Developer FAQs

If you have any questions that are not answered here please contact us at support@phoload.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

A. General Questions

  1. Why should I upload my mobile software to Phoload?
  2. What kind of software does Phoload accept?
  3. How do I upload my mobile software to Phoload?

B. Uploading releases files (e.g. Java JAR files) and specifying phone compatibilities

  1. What is a release?
  2. How does the release priority work?
  3. How do I specify which phones are compatible with my JAR files?

A. General Questions

A.1 Why should I upload my mobile software to Phoload?

The Phoload.com website will be a great place to distribute your mobile phone games and applications. We will be doing everything we can to market the website and the content that is uploaded to it. Our aim is to make it simple, easy, and fun for users to discover, discuss and download free mobile software. We are also focused on ensuring that users will only download software that is compatible with their phone.

On both the Phoload web and mobile sites, there will pages dedicated to your software (which link back to your websites). The pages available on the mobile site will be automatically filtered to show only the software that is compatible with the phone being used to browse the site. You will also receive regular reports detailing your software download numbers (broken down by phone types) as well as feedback from the user community.

Uploading mobile software for distribution can be a pain, especially if you have created multiple versions of your software for different devices. We aim to make the uploading process as smooth and efficient as possible, and have made it easy to upload multiple versions of the same software for different phone types.

We want to provide an excellent service for developers, so if you have any suggestions which could improve the developer interface, or more generally the service we provide, please contact us at contact@phoload.com.

A.2 What kind of software does Phoload accept?

At the moment we accept software compatible with the Java Micro Edition (Java ME, formerly known as J2ME), Symbian (S60 and UIQ), and Android platforms. We will be adding support for other mobile software platforms in the near future. We will publish any free software that does not violate our terms and conditions. If you upload software to the website, you should be the developer of the software or own the rights to distribute the software. Please note that software containing adult content is not allowed.

A.3 How do I upload my mobile software to Phoload?

To be able to upload your software to Phoload, you must first register as a developer. Subsequently you can login the developer interface and begin uploading your software.

There are three stages to a software upload: Entering the details and description of your software; uploading screenshots; and uploading the application files.

After you have submitted a game or application we will email you once it goes live on the website.

B. Uploading application files (releases) and specifying phone compatibilities.

B.1 What is a release?

A release corresponds to an application file, for example a Java JAR file. You can upload multiple releases for a single game or application. This is necessary when you have created a number of different releases for use on different phone types.

If you upload a Java ME JAR file you can also optionally upload a JAD (Java Application Descriptor) file. If you don't upload a JAD file then one will automatically be created using the information from the manifest inside the uploaded JAR.

B.2 How does the release priority work?

When you upload a release file you can optionally specify a 'priority' for that release. This can be very useful if you have created different release files (e.g. different JAR files) for use on different phone types. The release priority allows you to specify an ordering of the release files you upload from 1 to 10. When a user downloads your software, if their phone is compatible with multiple release files then the file with the highest priority (closest to 1) will be sent to their phone.

Using the release priority can make it easier for you to specify which phones are compatible with each file. For example, if you have created both a Java ME MIDP 1.0 and a MIDP 2.0 version of you software, you could assign the MIDP 1.0 release a lower priority. In this case, all phones would be recorded as compatible with the MIDP 1.0 release, but phones which are also compatible with the MIDP 2.0 release would receive the MIDP 2.0 JAR file as it has the higher priority. Using the release priority there is no need to define mutually exclusive sets of phone compatibilities for a group of JAR files.

B.3 How do I specify which phones are compatible with my JAR files?

After you upload a JAR file you have to specify which phones are compatible with the JAR file uploaded. This is done in two steps:

  1. Phone requirements. On this page you should enter the requirements that a phone must satisfy in order to be able to run the uploaded JAR file. You can specify characteristics such as the minimum and/or maximum display resolution a phone must have, or the Java ME APIs that a phone must support (e.g. Bluetooth API, Wireless messaging API etc.). You can also restrict phone compatibility for your software to one or more phone manufacturers. The information entered on this page is used to help determine which phones are compatible with the JAR file. If your uploaded JAR has no specific requirements over and above the MIDP and CLDC profiles (which are automatically set based on information from the uploaded JAR file), just leave the form fields blank and click on the submit button at the bottom of the page.
     
  2. Finalise compatibility. On this page you can manually set the phone compatibilities on a phone-by-phone basis using the tick boxes provided. The page lists all Java-enabled phones, and highlights (with a '*') and automatically ticks those phones that are compatible with the JAR file uploaded based on the information entered on the phone requirements page. To manually mark a phone as compatible or not-compatible with the JAR file, simply tick or untick the appropriate tick box. In this way you can override or add-to the phone compatibilities determined using the phone requirements information. If you do not wish to fine-tune the phone compatibilities, just click on the 'Submit Compatibility' button at the bottom of the page. Should you wish to, you can also remove all of the phone compatibilities determined using the phone requirements information by clicking on the 'deselect starred phones' link. You can then manually specify all of the phones which are compatible with this release.

We recommend that you fill in the Phone requirements form as accurately as possible as this will allow us to automatically update the list of phones that are compatible with the uploaded JAR file when new phones are added to our database.

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