One of the interesting points made in this week's Insight Podcast was the large number of applications (primarily in the Ovi Store) that are only targeted at S60 5th Editon devices, leaving behind a large number of 3rd Edition owners. There are also a number of notable incidents where applications or games are even more restricted, to certain handsets. Read on for some thoughts...
In All About Symbian Insight 127, we open with a discussion of Nokia's Terminal Mode, which is seeking to create an industry standard for the next generation of integration between cars and mobile phones. We follow this up with news of the Opera 10.1 beta, a sale of games in the Ovi Store, the announcement of furtiv's support for DropBox, the addition of Maps Reporter to Ovi Maps, and the opening of the Qt Developer Network. There's also a brief discussion of the number of software releases for S60 3rd Edition phones versus S60 5th Edition phones. You can listen to AAS Insight 127 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
While it has been around for some time, Nitobi’s contribution of PhoneGap to the Symbian Foundation is another small piece of the jigsaw for connected developers. PhoneGap is a framework that allows developers to work in HTML and Javascript, but still talk to the more advanced hardware in a modern smartphone. The PhoneGap API’s will now be available as part of the extensions to the Symbian Web Browser.
Can’t wait to get your hands on a Nokia N8? Why not while away the time before you can lighten you bank balance by creating your dream theme. Carbide.ui Theme Edition 3.0 has been released on the Symbian Foundation website, offering the final version of the tools for creating Symbian^3 device themes.
Last week Qt quietly rolled out the public beta its new developer website, Qt Developer Network, which aims to provide a one-stop portal for Qt developers and consolidate resources that were previously spread across the main Qt website. It also provides a more vendor neutral destination for developers than Forum Nokia, something that could be important in helping drive adoption of the Symbian and MeeGo platforms by manufacturers other than Nokia.
There's been a lot of noise on the internet this week about issues in the smartphone world. And while the initial reading of all these words is to tell a story, it's actually more about controlling the PR message and protecting a brand (and ergo sales) of software and hardware. There's a lesson in all of this for Nokia and the Symbian Foundation. You've either got it, or you haven't. And right now Symbian and S60 don't have it. Read on...
Forum Nokia recently took the covers of Forum Nokia Projects (projects.forum.nokia.com), a free service providing online project hosting for collaborative software development, documentation, or any other project. The service is built on top of the open source Trac software and is fully integrated with Forum Nokia. The service includes the usual tools such as source-code browser, wiki, forums, tickets and support for three version control systems (SVN, Git, and Mercurial).
The Symbian Podcatcher project has been in development for Symbian^1 (S60 5th Edition) for some time now, but it was announced yesterday, via Twitter, that Podcatcher has finally been backported to S60 3rd Edition. Nokia made the inexplicable decision to remove Podcasting support from their Eseries S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 phones, so the availability of this could be a breath of fresh air for the enterprise-orientated platform.
Symbian's Product Development Kit (PDK) 3.0.0, which is based on Symbian^3, is now available for download. This is the first PDK released since Symbian^3 attained its functionally complete status. The PDK contains a build of Symbian^3 platform, the complete source code, related utilities and an emulator. It is aimed, primarily, at platform developers and device creators, but the curious may also be interested in taking a look, as it enables you to gain a better understanding of the new version of the platform.
Microsoft’s browser-based app framework Silverlight is now available for Symbian S60 5th edition devices. Popping up in the Ovi Store, "the .Net framework allows for applications to run in the browser over multiple devices, operating systems and browsers". The easiest way to get Silverlight installed is to head to the Bing example app (here or here). If you need the runtime installed, you’ll be offered just the link, which takes you to the Ovi Store.
In All About Symbian Insight 124, the team discuss the future of Nseries devices and the respective roles of MeeGo and Symbian in Nokia's software strategy. We move on to a discussion of the application business model and app store, which leads into a discussion of Nokia's new developer initiatives. We also share news of updates to Ovi Store and Ovi Suite and the opening of Sports Tracker's online shop. You can listen to AAS Insight 124 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Nokia has made a number of developer announcements today, which significantly strengthen their developer services and offerings. Perhaps most interesting is news of a public beta service that allows developers to get their content Symbian Signed at no cost (compared to a previous first time signing cost of up to $215). Also important is the news that individuals can now register as Ovi Publishers (previously restricted to companies) and that the Ovi Store is now accepting Qt-based applications. Finally, and the most significant in the long term, is the first full release of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 and the accompanying Nokia Smart Installer (previously in beta). Read on for additional details.
In All About Symbian Insight 123, the team discuss the news of the Nokia X5-01 and X6 8GB, which were launched at Nokia Connection in Singapore. Ewan gives us an overview of the Nimbuzz application, before Rafe explains that Symbian^3 is now functionally complete. Finally, Rafe and Steve discuss their thoughts on what they learned at the recent Nokia N8 hands-on event. You can listen to AAS Insight 123 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
As part of Nokia's 'Open for Ideas' event, I had the opportunity to attend the Tampere Innovation Experience @ Demola day, which included a showcase more than 40 research projects that had been guided by open innovation principles. I teamed up with The Really Mobile Project's Ben Smith to shoot three videos of NRC (Nokia Research Centre) demos. The first video covers the Nokia Image Space research, with a demo of the Image Space mobile client on a Nokia N900.
Marguerite Reardon at Cnet is worried that the upcoming data caps are going to “force developers to be efficient”. Which I raised an eyebrow at, because I’d hope that any decent developer out there is already coding as efficiently as possible. If they can’t make sensible use of data, what else are they not bothering about in application design? Should we be worried that smaller batteries will force developers to stop using tight coding loops next? Read on for more.