'As Live' from the 2008 Symbian Smartphone Show, here's All About Symbian Insight no. 44, hosted by Ewan Spence, with Rafe Blandford and Steve Litchfield; guests include (but not limited to ) Nigel Clifford, Stuart Clark, Andrew Grill and James Whatley. 40 minutes long and plenty of gossip, info and fun...
Developer tools are featuring widely at this year's Symbian Smartphone Show, with two tools now available to help you code your Symbian applications. The Symbian Analysis Workbench (SAW) helps developers track down defects in code and help in the optimisation process. Built around a pre-packaged set of tools for Eclipse and is integrated into the Carbide C++ Developer Environment. The ARM Profiler aids the development process, providing clear information to help add enhanced function and, more importantly, reduce power consumption.
Symbian Press and Wiley have announced two new books for the developer community at today's Smartphone Show. Multimedia on Symbian OS and Common Design Patterns for Symbian OS. As you would expect, the titles are densely packed with information, examples and practical knowledge for the mobile developer. They are both available to purchase on the Exhibition Floor (stand #97) or via the Symbian Developer Network.
The cross-platfom application framework, QT, is now available for S60 devices. It's still early days, thus being called a Technology Preview, but anyone with an S60 v3 feature pack 1 device can install the framework – just follow this video after downloading the code. And let us know how you get on with the wealth of Qt powered applications out there already.
Forum Nokia recently kicked off a series events to help educate developers about changes and editions in S60 5th Edition. For example, tomorrow, there are a pair of webinars: 9am London (11am Helsinki, 4pm Beijing) and 11am San Fransisco (2 pm New York) which focus on Touch UI development and APIs. With the first S60 5th Edition device announced and more on the way it makes sense to get informed now.
Argh! It's another press release promoting another new application and service for your pocket computer. Many years ago the joke was, that of the ten thousand Palm OS applications available, six thousand of them were on-screen digital clocks - the more advanced ones had an alarm feature as well... Reading about yet another 'innovative product connecting your mobile phone's video to the web' might have pushed me over the edge.
There's an interesting interview here today in which Richard Bloor talks to Antony Edwards, Vice President, Developer Product Marketing at Symbian, discussing how developers will be able to contribute to the Symbian Foundation, the challenge of software distribution and how the Symbian Foundation's developer program is shaping up.
NS-Basic, the Palm OS-sourced BASIC language toolkit which has recently been ported to work under StyleTap on S60 and UIQ, has been significantly reduced in price, apparently to attract hobbyist developers rather than just corporates. The new entry price is $99 (about £50) and the 'Pro' version (which includes things like proper application signing) is down from $700 to $300 (£150). Still quite a lot of money, but hopefully now practical for a lot more people. For examples of what a StyleTap-hosted NS Basic application looks like, see RMR Software's S60 catalog.
Today sees the formal unveiling on S60 5th Edition. The new version of S60, built on Symbian OS 9.4, adds touch enablers to the platform, which means it is possible for licensees to create devices that use finger touch and/or stylus interaction. Other additions and improvements include the new sensor framework (adds easy integration of sensors, such as accelerometers into the platform) updated web technologies (WebKit version updated, Flash Lite 3 as standard) and enhanced multimedia functionality (support for widescreen displays, image and video editors as standard). Read on for more details.
Some news for the developers this morning from EMCC. They've released a VoIP engine solution that can be used in their own applications. The engine is available for S60, Windows Mobile and 'other platforms.' While VoIP is available on some handsets (and in a few cases it depends on the network you buy the handset for), EMCC's “all in one” solution is geared towards developers looking to have consistency over devices and platforms.
Nokia is to ship jQuery with the next version of Web Runtime (WRT), according to the jQuery blog. jQuery is a light weight Javascript library that simplifies 'HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development'. In other words it helps developers make funkier S60 widgets.
In All About Symbian Insight #40 (AAS Podcast #93) Rafe, and Steve discuss SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing) on Symbian OS and what some of the key benefits might be. Steve gives us his first impressions of the Nokia N79 and finally there's some chat about gaming on the N-Gage versus the iPhone.
Forum Nokia has launched a new developer contest, Calling All Innovators, which aims to encourage developers to create applications that will 'better society'. The competition takes place across three categories: ECO-challenge, Emerging Markets and Technology Showcase. There's a total prize fund of $150,000 with category winners each winning $25,000.
Nokia will be holding an Evening with S60 in London the night before the Symbian Smartphone Show. It is a chance to see the newest S60 devices, get one-one-one demos and meet other S60 enthusiasts. The event will be held at Nokia's Flagship Store in Regent Street on October 20th between 7:30 and 10:00 pm. You need to register here if you want to attend the event.
We've covered Python in passing before, but any wannabe on-device or RAD programmers might like to look at Daniel Rocha's latest piece, pointing out the good and bad points of Python (for S60), along with useful pointers and links.