Nokia Focusing on Qt, Will Extend Reach for Developers

jasonblack | 21 October, 2010 13:15

Nokia announced today that it is streamlining its development environments across device platforms, and focusing solely on Qt as a robust, tried and tested framework that unlocks the hardware, software and service capabilities of the existing Nokia smartphone range as well as creating huge opportunities for future Symbian and MeeGo products.  

“We’re making strategic technology decisions that will accelerate our ability to offer the strongest possible opportunity for developers and the richest possible experience for consumers,” said Rich Green, CTO of Nokia. “For developers, it will open up a huge installed base of customers for their apps … We firmly believe that the choices we have made will not only mean significant opportunity and success for our developer partners, but for Nokia as well.”

So, as a developer, if you create your application in Qt, you will be able to easily deploy it to Nokia devices on both Symbian and MeeGo platforms. Nokia is committed to creating its own applications and UI on Qt as well.

In addition to focusing on Qt for application development, Nokia announced its intent to support HTML5 for development of Web content and applications for both Symbian and MeeGo platforms. This will ensure continuity throughout the evolution of Symbian, enable applications to work on both Symbian and future MeeGo devices, and at the same time, provide developers with a simplified means of developing on the Nokia platform. 

As a result of this change, Nokia is able to focus on a constant evolution and improvement of the platform. For example, rather than replacing Symbian^3 with the Symbian^4 release, Nokia will be in a position to gradually and constantly upgrade Symbian^3 to introduce the benefits expected from Symbian^4. Ultimately, this will result in a better, more compelling experience for consumers who will have access to the applications they have come to expect from developers working on Nokia platforms, along with an improved product experience.

This marks a major step forward in removing fragmentation in our developer offering, enabling the creation of native and hybrid apps using Qt and Qt Quick (a high-level UI technology that allows developers and designers to work together to easily create animated, touch-enabled UIs and apps). In addition, Qt’s in-built support for HTML5 complements Nokia’s intent to support HTML5 in Web browsers.  (Note: the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 is currently available for download here on the Forum Nokia website; Qt Quick will be available in the next release of the SDK.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, many developers are already working in Qt, and have great things to say about their experience. Brett Butterfield, CEO at Pixelpipe noted: “Elements of our UI that were previously taking us hours of painstaking hand coding in Symbian are now re-created in minutes with the Qt Creator. It's not just the ease of porting our existing functionality to Qt, however the ability of adding capabilities and features beyond Symbian that has us excited.”

Check out this video interview from Nokia Conversations with Nokia CTO Rich Green to learn more:



For more information about Qt, please visit the following pages:

You can start developing with Qt today at www.forum.nokia.com/Develop/Qt/.

 

 

Qt , S60 , Symbian C++ , Web Technology , HTML5 | Next | Previous | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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Will you still support Java ME?

jellinek | 21/10/2010, 22:50

One could interpret the first paragraph of this press release to mean that Nokia will no longer support - or will phase out support for - Java ME.

Is that the case?

Regarding today's announcement, and Java

jasonblack | 21/10/2010, 23:00

jasonblack

@jellinek - We were told that Java on Symbian will be maintained for compatibility for now. It is being suggested that Java apps be migrated to the new Qt framework. Also, please note that there are no plans to support Java on MeeGo.

JAVA

oyeniyi83 | 22/10/2010, 12:51

I think its a shame Nokia is phasing out Java. I understand there might be fear of licensing charges from Oracle etc, but Oracle is giving full support to the OpenJDK initiative, and say the next generation APIs will be based on it.

I think JAVA will be great alongside Qt, particularly now that both are maturing into the mainstream. Java's new MSA 2 specs cover almost all developer needs for now and the near future, and it is portable to other OSs'!

Rich, what do you think about the hardware?

a_n_k_u_r | 25/10/2010, 08:52

The processor+memory in Nokia phones is a joke and vastly underpowered. It kills the user experience, limits the applications and makes for an unstable crash prone base. It is clear beyond doubt that anaemic hardware has been a mistake. Why not try and err on the other side for once? I have seen videos of N8 on Internet. N8 may be somewhat faster than, say, Nokia 5800 but its sluggishness couldn't be hidden. Compared to iPhone 4, the hardware, including the display on Nokia phones is so old generation.

C++ SDK

reinhardholzner | 09/11/2010, 11:52

Does this mean that the C++ SDK will be faded out? We'll no longer be able to provide our software if we have no access to the low level system APIs anymore.

Java Support

olofumark | 26/12/2010, 00:16

While Qt becomes the sole development platform, what then happens to the millions of java enabled nokia devices and developers?
it means loss for nokia in terms of developers and customers.
Anyway Qt is a great platform and I love it.

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