Monthly Archives: March 2012

Monster Truck Dash drives UTV Indiagames’ success in Nokia Store

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A simple, addictive, action-packed game is the most recent release from one of Nokia’s most successful developers, UTV Indiagames. Along with a slew of other applications, Monster Truck Dash has helped UTV IndiaGames exceed 91 million downloads across 190 countries to date. UTV Indiagames is among the 350 developers to have driven more than 1 million downloads each via Nokia Store. 

Monster Truck game by Indiagames Monster Truck Dash is available at a cost of1 Euro for Nokia Series 40 and S60 phones. The app leverages Nokia’s networking and social connect technology to create a high-powered game in which users challenge their friends and family to monster truck races on visually engaging courses. The result is an action-packed and challenging experience that users can share with their friends.

“We are thrilled to have crossed the 90 million download mark in the Nokia Store. It is an exciting and proud moment for the team,” said Vishal Gondal, CEO of UTV Indiagames. “The Nokia Store has opened up avenues for us to successfully exhibit and sell a variety of applications, and we have managed to hit this tremendous milestone in just two short years.  Overall, our partnership with Nokia is helping to take our applications to the next level in India and beyond.”

UTV Indiagames develops Java apps for use on a wide range of Nokia Series 40 and S60 devices, and they often include in-app advertising. Available on more than 138 Nokia devices, UTV IndiaGames offers a variety of games and applications that appeal to various demographics. The company offers  100 paid apps and over 300 free ad-supported apps, giving customers an enormous range of choices, while also monetizing their content.

Founded in 1999 with a five member team, UTV Indiagames now employs more than 300 employees and is India’s benchmark mobile and online games company, as well as a leading global mobile game publisher.

UTV Indiagames’ success over the years has not gone unnoticed, with the company winning several industry awards in 2009 and 2010: The Maharashtra Information Technology Award 2009, the IDC Enterprise Innovation Awards 2010, the Movers & Shakers 2010 award, the FICCI BAF Award for Mobile Gaming 2010, and the application Brucelee Dragon Warrior winning the People’s Choice Award at IMGA 2010.

UTV Indiagames continues to be a company to watch, especially given their plans to expand their app developments their apps to the Windows Phone platform. With a focus on Windows Phone Marketplace, UTV Indiagames is in the process of developing their first cricket game. Useful tools available within Nokia’s developer community will help enable UTV Indiagames’ success across multiple platforms, allowing them to reach even more users with their fun and socially interactive games.  Nokia is proud to be a part of UTV Indiagames’ mobile publishing success.

Cross Platform NFC Geo Tags

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Nfc Geo Tag on the Nokia N9.Imagine the following: you’re playing a treasure hunt game in your home town. At one station, you touch an NFC tag with your Nokia phone; this opens Nokia Maps to reveal the location of the final place where to collect the treasure. Similar scenarios are possible if you’d like to use Nokia Maps to navigate to the point of interest that you just read about; for example, the St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, after reading about it in a tourist brochure.

Alternatives

To implement this, you need to store the longitude and latitude of the landmark on the NFC tag (you could also call them "GPS coordinates"). But how to store them? This use case hasn’t been set by the current NDEF URI RTD specification of the NFC Forum, so there isn’t necessarily a solution that works across all NFC enabled phones.

One approach is using the geo: URI scheme (RFC 5870). In the most simple and short form (important due to the limited space on a tag), the URI to write to the tag could look like the following: "geo:60.17,24.829". This encodes the decimal coordinates with latitude of 60.17 and longitude 24.829 in WSG-84 (the location of the Nokia House in Finland, by the way). This works fine with the N9 and directly opens the Nokia Maps client showing the correct location, given that you have PR 1.1+, which is required for default NFC tag handling by the phone. However, Symbian currently can’t understand Geo URIs.

An alternative is to write the URL to Nokia Maps to the tag, according to the Nokia Maps Rendering API. For example: http://m.ovi.me/?c=60.17,24.829. When opening this URL on a Symbian phone, it automatically opens the Nokia Maps client at the correct location. On other devices like the PC, it redirects to the full Nokia Maps web client or the HTML5 version of it. However, MeeGo Harmattan just shows the static map image and doesn’t start the Nokia Maps client.

Cross Platform Geo Tags

So, those two approaches don’t work across the Nokia portfolio. However, there is a simple solution: store the URI of a small script on a server, which then redirects a MeeGo (or Android) phone to the Geo URI, and every other device to the Nokia Maps URI. You can retrieve the operating system by checking the user agent of the browser.

On MeeGo, you can directly send out an HTML header to redirect the browser to the Geo URI (causing it to open Nokia Maps), without loading and rendering the actual web page. On Symbian, a JavaScript redirect can put the browser on the right track and trigger it to open the Nokia Maps client.

Creating Nfc Geo Tags

To make this easier for you, the new Nfc Interactor app (available for Symbian and the Nokia N9) lets you conveniently write geo tags by just entering the coordinates. In the tag compose view, you can also choose which of the three variants you want to write to the Nfc tag. The app will take care of formatting the actual NDEF message for the tag.

For your experiments, the maps redirection PHP script explained above is hosted on http://nfcinteractor.com/m.php and can be used with a URI on the NFC tag like this:

http://nfcinteractor.com/m?c=60.17,24.829

Note that there is no service or uptime guarantee for the hosted script at nfcinteractor.com – it’s intended for testing purposes only and could be removed at any point. You should host the script on your own server for real-world deployment. See the web services information page for more details.

Additionally, hosting the service on your own web server allows you
to add custom-named places to the script, so that the link on the tag
doesn’t need to contain the coordinates, but you can link to a custom
place-name instead. See the source code of the script for details on how
you can add your own places. Example:

http://nfcinteractor.com/m?l=nokia

The source code of the Geo Tags redirection script is now also available under the open source BSD license, so that you can adapt it to your needs, add custom locations (instead of specifying the coordinates as parameters) and upload the script to your own web server.

Example application showcasing key Harmattan APIs

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We have published a new example application for Harmattan developers.

The application’s source code is available on harmattan-dev. It can be built in Qt SDK using the enclosed project-file.

The application features several key elements in the Harmattan application programming interface, and thus provides a good starting point for learning about specific technologies and application development for N9 in general.

The initial version of the showcase application concentrates on Qt Mobility interfaces (ranging from maps, multimedia and messaging to visualizing the sensor data with a compass overlaid on camera input).

In the messaging area it provides insight how NFC is easily integrated into an application.

Feedback on the application are best given as comments in this blog entry.

N9 showing the compass in the showcase application.

Developer Library latest update

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This Developer Library and API reference update includes documentation for PR 1.2 features and documentation enhancements for existing features:

As always, your feedback about the Developer Library is very welcome!

 

 

Developer Library latest update

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This Developer Library and API reference update includes documentation for PR 1.2 features and documentation enhancements for existing features:

As always, your feedback about the Developer Library is very welcome!

 

 

Developer tooling update

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We have released updates for both software development kits.

The Harmattan target for the Qt SDK can now be updated online, using the SDK maintenance tool. The additional functionalities concern mostly improved runtimes for testing. The Qt Quick Components in the Simulator have been upgraded to the same version as is used on the device, and the Simulator now supports both landscape and portrait orientations. Also, there are now three separate QEMU images – one for PR1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 each. The full release notes are available in harmattan-dev.

The Platform SDK is no longer tagged beta, though some usability issues remain, as described in the release notes.

The API baseline remains at PR1.0 (to ensure that all users can safely obtain and use the applications), but a few additional interfaces are now available as extensions: Frankencamera is supported in all Harmattan releases, Simple NDEF Exchange Protocol is supported only in PR1.2. The development packages containing the additional interfaces are available for download.

UX documentation up to date

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The Nokia N9 UX Guidelines site is now up to date, so go have a look. We’ve also improved the organisation of the site to serve UI designers and developers better. Improved linking between the UX site and the developer documentation means that it’s easier to match what you want to do with how to do it.

However, the Chinese-language UX materials
have not been updated at this point. If you are using them, we’d like
to hear from you! Do you think it’s useful having some material
available in Chinese? Should there be more? Less? Different materials?

Twist Mobile sees big payoff in Nokia Store

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Twist Mobile was founded in India in 2009 with a clear approach to winning over the emerging and international markets. With a wealth of content making its way to India, the Twist team decided to develop apps for their home country while letting others focus on the U.S. market. However, the team was faced with a challenge most developers encounter, how do I grow my company and generate revenue?

“We started out by developing our first application Age Effect, an old-age photo effect app, using Java for Symbian phones. It received a good number of paid downloads from operators in national and international markets, but we wanted to really look at how we could further drive success,” explained Virat Khutal, Twist Mobile Founder & CEO.

By partnering with Nokia, Twist Mobile changed their business model from a paid download model to an ad-funded model. The two teams worked together to design a user interface that would make the ad placement a less intrusive element of the user experience. The Twist team also found it easy to integrate the advertising SDK into their apps, enabling them to push out apps to the market quickly. The model with ad-wrapping from Vserv Ad Engine displays ads at the beginning and end of each application, and doesn’t distract users as they engage with the app. The ROI of this model is $3.50 USD per every 1,000 impressions and Twist brings in roughly $1,000 USD in daily revenue.

In this Nokia Developer video, Twist Mobile’s CEO Virat Khutal and Technical Head Pramod Pandey talk about their success developing with Nokia:

Developing for Nokia was always the team’s first preference, given Nokia’s global reach, local support and penetration in the Indian market. Twist Mobile has developed for other platforms, but is committed to developing for the Java™ platform and Nokia phones. “We have experimented on some other platforms but distribution was a key challenge so we stopped those plans,” said Anirudh Parasher, Twist Mobile Deployment Manager.

Once Age Effect launched in the Nokia Store as a free ad-funded app, it received one million downloads in just six weeks; a huge achievement for the team fueled by the new business model. This set the tone for developing more apps in the Nokia Store to maximize revenue and profit share, so the momentum didn’t stop there. Soon after, the team launched Psycho Hunter, a personality analysis game, that generated one million downloads in the Nokia Store in just 15 days!

As a result of the successful new strategy, Twist Mobile was the first company from the Asia-Pacific region to surpass 10+ million downloads in the Nokia Store with more than 30 free and 10 paid apps available for download. The company has surpassed 25 million downloads in six months, with more than 120,000 downloads a day from the Nokia Store – without investing in any promotional marketing.

The company received more than eight million downloads from their camera apps alone including, Sketch Effect, Age Effect and Photopia. “We wanted to harness camera technology, motion sensors and all other accessory features to give our user a great experience,” said Khutal.

The team is excited to take on developing for Nokia Lumia smartphones running on Windows Phone. The Twist Mobile team is made up of 18 developers and designers, with growth plans to reach 35 people in the next three months.

With Nokia’s global reach, Twist predicts that Windows Phone will emerge as the biggest player in the space by attracting a younger consumer market through the integration of Xbox and their ability to handle games at 60 frames per second. Khutal added, “We have aspirations to reach one million downloads per day and we’re fully confident we can get there with our free and paid apps.”

To learn more about Twist Mobile’s apps, check out the breakdown below:

 

Psycho Hunter
   
Category: Games – Action
Downloads: 2.1 Million
Description: A simple game of deer hunt with a personality analysis tool for calculating and understanding your behavior and game play techniques.

Sketch Effect
   

Category: Apps – Entertainment
Downloads: 2 Million
Description:Take any photo from your mobile camera and quickly convert it into a sketch. The Sketch Effect app lets you share your sketch with your friends on Facebook so you can have a different profile picture, or set it as your wallpaper on your device.

Photopia
  
Category: Apps – Entertainment
Downloads: 2 Million
Description: A global photo-sharing application that applies effects to your photos and lets you share them worldwide.You can also see photos from other users and rate them, comment on them, or follow them.

CellApp lights the way for millions of Nokia users

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In September 2011, India-based CellApp began to gain exposure as a ‘recommended app’ in the Nokia Store, sparking millions of downloads of their content in 190 countries around the world. One of CellApp’s first applications was the widely popular QTorch, an application designed to let users of Nokia Symbian phones turn their device into a torch or flashlight when the need arises.

CellApp developed QTorch – including a Qt-based version of the app – specifically to address emergency situations that leave people without power for extended periods of time. The app uses a custom algorithm to increase the brightness of the phone screen as necessary. To date, the free version of the application has been downloaded 1.7 million times, earning recognition as a “most downloaded” app for the Nokia N8.


    

Using feedback from Nokia Store customers, CellApp has since moved on to create other successful applications, including DataMonitor, which measures traffic through network connections and displays real-time data usage information. In nearly every market, operators can charge users for data overages. With DataMonitor, users can keep track of their data consumption in real time from the home screen and set alerts to sound as they approach their data limit. This app has helped several hundred thousand users decrease mobile bills. The free version allows users to monitor GPRS data usage, and the premium application allows them to configure and position the ticker window, set a usage alert, and select the network to be monitored (GPRS/Wi-Fi). User testimonials in Nokia Store have showered the app with compliments:

“I have been getting huge bills for using GPRS data connectivity while on the move. With DataMonitor I hope to have some control over my phone bills. Good going! – rahulg_85

“Useful app to know exactly how much you download!” – enzodamato

“DataMonitor helped me to find hidden online costs!” – quax_ge

  

CellApp was established in 2010 by developers with experience creating applications in Symbian C++, Qt, Java, Nokia’s Web Runtime, Series 40 Web Apps, and Adobe Flash Lite.

“When using Qt, we found it very easy to develop the user interface, and the development time can be virtually cut in half,” said G. Padmakumar, CEO of CellApp. “Qt has a drag and drop UI editor, which incorporates many tools that help in our rapid application development.”

Many of the developers working at CellApp have been working with Nokia platforms for years; and they have recently developed five applications in the Windows Phone Marketplace – in just four weeks.

“For us, it was simple and a great experience developing on WP7, from installing the SDKs and IDEs to transferring the app to the test devices, to uploading the final application to App Hub for publication in the Windows Phone Marketplace,” said Padmakumar. “Help is just a click away and there are developer champions all over the world contributing to the community by posting code-based articles for additional support. With Microsoft slowly opening up the development platform so that complex apps can be developed, it’s only a matter of time before WP development will become the mobile developers’ favorite.”

Windows Phone Marketplace is home to more than 65,000 apps, and counting including the five from CellApp, and is seeing more than 300 new apps published every day. CellApp plans to explore the Windows Phone platform to create more globally relevant applications and is taking advantage of the fast-growing and increasingly popular third ecosystem.

“Innovate, adapt, excel,” said Padmakumar. “Our motto has been a guiding light for our endeavors and will continue to inspire us to work with Nokia for years to come.”