Customer Reviews

Developing Scalable Series 40 Applications: A Guide for Java Developers

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book provides a simple, easy-to-read introduction to developing Java J2ME midlets with the MIDP2 APIs. If you don't like reading dry old JavaDoc then this is a much friendlier alternative. Even if you do like wading through JavaDoc, this book is an excellent companion.

But whether you're taking your first steps in the J2ME space, or you're already an experienced developer, this book offers something much more important: it provides a really detailed description of Nokia's mainstream/high-volume Series 40 platform.

One of the hardest things about J2ME development is knowning how the behaviour of each different platform varies. Despite the promise of "write once, run anywhere" in reality developers need to have a great deal of platform-specific knowledge.

Nokia Series 40 is far and away the largest volume J2ME platform in the market. If you want to develop for Nokia handsets you really should add this book to your collection!

Nokia is the world's largest cellphone maker. While it is being strongly challenged, especially in China, it should still be the first platform for cellphone developers to target. This book explains how within broad parameters, Nokia has opened out its models for developers. It has chosen to use a mobile version of Java. The book shows how to use this and MIDP to develop your application (which is probably a game).

One of the authors, Yuan, wrote a book on J2ME recently, and you may perhaps consider this Nokia book as somewhat of a sequel.

If you're already facile in regular Java, transitioning to this book should be easy. Perhaps the biggest change is the dumping of the Swing and AWT widgets. Simply too heavy for the resources of a small screen and limited power. Hence, graphics-wise, you may find coding rather constraining. But that's the reality of any cellphone.

Another difference shown by the book is that there is now often an emphasis on audio and video capture and playing. At least, as compared to standard desktop applications.

The authors and Nokia have produced a very cleanly laid out and logical presentation.

The book gives you an understanding of the way the j2me has been implemented on series 40 devices. The best part though is that the authors have provided code snippets of simple tasks that developers need in almost all their applications. I have used the source code not only for series 40 but other devices to.

I would recommend this book for all developers as a reference book. I personally would not get this book as the only j2me book in my shelf.. but its a great second book.

This is a near perfect guide. Readable, with plenty of examples, it explains everything and provides almost the all required information needed to start programming for Series 40 (and Series 60) phones - assuming you only know Java.

I read this out of pure curiosity, and I must say, I learned all that I needed and much more. It taught everything from internet connectivity, automated building, testing, compiling, and security from secure minded applications to fun 2D games. It's really an amazing book that probably combines a lot of different random white papers from various different perspectives and presents in a complete, comprehensive and clear manner. The examples are informative, representative of real world applications, and are easy to follow.

I found some things to be needlessly verbose, and I wish there were better summaries of objects and inheritance between the required classes, but all in all, it easily provides the foundation needed to create, debug, and test almost any J2ME mobile phone application around. I cannot recommend this highly enough.

This book's a pretty good introduction to J2ME development.

I discovered that I had to add source="1.4" and target="1.4" directives to the javac ant task to get this to work under JDK 1.5. Otherwise, everything worked exactly as advertised. I found this out on my own, as there doesn't appear to be an errata or feedback section at the author's site.

It is a good read on nokia series 40. After reading the books, I continue to build a set of mobile application for Nokia and Samsung phones at http://www.doitech.com/default_files/super.htm The books provides many useful tips, that has shorten my development time. The application allows user to view their ODBC data at their Nokia and Samsung phone, and sync over GSM/CDMA network. Please visit http://www.doitech.com, if you can find the link. Thank you very much.