Avoid the 9 Common Flaws of Unportable Mobile Java Apps

ith an estimated 100 million Java-enabled handsets on the market today—a number projected to grow to 1 billion by 2006—it's clear that the opportunity for wireless developers is enormous. However, since there are more than 200 different Java-enabled mobile handsets and an international market requiring multiple language support and mobile operator specific customizations, developers are finding the time commitment and total cost of deploying applications to be a huge hurdle to overcome—all but eliminating the benefits of having such a large potential market for their applications in the first place.

One of the issues that causes such a sinkhole for wireless application development is portability. With over 200 different types of devices, writing one program that works on each one seems a daunting task indeed. A common mistake is for developers to write an application for one device, and afterwards to attempt to tailor the original code to each device as needed.

In actuality, developers need to design and develop their applications with portability in mind from the very beginning. If care is not taken in the early stages of application development, exponential amounts of resources will be spent later recoding, and in an extreme case—starting from scratch.

By avoiding the common mistakes outlined below, you can produce applications that are easier to port, manage, and ultimately, market to publishers and operators.