Forum Nokia recently announced the launch of it device loaner program. For €30 and a variable guarantee fee developers can borrow a device for three weeks. Devices currently available include the N95, N75, E65 and the 5700. A number of plug-ins for the S60 SDK, which enable access to Eseries specific features (such as the notification LED), have also been added to the Forum Nokia website.

The device loaner program allows developer easy access to current hardware for testing purposes. The guarantee fee varies according to the device being loaned and roughly reflects the cost of the device. It is refunded at the end of the loan period.

Thanks to the SDK plug ins third party developers can now access a number of Eseries specific functions including:

For all Eseries devices: 

• External view framework - development and drivers associated with using external displays (e.g. projectors).
  
• Printing framework - allows applications to take advantage of the inbuilt printing functionality.
• Email LED - allows access to the notification LED to alert the user to events.

For S60 3.1 devices (E90 and E51):

• Enhanced versions of the printing and external view frameworks.
  
• Preview pop-up - which helps developers use wide screen (e.g. E90) more effectively.
  

Further details are available on the Forum Nokia website.

Hopefully we will now see a number of third party applications taking advantages of these features. This follows Nokia policy of providing a base level of functionality across all their platform phones (i.e. the S60 platform SDK) and then providing extra device specific functionality via plug-ins for the SDK.Some of these plug-ins will later be rolled into the main SDK.