All About Symbian - Feature Articles - S60 5th Edition

Features - S60 5th Edition - Develop

Monetising your applications: Part two: in-app payment and direct commercialisation

Following on from part one of our look at monetising applications, it's time to look at the most prevalent method. The direct sale of the application, be it from a shareware model or the dual nature of lite/full applications in an App Store, to time limited apps and in-app purchasing, there are a number of choices to get the money straight out of the user's wallet.

# Posted by Ewan in Develop at 11:00 UTC, Aug 4th || Comments

In-app ads currently a fiasco, (much) more imagination needed

The pendulum swings regularly in the software world, with different ways of making money from software being in 'vogue'. The latest fashion, somewhat predictably, with most applications and games needing a price of 'free' in order to get serious numbers of downloads, is to put adverts inside the app or game and rely on income from these to bring in a similar amount of money to that which you'd have expected if you'd tried to sell the item by more conventional means. The concept is indeed sound - but I'm finding the implementation often lacking. What's needed is more imagination.

# Posted by Steve in Comment, Software, Develop at 11:47 UTC, Jan 18th || Comments

Getting Started with Qt: The Symbian Way

Considering starting Qt development for Symbian? Well if you are there is an interesting series of blog posts over on Symbian.org that’s worth checking out. The final part is due to be posted today, probably by the time you read this post. In four relatively short posts, Salvatore Rinaldo takes you from installation of the Nokia Qt SDK, though the development of a web browser app to the installation of the app on a Symbian phone.

# Posted by Richard in How To, Develop at 20:37 UTC, Oct 13th || Comments

The top ten software gaps for developers to exploit

With the upswing of developer interest in the new Symbian^3 platform, one of the questions that might be lingering in their minds is “what could I write for Symbian?” With all the promise of millions of devices and a perceived empty application store, what titles and areas should a developer concentrate on to make a big splash in the market?

# Posted by Ewan in Software, Develop at 13:59 UTC, Sep 24th || Comments

Plug and Touch - Turning your TV into a touchscreen

On show at Nokia World 2010 were several exciting examples of future technology. One of those was a research project brought from Nokia's Beijing research and development labs. Named "Plug and Touch", it's an application which can turn any type of visual display (TV or projector) into a Symbian-powered touch screen display. Click through to read our commentary and see the demonstration video.

# Posted by David in Interviews, Comment, Software, Previews, Develop at 14:01 UTC, Sep 23rd || Comments

The smartest X-Factor entrant this year is Nokia and the Ovi Store

How do you let everyone know you have an App Store? That's a question that Nokia are still answering over the Ovi Store (and to be fair even Apple continue to think about this question), as the availability of Apps has become one of the key marketing lines in 2010 for the smartphone. Someone in Nokia has been smart though, and they've not only lined up as the 'brand sponsor' for The X-Factor this year, but put together a Qt application to feed the fans of the show.

# Posted by Ewan in Comment, Develop at 8:28 UTC, Sep 21st || Comments

Qt for Symbian for Linux and Apple

Hopefully you will have seen Steve’s posting about Lucian Tomuta’s video on using Qt to develop apps for Symbian devices. If, however, your computer runs on Linux or Apple you may have run into a small problem, there is no compiler for Symbian apps on these platforms. But never fear, there is a solution.

# Posted by Richard in How To, Develop at 10:38 UTC, Jul 25th || 4 Comments

MWC Video Content

List of video content from MWC related to Symbian as part of the AAS / Mobile Industry Review collaboration.

# Posted by Rafe in Interviews, Comment, Profiles, Software, Develop, Hardware at 18:37 UTC, Feb 28th

Ovi Developer Day

Rafe reports back from the recent (September 2009) Ovi Developer Day in London.

# Posted by Rafe in Comment, Develop at 13:19 UTC, Sep 30th

WRT – Another arrow or killer weapon?

Web development standards — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — are a front runner in the quest to provide an accessible development environment for Symbian. However, Web Runtime (WRT) has its limitations and, across the industry as a whole, is rather fragmented. So, how is Symbian working to make WRT a viable choice for developers?

# Posted by Richard in Develop at 8:21 UTC, Sep 16th || 1 Comment

Sony Ericsson – Getting Back To Symbian

Sony Ericsson has been a long term supporter of the Symbian OS. After something of a hiatus in Symbian phones, Sony Ericsson will soon be back with the Satio, its first S60 platform phone. So how is Sony Ericsson gearing up to support Symbian developers? I talked to Christopher David, Head of Developer and Partner Engagement at Sony Ericsson.

# Posted by Richard in Interviews, Develop at 8:20 UTC, Sep 3rd || 7 Comments

Members matter: A discussion with Lauren Sarno, Member Programs at Symbian Foundation

Any open source project lives or dies by its members, whether those members are active contributors to the code base or provide support in other ways. The Symbian Foundation is no different. The responsibility for building and maintaining membership of the Symbian Foundation falls on the shoulders of Lauren Sarno.

# Posted by Richard in Interviews, Develop at 22:39 UTC, Aug 20th || 0 Comments

Creating a shortcut TouchWiz widget for the Samsung i8910

Rafe explains how you can create your own shortcut widget for the TouchWiz-powered idle screen of the Samsung i8910.

# Posted by Rafe in How To, Software, Develop at 10:04 UTC, Jul 27th || 11 Comments

New Vibrations: Immersion Adds Rich Feel to Symbian

The Vibra API on Symbian smartphones has enabled developers to add ‘feel’ to applications for some time. However, a new generation of haptic feedback is being brought to the Symbian ecosystem by Immersion Corporation. This article explores the possibilities that may be offered by Immersion’s API and tools.

# Posted by Richard in Develop at 21:39 UTC, Jul 19th || 5 Comments

NAVTEQ at CommunicAsia

The annual CommunicAsia show run next week from 16 to 19 June. NAVTEQ will be attending for its second year. In this article NAVTEQ shares details of its activities at the show.

# Posted by Richard in Develop at 23:33 UTC, Jun 11th || 1 Comment

Calling All Innovators – The final call for entries approaches

There is now just over a month to go before the Forum Nokia Calling All Innovators competition closes to entries. So it seems like an opportune time to catch up with Srikanth Raju, head of marketing for Forum Nokia, to find out more.

# Posted by Richard in Develop at 7:55 UTC, May 25th || 0 Comments

FleaC – A Smarter API for Symbian OS

With ten years of experience in Symbian C++, the team at Fleasome believe they have a better way to create Symbian C++ applications with FleaC. FleaC offers a simplified API for many key Symbian C++ features and claims to improve developer productivity by up to fifty per cent.

# Posted by Richard in Software, Develop at 9:28 UTC, May 6th || 0 Comments

Download! - Still broken on S60 5th Edition

The sad state of Download! has been a topic of discussion in Symbian S60 circles for quite some time. Other consumer device platforms from Nintendo's Wii to Apple's iPhone have managed to show how successful software and content download shops can be if they're easy to use, so why can't this happen on Nokia's Symbian devices? We've taken a look at the latest version of Download! on S60 5th Edition, on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, to see if it's any improvement...

# Posted by Tzer2 in Comment, Software, Develop at 2:08 UTC, Jan 19th || 30 Comments