9.0

• Orientation switching: Most devices support orientation switching, so regardless of the
target platform, you'll probably have to think about doing two different layouts.
Operating systems
A sad fact of designing for digital devices is this: different operating systems require different
apps. If you want to make content available natively on as many phones as possible, you
may need to find or create an e-reader for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, webOS, and
Blackberry OS. Even the same OS can work differently on different devices (for example,
different devices run different "flavors" of Android).
Fortunately, there are several ways to avoid having to write a native app for each operating
system. For example:
• You can deliver content using a special version of your Web site that is designed for use
on mobile devices.
• You can deliver content using a generic platform that delivers players for different platforms.
For example, you can view Flash content on any platform for which there is a Flash player.
However, you cannot currently view Flash content on iOS, and Flash support is still evolving
even on mobile platforms that do support it.
• You can deliver content using a proprietary platform that delivers players for different
platforms. For example, Blio plans to make its eReader available on a wide variety of
platforms, and offers the ability to include interactive content for multiple platforms, as
well as static text. Amazon's Kindle format can be read on a variety of devices, and Apple's
iBooks application runs on both iPhone and iPad.
• You can deliver content using a generic format that can be read on almost any platform,
such as ePub or PDF.
Multimedia format limitations
When choosing a delivery format, keep in mind that not all multimedia files are supported
on all platforms. For example, video must be encoded to H.264 format in order to be
viewed on iOS, and support for Flash is currently unavailable on iOS devices and limited
on many other devices.
Delivery formats
There are several types of formats for delivering content to handheld devices:
• Open formats such as ePub and PDF. Formats such as these can be attractive because of
their ability to display on almost any device and operating system. However, you should
keep in mind that it can be difficult to monetize content in an open format that has no
established framework for control and distribution.
DIGITAL PUBLISHING WITH QUARKXPRESS 9 | 11
HARDWARE, OPERATING SYSTEMS, AND FORMATS