another small step for Nokia, another small step for developing for Symbian
There are five key announcements that will be important for developers:
- Availability of the Nokia Qt Software Development Kit (SDK) 1.0
- Individuals can now register as Ovi Publishers
- Public beta of Nokia signing Symbian apps for free
- Availability of Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian
- Ovi Store intake for Qt apps
The Nokia Qt SDK allows cross-platform development for both Symbian and Maemo devices. Qt applications will also be supported on MeeGo, when it arrives. Creating C++ applications is quicker and easier than with previous development kits, and there’s a new, faster simulator included and additional APIs for mobile development. Forum Nokia cites the example of Shazam, who said, “It took us a year and a half to get our application developed to our full feature set on Symbian classic. Within 3 to 4 weeks we were able to put together a prototype working on Qt.” As well as Windows and Linux versions, a beta version of the Mac SDK has also been released. They are available for free from the Forum Nokia Qt section.
The announcements also make life easier for independent developers, who can now register as Ovi Publishers and distribute their apps worldwide through Ovi Store. Previously, you had to be part of a specific company or business. There’s a one-time fee of EU50 to register and apps can be submitted that are written in Qt, Symbian, Java, Flash Lite and Web Runtime.
Signing Symbian apps for free means that developers once again reduce their costs, which makes producing Symbian apps for Ovi Store more appealing. Historically, developers have had to pay and wait to have their apps Symbian-signed as part of the approvals process. Nokia has started a beta programme waiving this fee and introducing measures to halve the time required for signing.
The Nokia Smart Installer means that developers can send out their applications as a package without worrying too much about what parts of Qt need to be installed on users’ phones. The installer detects what files and libraries are needed by the app, looks to see what’s missing on the device and then downloads them automatically when you come to install it.
Lastly, the Ovi Store intake means that developers can upload Symbian apps for the Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6 and Maemo apps for the Nokia N900. The Nokia N8 will be supported from release, with additional – older and newer – Nokia devices supported in the future.
First, Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review posts what he described as a diatribe about mobile development and the area of 'developer relations' in particular. While it's rather obvious that his intended 'target' there was Vodafone's 360 effort, many of his points either coincide with mine (on how to handle 'big' brands) or nicely augment my ideas.
Then, what you see in the excerpt above happens.
And surely, this is not, in any way, doing any of the things I recommended they do, it's a (typical of Nokia) small step in the right direction. Will the "small" in "small step" turn out to be the keyword here? Who knows. I'm positive though, that without more explanations, and concise ones, this won't do much to lure those developing exclusively for other platforms to Symbian. It may, however, have a good impact on those already developing for Symbian, and perhaps thinking of abandoning or maybe just ignoring the platform in the future.
Because while these announcements are cool for people already familiar with every aspect of www.forum.nokia.com for example, your average "iPhone developer" will not even understand most of this. I'm serious.
The single most, erm... legible, if you will, thing in there is that individuals can now register as publishers. About time! The previous limitation of having to be a registered business to develop for the
Ovi store might have made sense 5 years ago, but today, in the world of garage-development, it doesn't. So glad to see it go away.
Nokia's Qt efforts have been big news for a while now, but not 'big' as in "widely reported and hyped-up" - no, this one is an instance of 'big' = important, sadly for the US-based "press". Good to see advancements there. The Smart Installer is, well, simply smart and much needed for people with older (and C: drive challenged) devices, since, as far as I know, the Qt libraries insist on using this drive to install.
Glad to see Shazam given as an example, and also to hear how quickly you can (in theory) develop an app in Qt, although, let's face it, anecdotal evidence is still anecdotal evidence.
I left the free signing last intentionally. All I can say about this is that, again, it was about time. This is great news for Symbian developers, and boy was it a long time coming!
Ok.
So.
Good news?
Definitely.
Excellent news?
Umm...no. Sorry. I still believe a lot of other things need to be done, and fast, in order to make developing for Symbian alluring. Today's announcements mostly consist of things that are being remedied rather than innovated.
What next? Obviously, what I described here.
Get on it, Nokia. There's still time.
