《Series 40可扩展应用程序开发》作者Michael Yuan为影印版作序

《Series 40可扩展应用程序开发》作者Michael Yuan为影印版作序

If there is a paradise on earth for mobile phone applicationdevelopers, that place would be in China. With more than 400 millionmobile phone users (growing to 600 million by 2009), China is posed to be the world's largest market for mobile applications and services. Chinese mobile phone users are also technically savvy. Theyare eager to try out cutting-edge devices and services beyond simplevoice calls. That provides a fertile ground for new mobile applications. When I visited China, everyone seems to have a fancy mobile handset, and people are using mobile applications (e.g.,games, messaging, taking pictures) everywhere -- in the office, inthe park, on the bus ... A successful mobile application in China canmake a ton of money for its investors and developers.

Nokia has a big presence in China. With more than 30% of the marketshare, all mass market mobile applications must run well on Nokiadevices. The Nokia Series 40 devices, with more than 70 phone modelson the market today, are by far the most popular mobile phones forthe affluent urban Chinese. The most popular Series 40 phones includethe 6265, 6230, and 7210. Tens of millions of those phones are inactive use in China. The sheer volume of those devices make them acritical platform for any mobile application developer. Nokia Series40 phones feature crispy color screens, cameras, media players (music, photo, and video). They can connect to the Internet via2.5G / 3G mobile data networks, including both GSM and CDMA networks. More importantly, all Nokia Series 40 phones have an open programming interface based on Java ME (previously known as J2ME). It allows Java developers to write application that runs directly on the phone and leverages data services on the Internet.

A big advantage Java ME applications have over WAP browser-basedapplications is the rich user experience. Java ME applications canrender fancy UI effects (e.g., animations, transparent widgets, fullscreen display, audio / video, etc.) and respond to custom keypadshortcuts. The Java ME UI is multi-threaded and hence does not freezethe phone when the application executes a long running task (e.g., toretrieve some data from the Internet). In addition, Java MEapplications have access to special phone features such as thecamera, the media players, the messaging system, and the Bluetoothradio. A good example of such rich mobile applications is GoogleLocal Mobile -- it allows mobile users to view any street map in theUSA; you can zoom in, zoom out and pan the maps via an intuitive UI; you can also search for local businesses and overlay drivingdirections on the map. While Google Local Mobile is not yet availablein China, it represents the type of mobile application that would really shine on mass market mobile phones such as the Nokia Series 40.

This book teaches you how to write production-ready Java ME applications for Nokia devices. While the title of this book is"Developing Scalable Series 40 Applications", it actually covers boththe Nokia Series 40 phones and the very popular Nokia Series 60smartphones, since the Java ME APIs on those two series are similar. In fact, since Java ME is a standard-based technology, much of the information in the book applies to all Java ME developers, and most sample applications in the book runs on non-Nokia handsets just fine.
The book is fully reviewed and approved by Nokia. We cover all important Java ME APIs available on Nokia Series 40 and Series 60devices, including MIDP 2.0, the Wireless Messaging API, the MobileMedia API, the Bluetooth API, and much more. Issues and quirkinessthat are specific to Nokia's Java ME implementation are explained anddiscussed. Some of those issues arise due to vague language in the Java ME specification, and others are simply due to the hardware limitations on various Nokia devices. Besides the standard APIs, thisbook also covers extension APIs available on Nokia devices. Those "Nokia insider" information makes this book a must-read for any serious Nokia mobile application developer.

Throughout the book, we provide more than 10 sample applications. Youcan build those applications, run them, and then simply add / change features to make your own applications. Using those sampleapplications, we discuss real world coding tips, design patterns and best practices for Java ME developers.

Now, it is your turn to come up with the best mobile application ideas. Hopefully, this book will help you bring those ideas tomarket. Let the smartest mobile application developers rule!