Category Archives: Ovi

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Foursquare gets NFC ‘magic’ @ Nokia World

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At Nokia World 2011 we have introduced some of the major apps that have gotten "the magic tap".

The latest addition to the growing number of NFC enabled apps like Angry Birds Magic, Poken, Bounce and Asphalt5 is Foursquare.

With the newest version of the application you can use your NFC enabled phone to check-in automatically by just tapping and NFC enabled/tagged poster. No more tedious steps of launching an application waiting for location fix, connecting etc… With NFC this is all done with a simple tap.

Furthermore, the developer made it even easier for the user to check-in – without the need to have the app running – just tap and the app starts automatically and checks you in. Pretty awesome and again demonstrating the convenience of NFC! In a separate post Andreas explains how as a developer you can implement application autostart . 

Foursquare with NFC support is available in the Nokia Store for Symbian NFC enabled phones (download Symbian version here,N9 support coming soon) . And the best thing about it is that it is not a separate application just for NFC sake. Developers simply added the support for NFC to the existing application version!

Opportunities for venue owners

Venue owners can now create smart posters asking users to Check-in with embedded NFC tags, so that visitors of their venues that have an NFC enabled phone (from any brand) can easily perform the check-in by just tapping the smart poster. Additionally NFC check-ins can be considered as real check-ins as the user had to physically be there to check-in, giving venue owners the potential to have much more accurate data versus normal check-ins. We have demonstrated this concept as verified check-ins at Nokia World 2011 (read NFC Times article here)

How to create Foursquare Check-in Smart Posters?

There are several ways to do it. All you need is an NFC tag encoded with the foursquare venue URL (i.e.: https://foursquare.com/v/nokia-house/4af3fa31f964a520bbef21e3 ) that you stick behind your 4Sq sticker/poster. NFC Hub, for instance offers a readymade solution for 4Square Check-in campaigns. Here is a demo example of a smart poster I did for an event this weekend.  

Where to get tags?

 

Some of the options on how to get NFC tags are listed here: https://www.developer.nokia.com/Develop/NFC/Getting_started/Step_3.xhtml

 

NFC Apps Store category available

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Besides educating Nokia customers of the benefits of NFC technology out of the box, we also ensure that Nokia NFC phone customers can take advantage of a growing number of apps that leverage NFC in an easily accessible way.

The Nokia Store NFC Apps Collection

Instead of customers having to look for different applications where they can put this technology to use, we’ve made the work for them… We are constantly on the lookout in our publishing system for apps utilising NFC and make sure they are all accessible in the Nokia store at an arms lenght – the "NFC Apps" collection. Users can find all the latest and greatest apps using NFC by simply going into the Categories section of their Nokia Store client using their NFC enabled phone, or browse the content from the Store web front.

Incentive for developers

Not only is this good news to consumers, I beleive it’s a really good incentive for developers. The NFC Apps collection gives NFC applications much sought visibility in the storefront, making it more likely for users to discover it.

Nokia NFC Apps Collection is available on the following devices: Nokia C7 Astound, Nokia C7-00, Nokia 600, Nokia 603, Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and N9

How to get your app featured?

For Apps to be featured in the NFC Apps collection, publishers need to make sure that our system can identify that the application published is using NFC. To do that they need to include the keyword "NFC" in at least one of the following metadata areas before submitting the Content Item to Nokia Publish Quality Assurance:

  • Application Name
  • Application Description
  • Keyword metadata

 

Nokia’s developer offering refreshed

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I’m sure you have seen the news already, and they are indeed big. To begin with, individuals can now be Ovi Store publishers. It will still cost you 50€ to register but once you’ve done that there are no more costs for you, Nokia will take care of all the signing costs for you. I’m sure many individual developers, students and hobbyists are getting now the answer they’ve been waiting for. Yes, developing for Symbian is possible and profitable for you as well.

But that’s not all. To sell good applications you need good development tools, and the final release of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 is just that. One tool, one application and UI framework, one source code and capability to build apps for both Maemo 5 and Symbian/S60 (starting with S60 3.1).

 

Nokia Qt SDK Final

 

 

The SDK includes the final release of the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian, a tool designed to ease the distribution of Qt based applications to devices which do not have yet Qt libraries built-in. See below the installer in action.

 

 

Speaking of the Smart Installer, there is something you should know :)

The SDK was packaged with a slightly older version of the Smart Installer, so if you are using the offline installer you should make sure to query for SDK updates using the maintenance tool from SDK’s application group in Windows’ Start menu. By doing so you will be able to fetch the up-to-date version of the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian.

 

Smart Installer Update

If you have used the online installer for the SDK then you already have the latest smart installer build, no need for an update check yet.

And that’s the end of my status report in this post. I’d like to hear what you think of these news, either here or on Twitter.

 

Nokia’s developer offering refreshed

Posted on by
Reply

I’m sure you have seen the news already, and they are indeed big. To begin with, individuals can now be Ovi Store publishers. It will still cost you 50€ to register but once you’ve done that there are no more costs for you, Nokia will take care of all the signing costs for you. I’m sure many individual developers, students and hobbyists are getting now the answer they’ve been waiting for. Yes, developing for Symbian is possible and profitable for you as well.

But that’s not all. To sell good applications you need good development tools, and the final release of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 is just that. One tool, one application and UI framework, one source code and capability to build apps for both Maemo 5 and Symbian/S60 (starting with S60 3.1).

 

Nokia Qt SDK Final

 

 

The SDK includes the final release of the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian, a tool designed to ease the distribution of Qt based applications to devices which do not have yet Qt libraries built-in. See below the installer in action.

 

 

Speaking of the Smart Installer, there is something you should know :)

The SDK was packaged with a slightly older version of the Smart Installer, so if you are using the offline installer you should make sure to query for SDK updates using the maintenance tool from SDK’s application group in Windows’ Start menu. By doing so you will be able to fetch the up-to-date version of the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian.

 

Smart Installer Update

If you have used the online installer for the SDK then you already have the latest smart installer build, no need for an update check yet.

And that’s the end of my status report in this post. I’d like to hear what you think of these news, either here or on Twitter.

 

Good news on the Horizon

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The Symbian Foundation announced a new application-publishing platform, called Horizon, which is intended to help developers, big and small, to publish their Symbian applications on the software market.

Under this scheme the Symbian Foundation will take care of certifying the application through Symbian Signed and will promote it to the partner application stores. All that for free while the author maintains full ownership of the application and will receive 100% of its store generated income. Among the stores likely to participate in this program is of course Nokia’s Ovi Store.

To learn more about this platform visit Horizon’s main page and the Horizon FAQ as well.

If you are a software developer currently “releasing” unsigned applications you should definitely have a look at this offering.

Horizon signup

Good news on the Horizon

Posted on by
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The Symbian Foundation announced a new application-publishing platform, called Horizon, which is intended to help developers, big and small, to publish their Symbian applications on the software market.

Under this scheme the Symbian Foundation will take care of certifying the application through Symbian Signed and will promote it to the partner application stores. All that for free while the author maintains full ownership of the application and will receive 100% of its store generated income. Among the stores likely to participate in this program is of course Nokia’s Ovi Store.

To learn more about this platform visit Horizon’s main page and the Horizon FAQ as well.

If you are a software developer currently “releasing” unsigned applications you should definitely have a look at this offering.

Horizon signup