Elements points the way forward for applications
Published by Ewan Spence at 11:34 BST, July 31st 2009
Offscreen Technology have just released a touch enabled version of Elements, their periodic table application (it's available in the Ovi Store). Making best use of the letterbox screen size of the 5800, the app presents the always useful periodic table of elements, nicely colour coded to keep elemental groupings together, as well as allowing you to tap through on each element to gain additional information.
Elements is not going to set the software world alight - for a start it's a free download – but in my mind it is applications like this that deliver a huge amount of value to a smartphone. For the majority of 5800 or N97 owners, Elements is nothing more than a toy. For a select few, this will be one of the most used applications on their device, likely to be called upon at frequent intervals.
When smartphones can be easily programmed with relativity high-level languages, such as Web Runtime, Flash, .NET, Python, or a custom solution (such as Origo) it takes only a small amount of effort to produce utilities such as Elements. They make good projects for the mid-teir development houses such as Off Screen (the team behind Elements and other touch based apps focusing on gaming, productivity and digital), and the high level languages allow for a very fast turnaround for projects, but they have another advantage that Nokia should be making the most of.
These languages are the ones that are typically used by the hobby developers or those looking to do a quick app to help with something in their life. Quite a few of these will be made publicly available if the infrastructure is there, and, because of its entry barriers, this is one area that the Ovi Store is failing the community.
It's these programs and developers that provide a groundswell (or long tail if you prefer) of applications for a device – not the major houses and publishers; although both are needed for a balanced application catalogue. If Nokia and the Symbian Foundation want to help the long term prospects of their platform, they need to ensure that the bedroom coders have the same opportunities as the big boys.
-- Ewan Spence, July 2009.
Categories: Developer, Industry
Platforms: General
News Discussion
They've done loads of apps for the service so far, about 30 or 40, so the development process they're using is clearly very fast:
http://www.offscr.com/products.html
Most of the products labelled as coming soon have already been published, I've reviewed many of them over on Ovi Gaming.
Also interesting to see them doing eBooks for Ovi Store.
| Btw, if its free, what's the motivation for a (I assume) commercial programming house like them? Just to gain name recognition and to practise programming apps for the device/platform? |
I think they're trying a variety of prices and methods, to see which ones work best on Ovi Store. The freeware would be to get people's attention, the demos would be to drive sales, the commercial stuff would make some money directly, and all of these would contribute to promoting Origo.
Also, they do commercial custom applications for other people, so these apps could be seen as adverts for their services.
| Sorry, this item is no longer available. ha. |