There are now a couple of bodies designed to make life easier for developers working across multiple formats – WAC the most notable effort.

Delivering guidelines that encourage studios to raise the standard of their titles across all platforms appears to be the sole domain of the Unified Testing Initiative (UTI), however.

The not-for-profit organisation, which includes members such as Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and LG, was set up to reduce fragmentation and encourage the adoption of sound working practices by developers to include quality never suffers when a studio takes a title multiplatform.

Guideline goals

The body's latest venture – the release of its Best Practice for Developing Quality Mobile Applications Guidelines – is an extension of such goals, providing developers with a framework they can drop into releases to keep standards up.

"Developers who make quality 'priority-one' are well positioned to succeed in a mobile market where billions of applications are downloaded every year," said UTI chair and director of developer services at member Orange, Martin Wrigley.

"Whether an application is built using Java ME, Android or Symbian, the UTI guidelines serve as an important resource for helping developers deliver more high quality apps to market."

UTI claims its guidelines serve up a "comprehensive resource for quality issues", touching on issues surrounding connectivity, messaging and calls, user interfaces, language, media, stability, data handling and security.

Updated on an ongoing basis, more details on both UTI and its guidelines can be found on the body's website.