title: Developing for feature phones and fragmentation across vendors, networks, countries
body: <p>I am interested in developing apps for feature phones, since a large percentage of mobile phones are feature phones in both developed and developing countries. I have read about the fragmentation issues caused by the various feature phone devices on the market.</p>
  
  <p>I have some questions:  </p>
  
  <p>1 . What development tools do I need if I want to develop for most of the various feature phones on the global market?</p>
  
  <p>(I've read about vendor-specific tools such as those from Nokia and Samsung, and I've also read about the Java ME SDK 3.0. But I don't know which ones to use in what situations.)  </p>
  
  <p>2 . What kind of fragmentation problems will I encounter across vendors (such as Nokia and Samsung), across networks (such as Sprint and T-mobile) and across countries (such as devices and networks in India)?</p>
  
  <p>(I've read that vendors may provide extra, vendor-specific APIs for their phones that are not available on other phones. I think I've also read somewhere that some networks may not allow third-party apps to be downloaded.)</p>
  
  <p>3 . I've read that, in some markets, there are many low-end Chinese and Indian feature phone manufacturers. I don't think that I can use their vendor-specific tools to develop apps for their phones because of language barrier issues. Would it be best to use generic tools such as the Java ME SDK 3.0?</p>
  
  <p>Essentially, I am interested in developing for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use" rel="nofollow">developing markets</a> such as India, China, Russia and Brazil (the BRIC countries). What tools should I use when developing for these markets? And what fragmentation issues should I be aware of?</p>
  
  <p>Thank you for your time.</p>