Mark Donohoe, Principal Engineer Sony Ericsson, session introduced developers to the recently announced Sony Ericsson P990 running on Symbian OS 9.1 and UIQ 3.
The announcement of the P990 was earlier than Sony Ericsson usually considers for its products, but this was a result of a desire to introduce developers to the new platform and allow them to follow the evolution and develop for the phone.
The phone offers both UTMS and Wifi connectivity, push email, a 2,0 megapixel camera module, a new hardware keyboard and a flip down number keypad, a 2.8 inch QVGA 262,000 colour screen and 64 mb of internal memory. As such there are, by taking advantage of the enhanced hardware, new opportunities for developers to take advantages and an opportunity to bring previously developed solution to a new phone and platform.
Donohoe highlighted that despite there being multiple data bearers there was, for developers, transparent data connection using snap accounts which allows for the configuration of preferred accounts on multiple bearers for automatic selection when connecting. As a result when an applications performs a data connection request the sockets automatically pick up preferred accounts. The business functionality of the device was also highlighted with push mail, hardware keyboards, improved scheduling applications, USB 2 connectivity and changes in the multi-tasking UI meaning the device is even more attractive to business and opportunities for enterprise applications should therefore be considered.
The P990 runs on Symbian OS 9.1 and UIQ 3. Donohoe explained that this presents new opportunities and challenges. The Symbian platform security model is at the heart of OS 9 and together with the Symbian Signed program ensures a new level of user confidence in device security and stability potentially opening up risk adverse markets (such as the Police) to developers. UIQ 3 introduces the concepts of a single code base for multiple UIs and form factors, one handed use, and enhanced multimedia presentation capabilities. Sony Ericsson customisations include Vibration, Bluetooth HID Host, and MMS APIs to allow developers easier access to hardware functionality.
Donohoe then introduced some of the technical changes in UIQ 3 by running through a hello world example application and highlighted the added abstracted APIs for UI creation, that were party of the new UIQ 3 single code base for multiple UI concept. In UIQ 3 there are two concrete styles, pen styles and softkey styles; the P990 flip open uses pen style, while flip closed uses the softkey style. It is now possible to create applications in C++, or in Java for both flip open and flip closed modes, although applications need to be registered to appear in flip closed. There are further new API to support full screen views and in this mode the penstyle UI now uses a standard floating menu component and the softkey style UI supports optional softkeys with almost and true full screen modes. UIQ 3 has also introduced landscape mode views. Donohoe advised developers that it was possible to optimise for each UI configuration though the resource system by supplying data for each configuration and that additional C++ methods to allow powerful optimisation at runtime
It was pointed out that developing for the P990 involved a trade off on whether to make an application generic (for the UIQ 3 platform) and portable to future UIQ 3 devices or specific and highly optimized to a specific device. It is possible to make an application exclusively for P990 or closely follow UIQ guidelines to get the best portability to new devices as they appear.
Donohoe moved on to described the the new powerful multimedia capabilities of the device from the developer perspective. A 32bits per pixel bbp colour mode used in software (with a 16ma framebuffer, and 15mu default display mode). There is now transparency support on bitmaps and windows and the UI presentation has been updated with support for full skins, images and animation components, and transition effects within the user interface. The P990 and UIQ 3 support a long list of multimedia formats and protocols including Open GL ES 1.1 and MBX 3D hardware acceleration which is complimented by new and updated APIs allowing access to the camera, and multimedia elements of the file system.
Donohoe concluded by telling developers than the P990 was expected to ship in Q1 2006 and more information, including example code, documentation, and SDK's could be found on the newly launched UIQ Developer website (developer.uiq.com) as well as Sony Ericsson Developer World (sonyericsson.com/developer).