc, HE-AAC v2 800x480, 800x854

MPEG4 AAC lc 480x320

MPEG4 ADPCM or MP3 352x288

MPEG4 ADPCM or MP3 352x288

H263 AMR_nb 176x144, 320x240

H263, H264, MPEG AAC, AMR_nb, MP3 800x480

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Streaming vs download
To offer streaming content, Apple’s open source Darwin stream-
ing server1 which can serve streaming video and audio with
highest compatibility (except for Windows Mobile) and reliable
RTSP combined with FFMPEG2 would be your preferred choice.
For Windows Mobile, Windows Media Server3 is the easiest
choice (free download). Typical frame rates are 15 fps for MP4
and 25 fps for 3gp with up to 48 kbps for GPRS (audio only),
200 kbps for Edge, 300 kbps for 3G/UMTS and 600 kbps for
Wi-Fi. RTSP is a protocol which is designed for low-bandwidth
mobile devices. If you need a PC player to test and display 3gp
RTSP streams, use QuickTime or Real player.
To display video streams on a mobile device, the video player
needs to connect to the streaming server. This sounds easier
than it usually is. First of all, for many players a special APN
(Access Point Name) needs to be configured. If this configura-
tion is not correct, the video player will not be able to connect
with the server. But even if the APN is configured well, some
operators block the RTSP protocol.

This leads to the situation that the streaming will work within
the operator portal and probably even on YouTube, but your
own server cannot be reached. There’s not much you can do di-
rectly you depend on the user’s know-how: He needs to manual-
ly set the APN to an open Internet connection. From the device
point of view, playing the media will be handled automatically
by using the built-in players. Some phones have one player to
handle both music and video, some have separate players with
separate configurations.

1) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Streaming_Server
2) www.ffmpeg.org
3) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Services

132

Even if you do not use RTSP, there are strange things that
might happen when streaming video on the mobile handset: If
a Blackberry device processes video via Wi-Fi, even large videos
usually are displayed consistently. But if GPRS is used for data
transmission, the content is processed by the RIM servers which
define maximum values that may vary from server to server. As
a consequence, content might behave differently even if the
same device, same operator, and same APN are used.

And now? Don’t panic! If you use a device database, give them
the option to chose manually; else you can offer video to your
users if you wish, but inform them about possible problems
they ma y encounter.

When streaming is not available on the phone or blocked by
the carrier (which is almost impossible to detect upfront auto-
matically) it’s common practice to also provide the user with a
download link to the complete file. This is as easy as linking to
a download on the regular web, however mobile might be more
strict in checking the correct mime types. Use audio/3gp or
video/3gp for 3gp files and video/mp4 for mp4 files.

Some mobile phones only use the file extensions for detec-
tion, so when using a script like download.php a well known
trick is to add a parameter like download.php?dummy=.3gp to
allow correct processing of the media. Some phones cannot
play 3gp audio without video, so a simple trick is than to in-
clude an empty video track in the file or a still image of the
album cover.

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Progressive download
To avoid setup of streaming servers, a good alternative is to
offer Progressive Downloads, for which your media files can be
served from any web server if you hint your files. Hinting is the
process of marking several locations in the media, so a mobile
player can start playing the file as soon as it has downloaded a
small part of it (typically first 15 seconds). So far the most reli-
able open source hinting software found is Mp4box use mp4box
–hint –latm for hinting that is compatible with mobile phones.
Note that a mp3 file doesn’t need and cannot be hinted.

Ringtones
To use audio as a ringtone or within a J2ME application, make
sure that the audio format is supported by your target devices.
For J2ME .wav or .mid is the best choice for maximum compat-
ibility, however the file size might restrict you as it is uncom-
pressed. There are more than 10 file formats for ringtones, but
nowadays use the MP3 format, 64 or 128kbps, max 30 seconds
and a file size of between 300kb and 500kb or AAC/AAC+ 24
kbps (mono) or 48kbps (stereo) on high-end phones to ensure
maximum compatibility.

Media converters
To convert a wide variety of existing media to mobile phone
compatible formats FFMPEG is a must have (open source) media
format converter. It can and adjust the frame rate, bit rate
and channels at the same time. Make sure you build or get the
binary with H263, AAC and AMR encoder support included. For
MAC users, QuickTime pro (paid version) is a good alternative
to encode and hint 3gp files. A good alternative for converting
134

video is “Super” from eRightSoft. If you are looking for a com-
plete server solution with a Java/Open Source Background,
check out Alembik.

Flash (Lite)
Flash is very popular on the many mobile devices today and it
can be really fun to integrate Flash animations into the mo-
bile applications. Flash animations can be used to create “eye-
popping” graphics in 2D user interfaces (UI). Flash animations
are based upon Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). This means the
developer or designer can create a Flash object once, save it in
the SWF file format, and that Flash object can be rendered to
any size display. The same Flash animation will render with high
quality on a mobile device or on a 1080p HD display screen.

Early handsets supported Flash Lite, a stripped down version
of Flash, but due to lack of enough Flash Lite devices and high
power processors in modern devices, full flash format is now
supported on most phones with a ‘full internet browser’,
exceptions are iPhone and iPad in favor of their development
tools for native objective C.

Flash games and applications are very popular, and in some
cases, Flash can be used for UI menus and icons. Flash-based
rich media UIs can scale to any display screen resolution au-
tomatically. This sharply contrasts with implementing standard
2D bitmap graphical UIs which require separate development
for rendering to typical display resolutions, and resizing those
UI elements at runtime results in pixilated (jagged) images as
the bitmap is simply being stretched pixel by pixel.

135

An application developer can utilize Flash animations to high-
light various UI elements within an application including
prompting a user selection and showing color animated menu’s.
Examples could include using Flash animations to demonstrate
the draining of a device’s battery level, show an incoming call,
or to prompt the user for a selection or action, like responding
to a calendar alarm or reminder.

HTML5
The more operating systems exist, the more time-consuming it
is to build an app for each of the market leaders. In the past
Nokia already launched it’s web run-time (WRT) system, which
allows developers to use HTML but include rich GUI compo-
nents, just like native apps, and standard functions to inte-
grate into the phone address book. This brings me to HTML5,
a standard which is supposed to solve all today’s problems
with cross-browser and plug-in requirements. HTML5 is in
fact an extension to the standard tags and attributes to al-
low more interaction, richer GUI components and closer
integration to the desktop or mobile operating system.
Most interesting part is the new <video> tag, which allows to
embed a video without the overhead of a Flash plug-in, how-
ever early reports show that it’s not yet easily supported1 on
all phones.
1) html5test.com

136

Implementing Location-
based Services
An interesting area for mobile development is location aware
services, where the information delivered is adapted to the
user’s location. Applications could be anything from finding
parking spaces nearby, analyzing pollen reports for your area,
to finding friends at the trade fair et cetera. While the device
has to provide the location information you don’t need to do all
the processing there. There are two basic options for creating
location aware data: creating local data sets on a server or on
the device. Doing everything on the server-side allows for thin-
ner clients, while fatter clients are more self-sufficient as they
are less reliant on constant network access.

How to obtain positioning data
Basically there are four ways to determine the user’s position:

— Manual input
The user identifies where his or her phone is located, by
choosing a location on a map, an area code, a city on a
list. This is often an overlooked method.
— Network positioning
The phone locks to a base station, and its unique ID can
be looked up from a list provided by the operator. There
are also more advanced cell-based methods based on
GSM/UMTS traffic, which requires a relationship with
operators. Alternatively the received WiFi signal patterns
can be used for determining the user’s location. In each

137

case, the accuracy depends largely on the cell / net
work density. Higher accuracy is obtained in urban areas
than in rural areas.
— GPS positioning
The built-in GPS module in the phone (or an external
one) gives you an accuracy of 5-50 meters, depending on
the terrain, canopy and wall materials.
— Short range positioning
Systems based on sensors, like NFC (near field
communication) marketed by Nokia and others, where
active or passive sensors are placed in the near proximity
to points of interest, such as a museum or a shopping
mall. Good for smaller, confined areas.

138

How to obtain mapping services
There are several public map sources available. The static map
type (distributed as bitmap tiles) is the most widespread, how-
ever vector based mapping data solutions, such as Nokia Ovi
maps, are becoming available and are likely to become more so
as network data capacity issues increase.
Free maps include Open Street Map or CloudMate. Maps that
require partnerships and/or payment of a usage fee include
NAVTEQ and Microsoft. Some solutions, such as Google Maps,
are free when your application is free, while providers are likely
to charge for use in paid-for applications or services. Interest-
ingly, several of these sources share similar map formats and
therefore are interchangeable.

— Cloudmade: developers.cloudmade.com/projects
— Google Maps: code.google.com/apis/maps/
— Microsoft Bing API:
www.microsoft.com/maps/developers
— NAVTEQ: www.nn4d.com
— Nokia: www.forum.nokia.com/Develop/Web/Maps/
— Open Street Map:
wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Slippy _map_tilenames

A common type of service is to offer map data in the form of
static bitmap tiles. By posting a center coordinate (its latitude
and longitude) along with a zoom level, the service returns the
appropriate tiles forming a client map view for either desktop
or handheld devices. Other services can send map data in vec-
tor form, which requires much less network data throughput.
On the other hand, the client software needs to be able to
handle vector data and display it properly, which is more CPU
intense than just displaying bitmap images.
139

Implementing location support on
different platforms
Location API for J2ME is probably the most widespread method,
outside of using the web browser. In there you find criteria
for accuracy, response time, altitude, and speed, allowing even
advanced location services.
Other platforms like Symbian, Windows Phone and Android
have similar offerings, even though they sometimes required
signingof the application to access the location functions. A
special case is the Apple iPhone SDK, offering an integrated
support for location, even though there are restrictions
on what map sources are used and how the location data is
generated.

The maps are often overlaid with geodata, which is available
in a number of formats. One of the simplest is called geoRSS1,
and could look like this:

<item>
<title>Alex’s favorite fishing place</title>
<description>Wonderful place for salmon
</description>
<georss:point>18.256 59.92</georss:point>
<item>

It represents a point of interest described as its latitude and
longitude, along with some metadata. There are many more for-
mats for geodata, but the basic idea is the same, and more and
more sources are harmonizing their data streams for interoper-
ability.

1) www.georss.org

140

Tools for LBS apps
Several players in the industry provide developer-friendly tools
and APIs as a value added service. Using these dramatically
speeds up the development and deployment of location-aware
services. Each tool normally focuses on one or a few mobile
platforms.

— Garmin Mobile XT SDK: developer.garmin.com
— iPhone SDK: developer.apple.com
— Keymap SDK: www.mapsdk.com
— Mobile Gmaps: www.mgmaps.com
— NAVTEQ: www.nn4d.com
— Nutiteq: www.nutiteq.com
— Qt Maps/Navigation API:
qt.nokia.com/products/qt-addons/mobility
— Spime: www.spime.com

141

Testing your application
After all your hard work creating your application how about
testing it before unleashing it on the world? Testing mobile
applications used to be almost entirely manual, thankfully au-
tomated testing is now viable for many of the mobile platforms.
This chapter covers the general topics; testing for specific plat-
forms is covered in the relevant chapter.

Testability: the biggest single win
If you want to find ways to test your application effectively and
efficiently then start designing and implementing ways to test
it; this applies especially for automated testing. For example,
using techniques such as Dependency Injection in your code
enables you to replace real servers (slow and flaky) with mock
servers (controlable and fast).
Separate your code into testable modules. Several years ago,
when mobile devices and software tools were very limited, de-
velopers chose to ‘optimize’ their mobile code into monolithic
blobs of code, however the current devices and mobile plat-
forms mean this form of ‘optimization’ is unnecessary and pos-
sibly even counter-productive.
Provide ways to query the state of the application, possibly
through a custom debug interface. You, or your testers, might
otherwise spend lots of time trying to fathom out what the
problems are when the application doesn’t work as hoped.

142

Headless client
The user-interface (UI) of a modern mobile application can
constitute over 50% of the entire codebase. If you limit your
testing to testing using the GUI designed for users you may
needlessly complicate your testing and debugging efforts. One
approach is to create a very basic UI that’s a thin wrapper
around the rest of the core code (typically this includes the
networking and business layers). This ‘headless’ client may help
you to quickly isolate and identify bugs e.g. related to the de-
vice, carrier, and other environmental issues.
Another benefit of creating a headless client is that it may be
simpler to automate some of the testing e.g. to exercise all
the key business functions and/or to automate the capture and
reporting of test results.
You can also consider creating skeletal programs that ‘probe’
for essential features and capabilities across a range of phone
models e.g. for a J2ME application to test the File Handling
where the user may be prompted (many times) for permission to
allow file IO operations. Given the fragmentation and quirks of
mature platforms such probes can quickly repay the investment
you make to create and run them.

Separate the generic from specific
Many mobile applications include algorithms, et cetera, unre-
lated to mobile technology. This generic code should be sepa-
rated from the platform-specific code. For example, on Android
or J2ME the business logic can generally be coded as standard
Java, then you can write, and run, automated unit tests in your
standard IDE using JUnit.

143

Consider platform-specific test automation once the generic
code has good automated tests.

Test-Driven Development
Test-Driven Development (TDD) has become more popular and
widespread in the general development communities, particu-
larly when using Agile Development practices.
Although Mobile Test Automation tools are not capable of al-
lowing TDD for all aspects of a mobile application, we have
seen it used successfully on a variety of mobile projects,
particularly when used for the generic aspects of the client
code.

Physical devices
Although emulators and simulators can provide rough-and-
ready testing of your applications, and even allow tests to be
fully-automated in some cases, ultimately your software needs
to run on real phones, as used by your intended users. The
performance characteristics of various phone models vary
tremendously from each other and from the virtual device
on your computer.

Here are some examples of areas to test on physical devices

— UI: Navigating the UI – for instance, can users use your
application with one hand? Effects of different lighting
conditions: the experience of the user interface can
differ in real sunlight when you’re out and about. It’s a
mobile device – most users will be on the move.

144

— Location: if you use location information within your
app: move – both fast and slowly. Go to locations with
patchy network and GPS coverage to see how your app
behaves.
— Multimedia: support for audio, video playback and
recording facilities can differ dramatically between
devices and their respective emulators.
— Internet connectivity: establishing an internet
connection can take an incredible amount of time.
Connection delay and bandwidth depend on the
network, its current strength and the number of
simultaneous connections.

For platforms such as Java ME and Android where there are so
many manufacturers and models, it’s particularly useful to test
on a range of these devices. A good start is to pick a mix of
popular, new, and models that include specific characteristics
or features such as: touch screen, physical keyboard, screen
resolution, networking chipset, etc.

Remote Control
If you have physical devices to hand, use them to test your ap-
plication. However when you don’t, or if you need to test your
application on other networks, especially abroad and for other
locales, then one of the ‘remote device services’ might help you.
For instance they can help extend the breadth and depth of
your testing at little or no cost.
These days many of the manufacturers provide this service free-
of-charge for their new and popular phone models to registered
software developers. You can also use commercial services of
companies such as PerfectoMobile or DeviceAnywhere for simi-
lar testing across a range of devices and platforms.

145

You can even create a private repository of remote devices,
e.g. by hosting them in remote offices and locations. Beware of
privacy and confidentiality when using shared devices.

GUI Test Automation
GUI test automation is one of the elixirs of the testing industry,
many have tried but few have succeeded in creating useful and
viable GUI test automation for mobile applications.
Several commercial companies tried to provide automated test-
ing ‘solutions’; with one exception these have been mothballed.
Tampere University in Finland have had some success creating
automated tests for various mobile platforms, including An-
droid and Nokia’s Series 60 phones. See tema.cs.tut.fi for more
information on their work.

Beware of specifics
Platforms, networks, devices, and even firmware, are all specific.
Any could cause problems for your applications. Test these
manually first, provided you have the time and budget to get
fast and early feedback.

Crowd-sourcing
There are billions of users with mobile phones across the world.
Some of them are professional software testers, and of these,
some work for professional out-sourced testing service compa-
nies such as uTest and mob4hire. They can test your application
quickly and relatively inexpensively, compared to maintaining a
larger dedicated software testing team.
These services can augment your other testing, we don’t rec-
ommend using them as your only formal testing. To get good
146

results you will need to devote some of your time and effort to
defining the tests you want them to run, and to working with
the company to review the results, etc.

Web-based content and applications
We can benefit from the extensive history of test automation
tools for desktop web-based content and applications to auto-
mate aspects of our Mobile equivalents.
Tools such as WebDriver wrap web browsers, including, headless
WebKit, Android, iPhone, Mobile Opera, and Blackberry as well
as the main desktop web browsers.
On the desktop the ability to wrap Firefox means it can crudely
emulate most mobile browsers by programmatically changing
browser parameters such as the user-agent string. There’s an
article on the Google Testing blog1 that includes an example of
how to emulate the iPhone browser2.

Next steps
There’s more material available on testing your mobile applica-
tions at tr.im/mobtest

1) googletesting.blogspot.com
2) googletesting.blogspot.com/2009/05/survival-techniques-for-web-app.html

147

Now what - which
Environment Should I Use?
The short answer: it depends.
The longer answer: think about your target users, about their
needs, about their devices and their dataplans. Then consider
your vision and the requirements for your application. Remem-
ber that you are not necessarily restricted to a single applica-
tion environment.
A pragmatic approach is to start with the environment that you
are most comfortable with or which you expect to be the preferred
platform of your target group. In a next step you can then move
on to other environments to increase the market reach. Some-
times it also makes sense to combine different environments, for
example by providing a mobile website for your casual users, a
native smartphone application for your power users in certain
countries and a J2ME app for other regions.

The following table provides a very rough overview of the
strengths and limitations of each application environment
without taking into account the big regional differences. Green
indicates good coverage or support, yellow for limited and red
for bad coverage of the respective topic:

148

s
er
op
To vel
Pe per De

Fr man ls
De bili e
la fflin

n
of

o
ra ch

io
lin vity

me ce
ve ty

at
a

Av / O
In Re

nt
i
ct

lo
et

e

r
rfo
rk

ai

ag
te
Ma

On
Android

bada

BREW

Flash

iOS

J2ME

Native Blackberry

Native Symbian

SMS

Web

Widgets

Windows Mobile

Windows Phone

webOS

Qt (Symbian/Meego)

149

You can also compare application development with web devel-
opment in a more general manner:

App Development Web Development

Approval 2–8 weeks in app stores Instant updates
process
Portability Complex Easy

Complexity Complex Easy

Monetization Sale, Advertisements, in Advertisements
app purchase

Web development beats application development in all but
one crucial area: monetization. Internet services are mostly
free and the only reliable revenue model is often advertise-
ments. In contrast, app stores shine in this area. All stores
support charging for application, the iPhone app store
nowadays also supports in app purchases. And of course you
can embed advertisements in your application as well.

If you need to earn money today, it will be easier with an
application unless you want to earn money purely with ads.

150

Epilogue
Thanks for reading this 7th release of our Mobile Developer’s
Guide. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading it and that we helped
you to clarify your options. Don’t be put off by the difficulties
in entering the mobile arena — once you’re in the water, you
can and will swim.
Would you like to contribute to this guide or sponsor upcoming
editions? Please send your feedback to
developers@enough.de

152

About the Authors
Robert Virkus / Enough Software
Robert is working in the mobile space since 1998. He experi-
enced Java fragmentation first hand by developing and porting
a mobile client on the Siemens SL42i, the first mass market
phone with an embedded Java VM. With this experience he
launched the Open Source J2ME Polish project in 2004 that
helps developers to overcome device fragmentation barriers. He
is the founder and CEO of Enough Software, the company behind
J2ME Polish and many mobile apps.
www.enough.de www.j2mepolish.org

Roland Gülle / Sevenval
Roland joined the mobile industry in 2001. At Sevenval he is
responsible for the development of the adaptation technology
and the FITML Platform which allows developers to create mo-
bile internet portals. Roland is an active member of the the
Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) and several open source projects.
www.sevenval.com

Thibaut Rouffineau / WIP
Community and passion builder with a mobile edge, Thibaut
has been conversing with the mobile developer community for
the past 5 years as the head of developer engagement at
Symbian, where he spearheaded the migration to open source.
Today he is the VP for Developer Partnerships at WIP (Wireless
Industry Partnership). www.wipconnector.com

153

Chris Brady / Animated Media Inc.
(AMI)
Chris is an expert on graphics and GPUs and has been devel-
oping software since the 1980’s. He founded ALT Software
Inc. growing it to the leading provider of safety critical, real-
time, OpenGL 3D device drivers and software in the aerospace
market. As AMI’s CEO, he is now leading the charge to bring
Flash technology to devices and markets outside of Adobe’s
focus – including Flash on the iPhone. www.animatedmedia.ca

Wolfram Kriesing / uxebu
Wolfram has more than twelve years professional experience
in IT. With two equivalently experienced experts he founded
uxebu, a software consulting company focused on mobile
cross platform solutions and web2.0, AJAX-oriented front-end
engineering. He has been an active open source contributor
on multiple projects and is currently a member of the the Dojo
Toolkit project. www.uxebu.com

Friedger Müffke / OpenIntents
Friedger is following the development of Android since the
first announcement of the Open Handset Alliance in late
2007. As lead developer, CEO and co-founder of OpenIntents
he promotes the building block philosophy of Android and
tries to connect developers. He also organizes the Android
conference droidcon. www.openintents.org

154

Michel Shuqair / AppValley
Michel built his experience with Telecoms since 1999 where he
closely watched the mobile development space evolving from
Japan. Starting with black and white WAP applications, iMode
and SMS games, he was leading the mobile social network
m.wauwee.com with almost 1,000,000 members and supported
by a team of Symbian, iPhone, Blackberry and Android special-
ists with headquarter in Amsterdam (acquired by MobiLuck).
www.appvalley.nl

Alexander Repty / Enough Software
Alexander has been developing software for Mac OS X since
2004. When the iPhone SDK was released in 2008, he was
among the first registered developers for the program. Since
then, he has worked on a number of apps and written a series
of articles on iPhone development. He is working as an iPhone
and iPad developer for Enough Software since October 2008.
www.enough.de www.alexrepty.com

Benno Bartels / InsertEFFECT
Benno’s entry to the mobile space was his diploma thesis about
porting J2ME applications. Afterwards he founded InsertEffect,
a company focusing on mobile web development. Today, the
team consists of 10 people focused mainly on usability opti-
mization of mobile websites, social network applications and
widgets. www.inserteffect.com

155

Marco Tabor / Enough Software
Marco is responsible for PR, sales and much more at Enough
Software. He coordinates this project as well taking responsibil-
ity for finding sponsors and merging the input provided by the
mobile community. www.enough.de

Alex Jonsson / MoSync
Alex likes anything mobile, both apps and web technology and
connecting physical stuff to digital stuff. He holds a doctors
degree in on-line publishing and distributed education. Behind
this tech surface lies an eclectic urge to create new value by
exploiting aspects of communication and media to bring people
together. Alex holds a position as VP Creative Products at Mo-
Sync Inc. www.mosync.com

Richard Bloor / Sherpa Consulting Ltd
Richard has been writing about mobile applications develop-
ment since 2000. He contributes to popular websites, such as
AllAboutSymbian.com, and assists companies in creating
resources for developers. Richard brings a strong technical
background to his work, having managed development and
testing on a number of major IT projects, including the Land
Information NZ integrated land ownership and survey system.
When not writing about mobile development, Richard can be
found regenerating the native bush on his property north of
Wellington.

156

Jens Weller / Code Node
Jens started his career at Vodafone in 2002 as an apprentice,
and joined the Vodafone test & innovation center in 2005 as a
software engineer. In 2007 he founded his own company Code
Node Ltd. Since then he works in the industry as a specialist
for C++ , Qt and bada. He likes to dance Salsa in his free time.
www.codenode.de

Julian Harty / eBay
Hired by Google in 2006 as the first Test Engineer outside the
USA and told he was responsible for testing Google’s mobile
phone applications. He helped others inside and outside Google
to learn how to do likewise; and he ended up writing the first
book on the topic. The material is also freely available at
tr.im/mobtest He continues to work on Test Automation for
mobile phones and applications. He now works for eBay where
his mission is to revamp testing globally.
www.ebay.com www.tr.im/mobtest

André Schmidt / Enough Software
André is developing mobile applications since 2001. He joined
Enough Software in 2007 where he heads the development
of Open Source products for mobile developers and mobile
applications of any kind. He is mainly developing for J2ME,
Android and Blackberry. www.enough.de

157

Michael Koch / Enough Software
Michael joined the development team at Enough Software in
2005. He has not only headed the development of numerous
mobile projects (mainly for Windows Mobile and Blackberry),
but is also an expert on server technology. And of course he
is an open source enthusiast, just like everybody at Enough
Software. www.enough.de

Gary Johnson / Hyland Software, Inc.
Gary has been working as a software developer for Hyland Soft-
ware, Inc. since 2005. He works primarily in Silverlight and
WPF, and has a strong passion for UX and mobile development.
As a hobbyist, he is heavily involved in Windows Phone 7 de-
velopment. www.hyland.com

Oliver Graf / Enough Software
Oliver is coding software for several platforms since 2000. He is
working as a multi-platform developer for Enough Software and
writes about mobile development for several magazines. Oliver
was among the first registered developers for bada. As one of
the Samsung developer advocates, he connects developers with
Samsung (and vice-versa) to improve the bada ecosystem.
www.enough.de www.dm-graf.de

158

Ovidiu Iliescu / Enough Software
After developing desktop and web-based applications for several years,
Ovidiu decided mobile sofware is more to his liking. He’s been doing
J2ME and Blackberry development for Enough Software since 2009. He
gets excited by anything related to efficient coding, algorithms and
computer graphics. www.enough.de www.ovidiuiliescu.com

Gary Readfern-Gray / RNIB
Gary is an accessibility specialist working for the UK Royal National
Institute of the Blind. Located in the innovation unit, he has a passion
for the mobile space and particularly for enabling accessible app devel-
opment across a range of platforms by engaging with developer comu-
nities. www.rnib.org.uk

published by
Enough Software GmbH + Co. KG
Sögestrasse 70
28195 Bremen
Germany
www.enough.de

ENOUGH ENOUGH
SOFTWARE SOFTWARE
Robert Virkus Robert Virkus

An initiative by:
Vor dem Steintor 218 Vor dem Steintor 21
28203 Bremen 28203 Bremen
Germany Germany

Tel +49 (0)421 98 89 131 Tel +49 (0)421 98 89 1
Fax +49 (0)421 98 89 132 Fax +49 (0)421 98 89 1
Mobile +49 (0)160 77 88 203 Mobile +49 (0)160 77 88 2
robert.virkus@enough.de robert.virkus@enou
www.enough.de www.enough.de

www.enough.de www.wipconnector.com

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