Well, it seems the
Symbian platform is starting to get a bit messy. For the last few years, all Symbian Series 60 devices had a screen resolution of 176(w) x 208(h). This made coding pretty simple and was one of the reasons why Series 60 devices maintain a near monopoly on the Jellingspot client application front. You could write the application once, and it pretty much worked on all Series 60 devices (the claim to fame for Java, which has never really materialized for mobile device platforms, yet).
However, if you notice, there are now a few new Series 60 devices that have a screen resolution of
352(w) x 416(h) [where do they come up with these numbers?] ... such as the
Nokia N80, N90, E70 and E60. Also coming are some more traditional PDA like resolutions of
240(w) x 320(h) on such Series 60 phones as the Nokia N71, N92, and E61. This is starting to get messy.
While we have
Jellingspot client applications for some of these phones already, we haven't tested them, and we know for sure the UI is gonna look funny. I guess we'll have to go purchase (I would really hate to go drop 600 Euro on a device I'm gonna use for about 5 mintues or less) a few of these devices now. Ufff...
The question is, why such strange resolutions when the physical screen size seems to look the same size? (at least on the N80 vs N70?) If the actual screen sizes are larger, than it makes sense I guess, but *if* they're the same, what reason is there for having a higher resolution (in the case of the N92, I undertand it's gonna be a media device, but still ... it's not like you're getting HDTV on that sucker)?
Whatever the reason, seems Symbian Series 60 is gonna become less and less developer friendly in the near future ... hope it doesn't get as bad as Windows Mobile! ;-)
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Java UIQ Jellingspot Symbian Series 60 ]
