Read the latest news – hot off the press – of special interest to all Nokia developers.
Inode Entertainment has joined the 100 Million Download Club! It’s a great story of determination and vision, and you can read about it on our Publish Blog.
100 million downloads is one big achievement. How big? Watch this video to find out!
Why all this fuss about 100 million? Because UTV Indiagames, Pico Brothers, and Inode Entertainment have become the first developers to each achieve 100 million downloads on Nokia Store!
Their successes show that even small businesses can achieve big results. They also show that Nokia Store can deliver serious results for developers from around the world. Indiagames, based in Mumbai, started with just 5 people (though it has since grown to 350 staff and is now part of Disney). Pico Brothers of Finland is still staffed by just two men — not really brothers — and a dog, Viggo. And Inode of Mexico has a staff of only 10 developers.
Indiagames, the first company to reach 100 million downloads on Nokia Store, has found a winning formula with localised content on a wide range of Nokia devices. The company’s popular games include Ra.One Genesis, IPL Cricket Fever, and Monster Truck Dash. Indiagames is now developing apps for Nokia’s latest Asha Touch devices.
Watch this video with Indiagames founder Vishal Gondal.
Read how Indiagames was first to reach 100 million downloads.
Pico Brothers, second to reach the 100-million mark, have succeeded in part by extensively using Qt, which lets the two developers create new apps in as little as a few hours. Pico Brothers’ popular offerings include YouTube Downloader, Flashlight Extreme, and Milk the Cow. They are now expanding by localising apps and monetising their work with both paid apps and in-app advertising.
Watch a video on Pico Brothers’ road to 100 million downloads:
Read how Pico Brothers joined the 100 million club.
Inode Entertainment, our third developer to pass 100 million downloads, has, in just six years, become one of Mexico’s most successful mobile developers. The company’s apps include Ming Zhu, Esquadron 201, and Monster Truck Challenge. Inode monetizes its work with both paid apps and in-app advertising. The company’s apps run on Nokia Series 40 and Symbian phones, and its developers are now creating Windows Phone apps for Nokia’s latest Lumia devices.
Read how Inode Entertainment hit 100 million downloads.
Who will be next to pass the 100 million downloads milestone? As they say on TV, stay tuned!
Earlier in the year, we chronicled the success of IndiaGames and Pico Brothers. Today, we’re happy to add Inode Entertainment to the list of developers who have achieved the one hundred million download milestone via Nokia Store.
It all started in 2006 when Jaime Enriquez decided to apply his passion for gaming to mobile handsets and applications. Since then, his company has grown to ten developers who share his passion for app development. One of the first publishers in the Nokia Store during its inception, Inode Entertainment is now one of the most successful development companies in Mexico.
One of Inode’s most successful applications, Ming Zhu, is a puzzle game that has been deemed the “Sudoku killer.” Players can spend hours challenging their brainpower and the brainpower of fellow users in this free game. This app, along with others like Escuadron, Monster Truck, and Race Electrix, appeals to a broad demographic and continues to surprise customers. Enriquez and his staff pride themselves on customizing themes and applications for their fans. Through stellar customer service and the support of their local Nokia team for quick solutions and training, Inode Entertainment has built a profitable company with a loyal following.
While Inode Entertainment offers paid versions of their apps, they monetize their apps primarily through in-app advertising supported by Nokia.
“The in-app advertising platforms provided by Nokia are great for both developers and users. They enable us to make our applications available to the masses while providing us a good fill rate and an impressive eCPM,” according to Jaime Enriquez, Founder and CEO of Inode Entertainment. “We are happy with our revenue success and are able to pay employee salaries through the revenue generated from our applications.”
At Inode Entertainment, they believe in a company atmosphere that encourages dreaming big and working hard. And with a hundred million downloads under their belt, they’re now aiming for the one billion mark. With a portfolio that spans Symbian, Series 40, S60, and Symbian 3 (and soon Windows Phone), they expect to achieve their goal with hard work and determination, as well as Nokia’s global reach.
“Nokia has the best developer program in the industry, and we know we can reach above and beyond the status quo with their help,”said Jaime Enriquez. “With a portfolio that spans gaming, productivity, tools, and personalization, we are proud of our success. Our partnership with Nokia has enabled my hard working team to achieve this milestone.”
After reaching the handsets of gamers all over the world on Symbian, Series 40, and S60 phones, Inode Entertainment is looking forward to developing for the growing Windows Phone Marketplace.
“We are extremely excited about the Nokia and Microsoft partnership and are in the process of developing several applications for Nokia Lumia smartphones and the Windows Phone Marketplace,” said Jaime Enriquez. “We are big fans of Microsoft’s development tools and believe that Nokia has the most impressive global reach. That winning combination enables us to reach our very ambitious goals for the future.”
What do you do for an encore after your mobile app has already been downloaded more than 11 million times? If you are Psiloc, the Warsaw, Poland-based developer of the World Traveler app for Nokia phones, you develop a new version for Nokia’s just-announced Asha Touch phones — the Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306, and Asha 311.
‘It was an easy decision for us’, says Wojciech Nowanski, Operations Director at Psiloc. ‘We want to be on as many Nokia devices as possible and to reach as many consumers as possible.’
World Traveler, one of several popular apps offered by Psiloc on Nokia Store, offers both business and leisure travelers an all-in-one suite of free mobile services: global weather forecasts, currency conversions, and a world clock. In addition, World Traveler users have the option of purchasing two premium services: Flight Assistant, which lets them search the flight schedules of major airlines for information on flight delays and other changes; and Safe, which lets them securely store sensitive numbers in a ‘virtual vault’.
World Traveler was originally developed six years ago, after Psiloc executives found themselves stuck in a Hong Kong airport, waiting for a delayed flight to Hamburg. ‘There was no information about what was going on with the plane’, Nowanski explains. ‘So we decided to create such an app for travelers.’
Then, about three years ago, Psiloc added new features to World Traveler and ported the native C++ app first to Nokia’s Symbian 3rd Edition, then to Symbian 5th Edition, and then to Symbian Belle. With that, the app has, well, taken off. In addition to the afore-mentioned 11+ million downloads, World Traveler now has approximately 2.1 million users who rely on it every day. In addition, Psiloc earns revenue whenever users opt for the app’s premium services.
To move World Traveler to the new Nokia Asha Touch phones, Psiloc has essentially recreated the app in a new development environment. The new Asha Touch phones are designed around Nokia’s Series 40 Developer Platform 2.0, so Psiloc’s development team opted to create the new version of World Traveler in Java.
The Java version of World Traveler took Psiloc about four months to develop, and the work was done by a small team of developers. Psiloc’s developers were pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to do using the Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java. The Light Weight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) helped them speed development by offering a wide range of UI-ready components and the Java APIs let them offer rich applications. They also made use of the emulator included in the SDK and the settings to test in-app purchasing.
Watch this video to find out more about Psiloc’s experience developing for the new Asha Touch devices:
The Asha Touch version of World Traveler initially offers the most popular free services of the Symbian version: a world clock showing local time for specified locations; currency conversions for nearly 185 currencies; and the premium Flight Assistance service, available using Nokia’s in-app purchase service. Psiloc is also prepared to offer other free and premium services to the app’s Asha Touch version in the future. ‘We will watch how the market responds, and then we will decide which other features to move’, Nowanski says.
World Traveler for Nokia Asha Touch phones will be offered on Nokia Store in 18 global languages, among them French (both European and Canadian), Italian, Portuguese (both European and Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian. With the Asha Touch phones playing an important role in Nokia’s campaign to reach the next billion consumers, that should create quite an encore.
Beta releases of Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java and Nokia Web Tools 2.0 are now available. These new Series 40 development tools are your route to realising the extended Series 40 opportunity created by the introduction of the Asha Touch phones.
Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java
In addition to the usual tools — documentation, APIs, and an emulator — the Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java contains our first full featured, customised IDE. Based on the Eclipse platform, Nokia IDE for Java will streamline your development activities, with features such as the Device SDK Manager, Nokia specific JAD attribute editor, and a range of code templates.
Listening to user feedback we know that in the past developers have been frustrated with trying to find the right SDK for Series 40 development. With Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java, we are introducing the Nokia SDK Manager. From within the Nokia IDE for Java you can now specify a phone, screen size, form factor, or feature and instantly get a list of the SDKs supporting your choice. The SDK or SDKs can then be installed immediately, right from within the IDE.
Among the code templates you will find one with everything you need to implement an app with in-app purchasing capabilities and the JAR attribute editor makes targeting you app package at Series 40 phones simple and straightforward.
Finally, there are a number of updates to the SDK that are designed to take advantage of new features being introduced in Series 40 Touch. There is an updated Nokia UI API that gives you features such as multi-point touch and an implementation of the Mobile Sensor API (JSR-234). The emulator has been updated too with an orientation simulator, the integration of Nokia Maps into the location simulator, and useful links built into the emulators menu.
Nokia Web Tools 2.0
Series 40 web apps are the best way to deliver great experiences to Series 40 users that leverage your existing web assets. With the release of Nokia Web Tools 2.0 you now have the ability to enhance those experiences with features such as file upload and download, password management, and the addition of in-app advertising to your web apps. In addition, there are several improvements in HTML and CSS support, enabling you to deliver richer UIs.
Nokia Web Tools 2.0 enables you to code web apps that take full advantage of these features, and test them on your computer — Nokia Web Tools 2.0 is available for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux. The Web App Simulator offers support for the full-touch screen resolution and has been updated to provide a more phone-accurate rendering of web apps.
Within the Web Developer Environment there have been a range of improvements such as enhanced validation — which is now tailored to Series 40 supported HTML, CSS, and JavaScript APIs. There is also a wider range of templates, examples, and code snippets to get you started with common web app content layouts and interaction paradigms, such as sharing on social networks and file transfers. While small, improvements such as keyboard shortcuts and incremental uploads will help speed up your development.
Series 40 represents the single largest opportunity for you to deliver Java and web apps to mobile consumers worldwide. The introduction of Nokia Asha Touch phones delivers these users a near smartphone experience and the updated tools enable you to take full advantage of this in your apps. With accelerating download rates, there has never been a better time to target Series 40.
Indiagames, Psiloc and Liverpool FC have already used these tools to create apps for the new Asha Touch phones and share their experiences in this video:
Find out more about these developers’ experience here.
Interested in learning about developing for the new Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306, and Asha 311 phones? Learn from developers who already made the move. Three new videos present developers from Psiloc, Liverpool FC, and UTV Indiagames explaining how they created apps for the new Asha Touch phones and why they are so excited about the phones’ market opportunities.
Indiagames: This Mumbai-based developer, with 100 million downloads on Nokia Store, has created games for the latest Nokia Asha Touch phones. Prasad Nair, Executive Producer of Mobile, says, the Nokia SDK for Java ‘provides APIs, likes gestures and sensors, that allow the user to interact with the games in much more entertaining ways than before’. Adds Vishal Gondal, Managing Director of Digital: ‘The new Asha Touch phones…could be a game changer for a market like India.’ Watch the video.
Learn how Monster Truck Dash helped Indiagames succeed on Nokia Store.
Psiloc used Java tools to create a new version of its popular World Traveler app for the Nokia Asha Touch phones in just four months. ‘Using Java is quite easy’, says Muhammed Ahmmad, Creative Program at the Warsaw, Poland developer. ‘And Series 40 devices are getting smarter and more powerful.’ Watch the video.
Liverpool FC and InfoMedia developed Match and News Centre, a Web app for Nokia Asha Touch phones that includes both free and premium content. ‘Nokia devices are massively popular in the territories where we have large fan bases’, says Kathy Smith, Mobile Manager for the U.K. football club. Adds Sanjay Mistry, Operations Director at the app’s developer, InfoMedia: ‘Nokia Web tools for Series 40 are easy to install. We managed to get up and running within half an hour.’
Start developing for the latest Nokia Asha Touch devices now:
Whether you have created Java apps for Series 40 before or are about to embark on your first, you have an exciting opportunity to take advantage of the great new full touch capabilities of our Series 40 Developer Platform 2.0 devices.
And the best way to get yourself up to speed is through an introductory webinar from our experts at Nokia Developer. Over the next few weeks we have a range of webinars to introduce you to the tools, techniques and technology you need to deliver rich, functional full-touch Series 40 apps for Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306, and Asha 311.
On 27 June and 3 July we are presenting ‘Introduction to Series 40 full touch’, featuring the new APIs, tools and resources. From this webinar you be introduced to the new UI, gain the knowledge of new APIs in the Series 40 platform and be taken on a walkthrough of the tools and resources that will help you develop your apps.
Register for the 27 June session (07:00 UTC)
Register for the 3 July session (15:00 UTC)
Once you’re armed with this new knowledge, you can take in our deeper dive sessions that explain and demonstrate tools within Nokia SDK 2.0, the Series 40 full-touch style guide and much more.
Full calendar – upcoming webinars
The webinars give you a head start on becoming an expert with Series 40 Full touch apps, with the skill and style you need to deliver great experiences.
Nokia is hosting Java full touch webinars, covering various features and fields of Java. Take the chance to learn Java more in-depth, see below for date and topics.
Follow the links to enter the registration page, and sign up for the desired webinar.
Using Nokia SDK 2.0 f
or Java with Nokia IDE for Java ME (Eclipse)
29 June 8 a.m. London; 12:30 p.m. Bangalore; 3 p.m. Singapore (10 a.m. Helsinki)
11 July 8 a.m. San Francisco; 10 a.m. Mexico City; 4 p.m. London (6 p.m. Helsinki)
Series 40 full touch: UI style guide part 1
28 June 8 a.m. San Francisco; 10 a.m. Mexico City; 4 p.m. London (6 p.m. Helsinki)
4 July 8 a.m. London; 12:30 p.m. New Delhi; 3 p.m. Singapore (10 a.m. Helsinki)
Series 40 full touch: UI style guide part 2
10 July 8 a.m. San Francisco; 10 a.m. Mexico City; 4 p.m. London (6 p.m. Helsinki)
13 July 8 a.m. London; 12:30 p.m. New Delhi; 3 p.m. Singapore (10 a.m. Helsinki)
Using Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java with NetBeans
6 July 8 a.m. London; 12:30 p.m. Bangalore; 3 p.m. Singapore (10 a.m. Helsinki)
12 July 8 a.m. San Francisco; 10 a.m. Mexico City; 4 p.m. London (6 p.m. Helsinki)
Using Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java with Nokia IDE for Java ME (Eclipse) in Turkish
5 July 6 p.m. Istanbul,Helsinki
Beta versions of updated Java and web tools for targeting full-touch Nokia Asha devices will be released Monday June 25.
Information, documentation and guides for these upcoming releases are available now, allowing you to familiarise yourself with the new capabilities of the tools.
Today’s documentation releases include:
More guides and material, including ‘getting started’ technical videos, will be published on June 25 to coincide with the release of the new tools.
The Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306 and Asha 311 are the first all-touch Series 40 devices, and are expected to ship in the third quarter of 2012 (second quarter for Asha 305). They will have an estimated retail price in the EUR 63-68 range for Asha 305, Asha 306 and EUR 92 for Asha 311 (excluding taxes and subsidies).
Meet the Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java
Introduction to Nokia Web Tools 2.0
Open Stockholm Award is Swedish a developer competition where people compete with either their apps or ideas for apps, based on Stockholm’s open data. We hooked up with Peter Drougge who built the great WP-app
om/sv-SE/apps/270e2242-e160-4f05-b70e-b216705349e9">Stockholm Explorer
What advice would you give to developers for WP7 who recently started developi
ng? What resources would you recommend?
- Have fun, dig deep and make use of the vast experience available in the community – there’s a huge amount of blogs, tutorials and open source initiatives out there that’ll kickstart anyone in no time at all, seasoned developer or not. Make use of the priority tool we’re talking about: the windows phone. Follow interesting people and sources on twitter so they integrate into the People hub. That way you’ll be able to tap into the grapewine of the developer ecosystem of windows phone, on your phone. I love reverse engineering, but you don’t need to reinvent the wheel – instead, go download open source projects and figure out how they’re put together. Go grab the tools today – there are free versions of them so that won’t event make a dent in your wallet. Get into it, experience it. It’s in motion, It’s now and It’s a blast to be a part of.
Can you tell us a little bit about your framework “LocationServices for Windows Phone” and how it can be used?
- Right at the start of building the first app I could see more and more opportunities where the use of the data at hand would fit nicely, so to save time and keep the development generic I refactored the data layer to a framework – incorporating JSON fetching & parsing, mapping & transforming to observables and strongtyping the requests. Basically it’s a collection of strong typed service calls that turns the JSON result into better suited observable(s), and it’s one of those things that just keeps growing – right now there’s 10, or 11, datasources available, ranging from parking places in Stockholm city, to media from Instagram, to getting the current address from Bing. Every datasource/service used is in some way tied to location-aware results or queries, hence the name LocationServices. It’s free and it’s there to give anyone that needs it a jump in the code so they can focus on other parts of their application. It’ also fully extendable, something i’m planning to write a few articles on soon.
We look forward to that Peter! Thanks for sharing!
