The Symbian Qt Quick Components Competition 2012Q1 is now over and the winners announced. We’ll be sending them a brand new Nokia 808 PureView device (with unbelievable 41 megapixel camera!) as soon as they’re available!

We thought we’d take a little bit of time to explain the judging process, and what it was that set the three winning apps apart from the crowd.

Judging process

First and foremost we were looking for Symbian apps that used the Qt Quick Components and complied with the Symbian Design Guidelines. Good overall user experience and a matching app launcher icon (done according to the guidelines) were also considered important.

Many of the apps had innovative and elegant UIs, however they were using the components in ways that resulted in unexpected and/or unintuitive app behaviour. From the initial set we were able to refine the list down to a shortlist that used the Qt Quick components correctly and appropriately, and mixed with custom components where these were needed.

We selected the following winners from this initial set. While all the apps in our shortlist had some merit, the winners succeeded in creating a consistent experience that is well matched with that of the phone platform. The app ideas were nice, and the navigation structures and logic intuitive.

Winners (in no particular order!)

Codice Fiscale

CodiceFiscale is an app that allows users to calculate their Italian Tax ID code, also known as "Codice Fiscale". We like this app because it uses the Qt Quick Components exactly as recommended by the guidelines. 

The app uses standard dialogs, buttons, text editors. All the "little things" have been done correctly, from ensuring that the menu back arrow and menu options are in the correct positions, through to greying out options that cannot be set in the current context. 

You can see more information about the app (and screenshots) on the wiki here: Building the Italian Tax ID app with Qt Quick components.

Tourschall

Tourschall is a location-senstive audio tour guide app. We liked this app because it used the Qt Quick components appropriately, and mixed the common and custom components in an innovative way. As you can see from the screenshots below not everything is “perfect” according to the design guidelines (ie X to exit the app rather than a back arrow) but its still a very consistent UI.

There is more information about the app (and screenshots) on the wiki here: Tourschall Showcase

Farmácias de Serviço

Farmácias de Serviço is an application for locating near-by pharmacies. We particularly liked the app because it uses custom components in a way that is very consistent with the standard Symbian "Look and Feel". For example, the Tabbar has been subtly styled to better fit the brand, but is otherwise very similar to the standard Symbian component.

For more information see the wiki article here: Farmácias de Serviço – Symbian App.

Honourable mentions

The following apps are deserving of an “honourable mention” (but not a prize sorry!). All of these apps have some good features or design elements that the judges though worthy of note. 

Notekeeper

FlickrUp

MBuddy

Night Flash

Superbike (QIap)

Audiobook Reader

Premier League

CutePress

Note also that many of the apps submitted that were not considered deserving of "honourable mention" when the competition completed have continued to evolve and are now worth checking out.

Thank you!

A big thank you to all the developers who competed and in particular to the winners, who really captured the spirit of the platform design in their apps.

In particular, I’d also like to thank our main judges, Jan Krebber and Sanna Haivalainen, who put in a lot of effort to ensure that we reviewed the latest and greatest versions of the apps, and to ensure that we were able to get the results out to you so quickly. An astounding job with so many entries.

Hamish Willee