Which SDK to use to cover nearly all Symbian Phones from since 2008?

[tyvan]

Hi,

to get a new App running on nearly all Symbian Phones (in Java) from 2008 which SDK should i use.
This is not really clear for me.

For S40 i've read "...to tap into the largest volume of platform devices.". Makes sense as its an "older" version of the SDK.
I have the N97 and would like to create the app perfectly running on my N97 but also on all other N-series and others being published from 2008.

Is there any disadvantage when using S40 SDK for my N97. May i miss any important feature for my N97 when using S40 SDK? What advantage do i have when starting developing with the S60 SDK? Maybe a comparison page showing differences between S40 and S60 SDK would be good. :-)

Would appreciate that if someone (having some experience using both S40 and S60 SDK's) could clarify this.

Cheers

[ektasrv]

Hi,

to get a new App running on nearly all Symbian Phones (in Java) from 2008 which SDK should i use.
This is not really clear for me.

For S40 i've read "...to tap into the largest volume of platform devices.". Makes sense as its an "older" version of the SDK.
I have the N97 and would like to create the app perfectly running on my N97 but also on all other N-series and others being published from 2008.

Is there any disadvantage when using S40 SDK for my N97. May i miss any important feature for my N97 when using S40 SDK? What advantage do i have when starting developing with the S60 SDK? Maybe a comparison page showing differences between S40 and S60 SDK would be good. :-)

Would appreciate that if someone (having some experience using both S40 and S60 SDK's) could clarify this.

Cheers

If you to get a new App running on nearly all Symbian Phones (in Java) from 2008

When you develop a Java - J2me application you basically develop an application using MIDP 2.0 and CLDC 1.0 libraries which will be good for any S60 phone. For Using optional JSRs in your application you can limit these to available JSR's in Nokia N95 as a reference device. And for testing you can use real device or S60 3rd ed SDK for N95 like devices and N97 SDK for Touch devices like N97 and 5800 series.

You should use any S60 SDK emulator and ref. device like N95 for testing, it will cover almost all S60 & E Series phones running Java over Symbian.
If you want to make it compatible with N97 you may also need to test it on S60 5th edition SDK, to take advantage of Touch and orientation change features of N97 etc.

[grandlu]

Hi,

To complete what ektasrv was saying I think you should also consider what can of application you want to build and which API will be involved, meaning that depending on the complexity of your application and the amount of resources which will be involved at runtime, different devices will react differently, and something running really smoothly on your N97 might not run as well or not at all on older devices which have obviously different hardware specifications and might run on a different platform, in that case Series 40 for example....

Therefore to answer your question, if you want your application to be able to run on a wide range of devices you will have to use APIs which are as common as possible and adapt your code so that it is able to run fine on touch devices as well as on non touch devices, on devices supporting landscape mode as well as on ones which do not....

But if your question was well formulated and want an app running on symbian phones, you shouldn't use any SDK related to S40 which is not based on symbian...

Then using S60 SDK 3rd Edition FP2 and 5th Edition should allow you to test your application in the 2 main conditions: with touch features and with no touch features...
And it is perfectly feasible to adapt your code so that it can target both... It is just more work and a better design, so more time needed ;-)

Also keep in mind that devices running on same platform might not contain the same APIs... so using special ones might reduce the portability...

Good luck!

- Luc