“Follow the money.” It’s a slogan that’s true in pretty much any walk of life, including the mobile world. If developers are keeping this rule in mind, then the recent announcements regarding purchases and payments in the Ovi Store should have them very excited. What’s on offer is by far the best deal for developers in terms of major App Stores.
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?
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.
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.
David Gilson sat in on Vodafone's Vitorri Colao's keynote yesterday, at Nokia World 2010. He spoke about real world mobile usage and what needs to be done to increase this, in both existing and developing markets, breaking down what mobile consumers currently do and where Vodafone would like to see the market move. Overall, it's a useful snapshot of the 2010 mobile world across the globe - at least, as seen by Big Red.
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.
David Gilson explores the relative benefits of native applications and cloud applications, both from a consumer point of view, and from the point of view of the developers who ultimately supply our applications. Will the cloud replace the traditional app?
List of video content from MWC related to Symbian as part of the AAS / Mobile Industry Review collaboration.
Ulf Wretling is a nineteen year veteran of Ericsson and Sony Ericsson. He headed up Sony Ericsson’s developer program for a number of years and recently has been responsible for setting up the processes to manage third-party application sales through PlayNow arena.