SymbianOne talked to the authors of SnapperMail, Snapperfish, about the forthcoming UIQ version of the well known Palm OS email client. The UIQ version is based around the Triplex Core mixing MIDP 2, Personal Java and C++ in the implementation. SnapperMail should be available in mid 2005.

The story mentions that Symbian development is focused on UIQ, with Series 60 not being a priority. I have heard similar accounts from other developers and it seems that Series 60 is increasingly being seen as a dumb smartphone platform (i.e. one on which only a small minority install extra applications). That may be true to an extent, but it seems to me that these developers may be making a mistake given the numbers of Series 60 devices in the market.

Furthermore if development is started with multiple Symbian UI's in mind from the start supporting multiple platforms is relatively easy, this is especially true for an application like SnapperMail which has already taken a modularised design decision. In recent discussions specialist Symbian develepers have mentioned figures of around 15-25% extra development as the cost of supporting an additional platform, with the mjority of this coming from UI tweaks and implementations.