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Graphics for PDA Developers

Developing PDA applications greatly differs from coding for desktop platforms. There are numerous mobile platforms, each with their own hardware and operating system, and each platform puts its own requirements on the visual design of user interfaces. Screens differ in resolution and color depth, often requiring exotic formats and resolutions for graphical elements. Windows Mobile sets its own requirements, while Symbian phones and handheld devices use different sizes and formats of icons. Are you up to the challenge of drawing your own graphics for the multitude of handheld devices?

While VGA resolution is used on many of today’s mobile devices, 320x240 and lower resolutions are still more common on low-end hand-held devices as well as on many mobile phones. You simply can’t use desktop-resolution graphics on these platforms, or you’d be wasting precious screen space.

Serious mobile developers need their graphics in a variety of formats, resolutions and color depths to suit the requirements of various mobile devices. Windows Mobile uses graphics in ICO format, while Symbian demands for BMP or even MBM (Symbian OS multiple bitmap file) format. Other mobile operating systems may have their own requirements as to the format and size of images used in their applications. In either case, you have to supply different sizes of images for the mobile OS to select the most appropriate icon size for the current zoom state of the user interface. If you omit one or more sizes, the mobile device will scale icons dynamically, which results in a significant loss of visual quality, clarity and legibility of the icons. The required icon sizes and resolutions are specific to the operating system, but the more you have the better.

As you see, having your graphics available in various formats, sizes and color resolutions is not a benefit but a mere requirement for just entering the market. Are you up to the challenge of creating your graphics to the strict specifications of the various mobile device and operating system manufacturers?

Luckily, you don’t have to! It is now easy to enhance the appearance of your mobile software with properly crafted icons without having to make them to order or drawing them in-house. Perfect Mobile Icons are available in all common sizes used in mobile systems, including 16x16, 20x20, 24x24, 32x32, and 48x48 pixels, and come in 16 and 256 colors, while providing 32-bit True Color versions for high-end VGA-resolution mobile devices and desktop communication tools. With respect to the different format requirements of mobile system manufacturers, each icon is supplied in Windows Icon (ICO), Bitmap (BMP), GIF, and PNG formats.

Perfect Mobile Icons are a matching set of over 120 images drawn in common gamma and sharing common color and drawing style. Your mobile applications will look professional and consistent on any platform. Simply visit http://www.perfect-icons.com to see full-size online preview of these icons!