Something for just about everyone this week: the Mobile Sensor API for Java ME on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, an update for S60 5th Edition theme creation, and an extended service for mobile advertising from NAVTEQ.
At their recent developer summit Nokia described how it would be opening up the Ovi platform to third party developers. Apps on Maps was given as the initial example and now, at the Where 2.0 conference, Nokia has announced more of the technical details for the web side elements. The Ovi Maps Player API will allow developers to embed Ovi Maps on third party website and create 'mash-ups' by overlaying data and interacting with the map. As such it will be in direct competition with the Google Maps and its accompanying APIs. Read on for more details.
Many people have noted that the Download! client now gives a message saying that it will be "temporarily unavailable" today, while at the same time the Ovi Store site currently asks for a name and password to access it. Could something be stirring behind the scenes at Ovi Store?
The BBC News website today reported proposals to change EU rules governing consumer rights regarding software guarantees. In amongst the article was a gem of a statement from the Business Software Alliance which represents Microsoft, Apple, IBM and many other software giants: "(Digital content) is contractually licensed to consumers and not sold."
Forum Nokia regularly publishes example applications; they are intended as examples for developers, but occasionally are useful enough to be downloaded and installed by consumers. New today is Route, a basic GPS tracking widget. AccuWidget, an existing WRT example, which shows weather forecasts, has also been updated. Both widgets support miniview, which means they can be added to the homescreen of the Nokia N97. Miniview is something that all widget developers should consider implementing.
In All About Symbian Insight 70 (AAS Podcast 128) Rafe, Ewan and Steve talk about the recently released Nokia E52, the N96's firmware upgrade to version 20, the newly released Pandemonium and the N97's processor and specifications. Rafe also reports on UI changes proposed for Symbian^4. You can listen to AAS Insight 70 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Last week’s Developer section feature article took a look at FleaC, an easier to use API for Symbian C++ developers. Also, Forum Nokia releases a utility to make the Sensor API (JSR-256) available for Nokia 5800 XpressMusic devices. Read on for more.
Sorry, we should have posted this a few days ago, but Vodafone Mobile Clicks is an annual competition for mobile developers that finishes on the 14th May, with a 150K Euro prize. This is the first year that the contest has been open to UK entrants. On Twitter, see hashtag #vmc, or follow @vmc2009 or @momolondon for contest news.
A quick one for developers, as Brady Forrest points out both the addition of some web badges/buttons for the Google Latitude location service, but also an API to allow apps access to the location data of a user. Available as both JSON and KML Forrest is right that this is a very small first step, but expects more features and functions over the coming months.
In All About Symbian Insight 69 (AAS Podcast 127) Rafe, Ewan and Steve talk about Bobba, operating billing on the Ovi Store, v21 firmware for the Nokia 5800 and the new N-Gage game - Age of Empires III. Rafe then reports back in detail from the Nokia Developer Summit 2009. You can listen to AAS Insight 69 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Today’s existential question – does a technology exist if there is not a competition to promote it? The Nokia Developer Summit offered us the hackathon and you can now see the outcome and several other summit sessions online. Also, NAVTEQ is getting involved with the European Satellite Navigation Competition 2009.
Samsung Mobile Innovator has released the first iteration of the DevPak for the Samsung i8910 HD (formerly the Omnia HD). This plugs into the existing S60 5th Edition SDK to provide an emulator skin and control features, as well as additional APIs.
David Wood, writing on the Symbian Foundation Blog, about reviewing the release plans, has highlighted some details of upcoming Symbian releases. Symbian^2, the equivalent of S60 5th Edition Feature Pack 1, will be functionally complete next week and in devices early next year. Symbian^3, for which the majority of the source code should be available, enhances communication architecture, multimedia and graphics functionality, and should reach devices in the second half of 2010.
Symbian ^4 will see the full integration and optimisation of Qt into the Symbian platform. Further proposals includes the 'Orbit' extension library for Qt (replacing AVKON) and a new 'Direct UI' interaction and navigation logic. Put crudely, this means we will see an evolution of the existing S60/AVKON UI to a new Qt-based 'Orbit' Symbian UI for devices coming out in 2011. Read on for more details.
The Nokia N97 SDK is the first device specific S60 SDK released by Nokia. While the additions are not numerous, it offers some interesting new APIs for both C++ and Java technology. In addition, the emulator enables testing of the new home screen features for C++ application and WRT widgets.
Not able to attend this year’s inaugural Nokia Developer Summit in Monaco? Well all is not lost, you can still view the keynotes, quiz Nokia experts, and follow the ‘official’ event blog – which is already up and running with news about the widget hackathon.