EDITORIAL

Another week, another YS. Rafe has been in London several times this week. The result of one of these visit is his report and first impressions on the Motorola A920 the first 3G Symbian phone and the first Symbian phone from Motorola.

This is perhaps somewhat ironic given the news that Motorola is giving up its shareholding in Symbian and its announcement that it plans to concentrate on Java and Linux for its low end devices. It says its not giving up on Symbian, but will only use it in high end 3G handsets such as the A920. I suppose it makes some sense since they're still a licensee and no longer have the responsibilities of being shareholder, although someone in the PR department should have realy picked up on these two bits of news and not sent them out so close together.

But the A920 is the firs of the next wave of Symbian smartphones � and Your Symbian is going to be covering them all as and when they launch. Stay with us for all your Symbian news and views.

It�s been a busy week in the developer community with some titles coming out which are so neat, I�d wear they�ve been ironed and laid in order on the duvet. We even get to see one of the Symbian big names out with a new title on Series60. Now how cool is that!?

You may remember a few months ago I mentioned an Audio Analyzer for the Nokia3650? Well, a 7650 specific version has been released so now you 7650 owners can get a sexy Spectrum Analyser (that�s audio spectrum, not Sinclair Spectrum)! It�s by Image Alert and costs $9.95 . Since their website doesn�t seem to be in a functionally active right now, you�ll have to grab it from Handango.

If anybody out there is thinking of taking out a loan, you may want to take a peek at the FREEWARE application Loan Calculator Max by TA Cybernetic Solutions. Grab it from Handango and get your loans worked out before they get you worked out!

I�m off to beat my goat because he ate the house and farted it into a bucket. Darned cheek!

MOTOROLA A920 BEAUTY OR BEAST - Rafe

The Motorola A920 was launched this week on the 3 network in the UK. This is a 3G network, and the A920 is the first publicly available 3G handset that is powered by Symbian OS in the UK. It's a UIQ device, so we finally have a companion (or should that be a competitor?) for the P800. We've know about the device for a while thanks to leaks from the FCC, but it�s a whole different story when you actually get to see and use one for real. 3 had an exclusive preview to which I was invited (thanks 3!) where I was given a chance to see the handset, have it demo�ed to me� and of course get my hands on it for a proper play.

SIZE and LOOKS - BEAST

The first reaction everyone will have to the A920 is that it's quite big. To be honest it is a bit of a beast in the size department! It's about as half as big again as the P800, strangely though it doesn't feel as big as it actually is. This is partly because it�s relatively shallow in the depth measurement, but also because it fits into the hand nicely; it fitted comfortably into my hand and felt better to hold than my P800. I actually think that�s one of the most important things about a phone actually - it has to be comfortable to use. How a phone looks and whether people like it are very subjective matters. However I think for a phone this size it actually looks OK. It manages to avoid looking cheap (like other Motorola�s and the other 3G phones I've seen). The finish colour is more pleasing that the P800, but there's something not quite right - and I can't put my finger on it. Maybe its the large amount of space around the screen - yes there are plenty of buttons, but I 'm sure the same number could have fitted into a smaller space...

INTERFACE � The Beauty

The extra buttons are great in interface terms. The five way direction pad is good and was responsive and easy to use. You can achieve almost all of your basic navigation from this button. There is a 3 button, which takes you direct to the 3 content (of which more later), which is a nice touch (and the best example of how this handset has been jointly designed by Moto and 3). The UI is UIQ, which I'm a fan of. I know it�s not everyone�s cup of tea, but for devices of this type I really haven't ever seen anything that comes close. The tight integration of phone and PDA functions and the similarity between the way you use UIQ applications is excellent, and it�s nice to see there are no significant changes made here � only icons and names from my overview. There is a learning curve of sorts for UIQ (though for me everything was obvious), but once you are there you'll be navigating around at high speed - it's an efficient and usable UI. Since it's UIQ a major interface is obvious ly the touch screen - and tucked in the back of the phone is a proper stylus. I can't tell you how nice it is to use a proper stylus compared to the plastic thing that comes with the P800. (Note: YS staff has several ways round this P800 'feature' - one uses a combo pen, another sadder one uses the stylus from a defunct Psion 5). The handwriting recognition uses Transcriber rather than CIC Jot, but it seems there's not a great deal of difference once you've got to their respective foibles. The most irritating thing with transcriber was the need to tab on the keyboard icon before inputting could start. However on the plus sides there are two separate input windows so I think it could be faster than the P800 approach - nor do you have to remember where to write on the screen - it's all in one box.

DATA � The Beast

Before I went to the preview I was keyed into the fact that 3 have a browsing walled garden - i.e. you can only browse on the website it provides. This means you can browse general WAP sites or web sites as you might on the P800. Nor can you access your own e-mail; you have to use the 3 provided 3mail. Grrr. It also means no Instant Message programs will work, nor will IRC or FTP. Double Grrr. Nor can you use your 3G phone as fast mobile modem fro your laptop. Triple Grrr. I did wonder where the block is and whether 3rd party software might get round it, but only time will tell on that front. I ask 3 why on earth they didn't allow general data access. They did say that they didn't regard the walled garden as sacrosanct, but at the same time they wanted to makes the most of the 3G aspects of the phone, and highlight those aspects - this, they argued, was best done by controlling the content so that things could be shown in their best light. I can see what they mean - but I thi nk it is a weak reason to block generic data - to me it would seem to be a major extra selling point. The reality might be that 3 don't want to allow people out because they are worried about the impact it might have on their revenues. Being both a network provider and a content provider are not always complimentary. 3 have worked just at hard at providing content services as they have in providing a 3G network.

But how much is this actually going to matter? It's difficult to judge but here's the thing - most customers wont give two hoots about closed data - why - because they don't see themselves using it - it doesn't mean they wouldn't if there were educated as to its benefits, but what it does mean is that it wont stop them buying the phone. Although I suspect the majority of readers of YS might see closed data as a major reason not to buy the phone the mass market will probably not. This is especially true because the content that 3 do provide is very compelling. In any case 3 don�t see closed data as set in stone, and they are aware that not being able to get your own e-mail is an issue, and is something they are looking to rectify.

SERVICES - Beauty

I think one of the key factors in selling smartphones - indeed any phone which has more than a bog standard phone - is how it works out of the box. One of the most important things you can add is easier to use services. In camera phones the best example of this is the combination of a photo album and MMS messaging. However services can be a lot more than this. We've been hearing about location based services for some time, and indeed they have started to appear. However they've remained relatively low tech. The A920 has the first location based services that really has impressed me. From an option on the home screen of the phone you could access various location based services. These principally were 'find my nearest... .� type things, but they also included route planning. These have been around for awhile but generally only gave you an address. The A920 will give you a map and the route to whatever you are looking for, be it the nearest bank or just a point you have specifi ed. The mapping zooms in the extent you can see the shape of individual building so it is certainly possible to use this as a walking navigation aid. Other services on 3 include the by now well known videos which you can download to the phone (news bulletins, film trailers, premiership goals), these are certainly impressive and the A920 is the best phone to view these on thanks to it 46k colour screen. In addition one tap on the screen changes the video from portrait mode to landscape mode. In landscape mode the videos take up nearly the whole screen and look great. That said I'm not convinced I would personally spend my time, or indeed money on downloading video's OTA to my phone, but it seems that on 3 a lot of people do.

VIDEO - Beauty

Of course the other thing that 3 are well known for is video calling. If you haven't seen this before there's no doubting that it’s technically impressive, but at the end of the day there aren't that many people with video handsets so who are you going to call? The A920 has a swiveling camera so you can either face it towards you - the person calling can see you, or away from you - calling person sees what you are looking at. The camera can also be used to take still shots and record video on to the phone memory which is a nice feature.

NOTES and other INFO

I've gone over what I thought were some of the main features, but there are some more interesting bits and pieces that are worth knowing. The phone does not have Bluetooth - this is a shame. However it does have a USB connection with cradle for syncing and linking to the desktop. That could also be used, I assume, for installing 3rd party software. The phone has an MMC/SD card slot (and comes with a16MB card), but you can get cards up to 256MB easily (SD). Whoever designed the phone deserves credit for having the two most common small memory card types supported. Since the phone runs UIQ I think most 3rd party P800 apps will run on it without problems, but there is no confirmation of this.

The one other nice feature is that this phone is triband GSM and has GPRS meaning that it can be used all over the world assuming roaming agreement are in place. That's nice for those who travel and don't want to switch phones.

Price - this is, I think, what this phone will live and die on. It�s the best phone on the 3 network, but there needs to be an incentive for people to buy this as opposed to another phone. 3 told me they were looking at around the �100 for the phone, with higher contracts perhaps coming in at an even lower price. That's great considering this will be launch pricing, and I'm sure they'll sell well. 3 seemed to think they are going to sell a lot more phone than they have so far (155,000), and believe the 1 million targets is doable (hmmm!). The A920 is going to be their key phone for at least the next 3 months. We were told that there were more phones on the way and there were rumours that at least one of these would be a Symbian phone.

CONCLUSION

Would I buy this phone? Well yes I would be tempted, but I do currently have a P800 that does a lot of what the A920 does. However for those thinking about getting a P800 the A920 is worth considering, especially if you're not data obsessed. 3 offer very good value on both tariffs and handsets. For the value conscious this is a great smartphone.

The phone is both a beauty and a beast. It�s a Symbian phone which makes it a beauty (biased perhaps, but hey I'm allowed to be). The size makes it a bit beasty (though that�s not all bad). The data is a real downer, but on the other hand the services and the videos are very good. The problem is I can't help thinking what might have been. If this phone had Bluetooth, if 3 had open data, and it was just a little smaller this would be a great phone package. As it is it is just a very good phone package.

In which Diego discovers that J2ME is a lot less, and a lot more, than previously thought

I concluded in part one that native development in Symbian is a difficult proposition at the moment if your main concern is, like mine, minimizing development time by targeting as many devices as possible with a single code base. Creating 80-85% portable "native" Symbian apps is possible, but complex, and difficult for new developers. Because of this, for many applications, J2ME will be the way to go.

MICRO JAVA, NOT MICRO-J2SE

J2ME is truly a "micro" version of Java, rather than a reduced J2SE (Here's a good take on the topic from Russ). When J2ME was first launched there was another "contender" called Personal Java (based on JDK 1.1.8) which we'll ignore since it's currently being phased out by Sun. To get some context, let's look again at the varieties of Java:

J2ME: a Java-based platform for small/memory limited devices.

J2SE: the Standard Java platform for desktop/mobile computing and above.

J2EE: Enterprise-oriented additions to J2SE, mostly in the forms of new libraries and APIs that plug into enterprise runtime environments.

J2ME targets areas that, unlike the (slightly) more uniform target of J2SE/J2EE, require support of widly different devices and capabilities, in terms of I/O, processing power, memory, and everything in between. As a consequence, J2ME is actually a set of specifications. Each specification targets a configuration, which then can be further defined by using it with different profiles.

And herein begins the acronym-fest. There are, currently, two main types of configurations. The CLDC and the CDC (not a bad name, in our virus-ridden times). The CLDC ("Connected Limited Device Configuration") is a low-end configuration target: cellphones, low-end PDAs, etc. CDC (Connected Device Configuration) on the other hand targets everything between the high-end of CLDC and the low end of devices that begin to support J2SE. (CDC + the Foundation Profile, the Personal Basis Profile and the Personal Profile define the equivalent of Personal Java but with more flexibility, which is why Personal Java has been discontinued, btw).

Now, both the CLDC and CDC reference VMs differ from the J2SE VM, and from each other. I'll be most interested in the CLDC VM (The KVM, or Kylobyte Virtual Machine), since it's the one used in most Symbian phones. The KVM is limited compared to a J2SE VM, not just in features (e.g., no advanced JIT techniques) but also in capabilities (e.g., floating point arithmetic is not required by the CLDC spec).

Talking about VMs is all well and good, but in the end what makes Java a platform is its libraries as much as it is its VM. So what about libraries in J2ME? Well, that's where the profiles come in.

PROFILES

Profiles add packages and classes to configurations, and each configuration has one or more associated profiles. And for CLDC, the most popular profile is one called the Mobile Information Device Profile or MIDP.

The MIDP adds basic networking, UI elements and minimal storage capabilities to the CLDC, and it is normally used for wireless devices (phones, PDAs, etc). Recently Sun announced the release of a new an improved MIDP, MIDP 2.0. But most Symbian phones implement CLDC with MIDP 1.0, and only one so far (the Nokia 6600) supports MIDP 2.0 (that I know of). SonyEricsson's P800 supports Personal Java, but that's a dead end since it has been discontinued.

In general, profiles try to use subsets of classes from J2SE. Whenever a class from J2SE is used, only methods already existing in the J2SE version can appear in the J2ME version (i.e., no new methods can be added). That's why the classes/packages some of what we already know from J2SE (say, java.lang.*), or are completely different (the storage classes in MIDP 1.0).

MIDP allows various optional packages such as the Mobile Media API and Wireless Messaging API which are included on some phones such as the Nokia 3650 and newer APIs such as the Bluetooth API on the 6600, as well as APIs in development such as 3D Graphics API for future models.

ENOUGH WITH THE THEORY

After a while it's quite clear that the best way to do multi-device deployment with J2ME is to use MIDP 1.0. Using this profile, you can create Midlets, similar to Applets. Like applets, midlets are limited in their access to the local device, something that is even more visible because of the limitations of the MIDP 1.0 API (PDF, 171 KB).

Now for getting together a J2ME development environment for Symbian requires. To start with, I'll need Sun's J2ME WTK (Wireless Toolkit) either version 1.0.4 (for MIDP 1.0) or version 2.0 (for targeting MIDP 2.0). So I get WTK 1.0.4. Plus, let's say that I'd like to test with a Nokia simulator. I need to get the Nokia Developer's Suite for J2ME, plus an emulator such as the Series 60 Emulator/SDK (which for this phone includes cool things like the Bluetooth Java APIs--but careful! Since other MIDP 1.0 phones might not support that API yet).

The final element in all of this is the IDE integration. The steps necessary to go from cource to binary, and then to deploy it into the phone emulator (or into the phone) are Definitely Not Fun. So getting an IDE that will do them automatically is essential to keeping my sanity. The first option I looked at was CodeWarrior, but CW came integrated with WTK 1.0.3 (instead of 1.0.4) and didn't allow upgrading it. JBuilder 9 for Mobile Dev didn't have a trial download. Eclipse... well. Eclipse was an option :). But I thought that maybe IDEA, which I use for other Java development, had some Plug-In... and sure enough, there it was. Excellent. A bit of fiddling, and finally I was able to see my simple Hello World! application running in one of the default "phone covers".

Note: a big Thanks to Russ, who guided me in my search for tools and toolkits. Without his help, it would all have taken a lot longer than it did.

Now, this is all a lot more complicated than it needs to be, and Sun isn't necessarily helping matters. Hopefully the situation will improve in the near future, to make it easier for new developers to approach J2ME on Symbian platforms (and others, too).

NATIVE VS JAVA

What is probably one of the most ridiculous limitations of MIDP 1.0 is its inability to access the device's store (e.g., contacts, calendar entries, notes, etc). This hugely limits the kinds of useful applications that can be written in Java (which in many cases will want to interact with phone data and services). And there's still no standard to access the bluetooth functionality (although it's coming, too).

At a minimum, creating a prototype with J2ME should be easy enough (once the development environment is set up) so that then certain Symbian devices can be specifically targeted with native development. J2ME apps can be targeted to devices beyond Symbian, such as Palm. However, they have some serious limitations. If an application needs to access low-level functions or device data, native development is a must. Otherwise, J2ME might be a good alternative to simplify portability.

So what am I turning my eye on this week? Through evolution, I seem to have landed Your Symbian with a guide to doing cool Internet things from your mobile phone. This week is no different, as I look at the Rolls Royce of Messaging Applications. Fastchat

Instant Messaging is starting to come to the fore on the Desktop Computer at the moment. With three systems (ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger and Microsoft MSN Messenger) you�ll be drawn to your own group of friends and what ever system you all have in common. The principle of IM (Instant Messaging) is much like SMS. You type in one place and it appears somewhere else really quickly. In fact, SMS was arguably the first mobile IM solution.

But now people want more interaction between their PC IM software and their mobile phone. And while there are many small Java clients that will allow you to connect to MSN Messenger, Fastchat provides this, plus a lot more.

The first thing to note is that Fastchat has versions for both Series 60 and UIQ. And since it was launched back in December 2002 (to cries of � that does an awful lot, is there a catch?) it has been constantly improved, with new (and improved) features being added regularly.

The main feature of Fastchat is that it allows you as a Fastchat user to send various types of messages to other Fastchat users. It also has a gateway to use both MSN and AOL Messenger, so at a basic level you could use it as an MSN/AOL client and never worry about the other features� which would be a shame as you would be missing out a lot.

You may well have seen the Fastchat marketing that advertises a "Walkie Talkie" feature. What this means is that you can record a short message (Dictaphone style!) on your phone and have it sent to another user. If it�s to a Fastchat user, they will hear the message on their phone, and can reply the same way (MSN Messenger people get sent a Wave file). Sounds a bit gimmicky but useless? Not really. If you think about how much a phone call can cost to mobile users in other countries, and compare this with the small amount of GPRS data a compressed wave file takes up, then the advantages to Fastchat start to become clear.

As well as this "Push To Talk" feature, you can also do the same with pictures taken by your phone�s built in camera. You�ve also got the ability to read all your SMS messages (and send them) in the Inbox section of FastChat. Why would you want this? Well, couple this with the newly added feature that allows emails to be read and sent from the same FastChat inbox, you�ve got all your incoming message traffic in the one place. This is really useful when you start using it seriously. In use, Fastchat is quick and easy, and you don�t need to set up anything, you just install the app and it runs away, gets all the right settings, and sets itself up for you!

Of course, nothing in this world is free, and Fastchat is no different. Rather than a flat fee, you get charged a monthly fee for using the Fastchat service (which is currently around �7 per month in the UK). The added services you get do make this worthwhile, and there is a very large infrastructure behind the application (unlike the Midlet clients you might be tempted to try).

You�ll also have to pay for the data over GPRS to your mobile carrier, but even using FastChat heavily for a month it was still only �4-�5 for myself � which I would be paying anyway no matter the client software I use.

In short Fastxt for the casual user has a few extra things to offer, but not much. But to a group of people (such as a group of people in the Corporate world who needs to stay in constant touch) Fastxt is a wonderful tool and well worth the small ongoing expense.

HANDY XXX

HANNU VIITALA

HAROLD BISHOP

One of the few characters who never visited Brisbane in Neighbours. He lost his memory don�t you know?

HUTCHINSON TELECOM

Owners of the UK "3" �g network, and the original owners of "Orange" (and "Rabbit," but nobody ever talks about that). They�ve just launched the second UIQ phone in the form of the A920.

HTC

They designed and make the Orange SPV Microsoft Smartphone. It�s always nice to know who the competition really is.

Your feed back helps make the magazine what it is � so all you people who don�t email us know who to blame... Solve that with a quick email to [email protected]

Your Symbian was brought to you by the letters "Y" and "S" and the number "13"

Copyright (c) Your Symbian 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be coped in any form without written permission.

Some trademarks are referred to in this publication; these are for information purposes only. All trademarks remain the property of their respective owners. The views expressed within are not necessarily the view of Your Symbian, but rather the individual authors. The accuracy of the contained information is not guaranteed. We don�t have time to write a closing caption this week. Can you do better? Best entry wins a free registration to something. Or some penguin droppings.