Following on from the first, second and third episodes, here is the fourth episode of the 361 Degrees podcast. This is a podcast all about mobile technology, created by Ben Smith of Wireless Worker and co-hosted by Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review and Rafe Blandford of All About Symbian. The fourth episode features discussion on NFC - what is it, what does it do and what are some of the issues surrounding its deployment.
Following on from the first two episodes, here is the third episode of the 361 Degrees podcast. This is a podcast all about mobile technology, created by Ben Smith of Wireless Worker and co-hosted by Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review and Rafe Blandford of All About Symbian. The third episode features a debate about app stores - are they the best thing since sliced bread or a break on the pace of innovation?
IDC has released its set of smartphone shipment figures for Q1 2011. They show that just under 100 million smartphones were sold last quarter. Nokia led the way with 24.2 million smartphones, followed by Apple (18.7m), RIM (13.9m), Samsung (10.8m) and HTC (8.9m). All manufacturers had increased shipments year on year, but by widely varying amounts. Nokia was the weakest (+12%), with RIM (+31%), Apple (+114%), HTC (+229%) and Samsung (+350%) all showing stronger growth.
Forum Nokia today quietly released the Symbian^3 SDK 1.0, targeted at developers using native code (Symbian C++), Java and web technologies (WRT) to create applications for the Symbian platform. The version 1.0 release adds support for VGA resolution (E6), the updated browser (7.3.1.1) and a number of additional APIs (OpenWF support, SQLite 3, updated XML parsing and others).
Nokia today announced the release of the Qt SDK 1.1. The final release version of the SDK is based on Qt 4.7.3 and Qt Mobility 1.1.3. It's an important milestone which effectively marks the first fully mature version of Nokia's complete Qt offering on mobile platforms. Applications which use Qt 4.7, including those written purely in QML, can now be uploaded to the Ovi Store; the first few of these are already available to consumers.
Nokia announced yesterday that the Ovi Store now reaches up to five million downloads per day. Ovi Store now contains more than 40,000 content items, representing an eight fold increase in the catalogue since last year, with approximately 1,000 additional items being added every week. Symbian^3 devices (N8, C6-01, C7 and E7) are responsible for 15% of daily downloads (750,000 per day). Read on for charts and analysis.
The Nokia E6 is finally out of the bag, and with it comes a particular practical consideration for developers. While all other Symbian^3 devices have the same 640x360 (nHD) screen resolution, the E6 stays true to its 4:3 messenger roots, having a screen resolution of 640x480 (VGA). This means that any applications written with the nHD resolution hard coded in will be incompatible with this new E71-style Symbian^3 QWERTY-toting enterprise device. Read on for advice and examples of how to get it right.
Nokia today announced the forthcoming availability of Symbian Anna, a software upgrade for all Symbian^3 devices. The update is focused around three key objectives: delivering improved usability, enhancing enterprise functionality and improving developer productivity. The update underlines the importance of, and Nokia's ongoing commitment to, Symbian. Symbian Anna will ship with new devices later this quarter and be available to all existing Symbian^3 devices in a similar time frame.
If you've ever considered developing applications and selling through the Ovi Store, then you might like to read a blog post by Sebastian Brannstrom (@Teknolog). Sebastian is the author of the now de facto podcast agent "Podcatcher". In the post he explains why he put Podcatcher on the Ovi Store, and shares some of his sales data. It's an interesting read with some very unexpected results. Read on for more.
Nokia recently posted a clarification that Symbian was “Not open source, but open for business”. It is worth taking a moment to consider the collaborative environment Symbian now exists in. Prior to Nokia’s deal with Microsoft, we saw the closure of the Symbian Foundation and with it, the end of Symbian’s time under the Eclipse Public Licence (EPL). Developers were rightly concerned about just how ‘open’ Symbian would be. Read on for our analysis.
The Qt labs team has just announced the release candidate (RC) for its Qt Software Development Kit (SDK) 1.1. This follows from its recent beta release. The final release, following this RC, will allow developers to take advantage of all the latest Qt features and submit Qt 4.7 based applications to the Ovi Store. However, it should be noted that Qt 4.7 will not support S60 3rd Edition, which sadly, but predictably, points to a deprecation of that version of Symbian. Read on for more details.
Nokia has just posted that it has completed putting the Symbian source code online at symbian.nokia.com. This means that both company-supported and independent developers can now access the Symbian source code again, after the effective closure of the Symbian Foundation. This follow’s the interim measure of FTP access to Symbian Foundation hosted content being given out on request. Read on for more details.
Digia, a Finnish software company, has signed an agreement with Nokia to acquire the commercial licensing and professional services arm of Nokia's Qt. The major portion of Qt, including all core development and LGPL licensing remains with Nokia. Nokia plans to continue to invest in the future development of Qt, which remains core to its Symbian (150 million additional devices) and MeeGo (future disruptions) activities. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the month; neither company are disclosing cost details.
The Qt SDK beta 1.1 was launched today. While the SDK is a beta release, the Qt (4.7.2) and Qt Creator (2.1) releases within it are final (i.e. not beta or previews). This means that Qt Quick can now be considered to have been officially released. Qt Quick is a crucial step forward for Qt, bringing easy UI creation, which allows developers and designers to work together more easily to create applications with great user experience.
As reported on Slashgear, developers registered with Nokia's Launchpad programme were contacted earlier today. The e-mail was sent out to reassure the developer community, after last Friday's announcement of a partnership with Microsoft. In the e-mail, members of the Launchpad developer program were offered a free Nokia E7-00 straight away, and when available they will also receive a Nokia Windows Phone. In addition to this, developers have been given ten free technical support tickets valid for the next three months, as well as a free user experience test which is available upon request. Read on for more information.