Direct technical comment from Nokia engineers about the latest app development issues
For those of you who need an activity indicator that displays a progress bar as an alert and dismisses itself when the activity completes, you might find it hard to use a high-level Gauge. Using high-level components for creating such an indicator is pretty easy and looks great on Series 40 full touch devices, as long as certain criteria is satisfied.
This article describes in detail how to code one.
Hi all
If you are watching the wiki article series “Quick start in game development for Series 40”, this announcement for you. I am glad to say the series is complete. An application project complements the articles and shows how functionality is built up step-by-step. So it is convenient to examine the code difference to understand how it works. The latest project step is available for download from article “Game development for Series 40: Main menu implementation” or from here. The game path-finding and collision detection algorithms are left outside of the series. Perhaps i will return to that when i have time. So far it was good coding race and interesting platform exploration for me. I hope it is useful for you as well. Please comment and ask – each and every question will be answered.
Regards,
Igor
There is interesting observation in business model comparison
Nokia provides several business models for developers:
1) Free download.
2) Paid download.
3) In-App Advertising.
4) In-App Purchasing.
There are two applications published on Ovi store almost simultaneously in about end of this May. The apps are exactly the same but targeted to different platforms and implement two different business models.
One is a paid application for Harmattan devices. Other is targeted for Symbian platform and implements In-App Purchasing API with try and buy approach. The both apps are not promoted and have little visibility on the market.
So what is interesting about gathered data statistics:
1) The income result for the both is almost the same at the moment
2) During time income is growing exponentially for In-App Purchasing application variant while paid download application shows steady result
3) Downloads for In-App Purchasing application variant exceeds paid counterpart in 300 times.
From the data statistics I can conclude the try-and buy application with In-App Purchasing API is self-promoted. And that promotion is quite efficient — you do not need anything to reach considerable volume of downloads. To leverage that effect consider side-loading your application from other sources than Ovi Store. And to reach even more think how to incorporate social network services as “share with ….” , “game score …” — for example Facebook scores API
But the key point is the software quality. Try and buy scheme is the fare trade that proves fundamental “Quality is in the eye of the beholder”.
If you got recognition with Try and buy application model, be proud of making really good things!
Regards,
Igor
Nfc Interactor 4.0 is now available as download or update in the Nokia Store. It’s a big step forward and a major evolution from the previously published version 2.0. Many new features will allow you to read and write NFC tags even more comfortably, as well as push your NDEF creations directly to other NFC phones.
These additions extend the full feature list, which is now already fills several pages. As usual, the full source code is released under the Nokia Example Code License and can be downloaded for free from the SVN server. The new version also demonstrates the use of the brand new Simple NDEF Exchange Push library for the Nokia N9, which allows sending SNEP messages from MeeGo applications. You need to add it to your Qt SDK to compile Nfc Interactor for MeeGo Harmattan on your local machine.
If you’d rather like to just use the app instead of digging into the source code, you can conveniently download the app from the Nokia Store. You can either go for the free, ad-supported version, or upgrade to Unlimited, which doesn’t show ads and allows writing / pushing an unlimited number of advanced messages.
Series 40 full touch and Nokia SDK for java 2.0 introduce great improvement in application capability for low-price range devices. There are enough materials that explain new things as 3D, sensors, touch UI, etc… Mostly the documents are for experienced developers hungry for new application features. What about newbies in Series 40? We are going to fill the gap with the wiki article series “Quick start in game development for Series 40”.
Why games? I think nowadays for individuals it is hard to compete with business applications on the market by several reason. One of the reasons is – devices are sold with preinstalled good application collection for every-day users’ needs. There is no much room for improvement for third-party developers. Not the same situation is in game world. Express yourself! Game development is more art than business app development. Game development requires more than just programming and UI design skills. It might start from making a story, making characters and end-up living creatures in your world. That is rather exiting opportunity. Considering growing low-price device market available by Nokia you can get even some profit for your game or at least recognition. Target your game to Nokia Store!
So, how do I start? Please go to the wiki and follow the step-by-step instructions. So far there are two articles in the series starting from creating game application skeleton to adding touch support in it. I hope to keep my pace and release more articles in near future on regular basis. What will be next in the series:
Caution! The articles are focused on technical problems only – bring there your imagination and art 
Please comment.
Regards,
Igor
The Nokia Developer Champion for July is Firstman Marpaung, a developer with iComm International in Indonesia and president of the Nokia Indonesia Community Enthusiasts. Recently, Firstman helped organize a Web Apps Roadshow that visited more than 10 campuses in Indonesia and produced 355 apps that were submitted to Nokia Store. He was also recently honoured as a Most Valuable Professional for Windows Phone, and he also has expertise in Symbian C++, Qt, Series 40, Themes, and UI design. Firstman has been a member of the Nokia Developer community since early 2011, and under his username firstmanm, he contributes regularly to the Nokia Developer discussion boards.
Meet Champion of the Month Firstman Marpaung.
Explore the Nokia Developer Champion program.
