Nokia Developer News

Developer Economics 2011, the definitive report on mobile developers, apps, and brands going mobile, is now available. In this second annual report, VisionMobile -- a market analysis and strategy firm -- explores what drives developer mindshare and how brands are fast-forwarding into the mobile world.

Developer Economics 2011 takes you across the developer journey, from the shift of mindshare and why ‘users can buy you love’, to how money is made in mobile. The report also covers the hottest issues, including app design, promotion, monetisation, and user support.

 Download the free Developer Economics 2011 report.

It's now easy to discover and eliminate memory leaks and other memory issues from your Symbian C++ and Qt software for Symbian devices with the Nokia AnalyzeTool.

With versions for S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1; S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack2; S60 5th Edition; and Symbian^3 SDKs, Nokia AnalyzeTool is used by compiling it with the application you want to analyse. The app is then run in an SDK emulator or on a compatible device to gather memory information as you exercise the application. Once testing is finished, you transfer the data collected to your PC for analysis. Where memory issues are found, the data collected pinpoints the source code line from which the error originated, enabling you to correct any issues quickly.

Download Nokia AnalyzeTool.

Read the user's guide.

Enter Forum Nokia’s new Series 40 Java and Web Competition, and you could be among three winners of a new Nokia X3-02 and a yet-to-be-announced Nokia device. To enter, first create a Java or web app designed to run on a Series 40 6th Edition, Feature Pack 1 device. And use the new Nokia SDK for Java beta, which supports the development of Series 40 6th Edition, Feature Pack 1 apps. Then either host the app as a Nokia project or write an article about the app as a Wiki article, tutorial, or guide. All entries will be judged on quality, value, and appearance, and you may submit more than one app. But hurry: The deadline for entries is 30 June.
 

 

Check out the Series 40 competition guidelines, and enter today.

June’s Forum Nokia Champion of the Month is Sunil Kumar, a senior mobile application developer at Affle Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based provider of mobile media and marketing solutions. Experienced with Symbian S60 and other mobile platforms, Sunil is also an active participant in the Forum Nokia community, where he is known as skumar_rao. Sunil has won awards for contributing both Qt code and Qt articles to the Forum Nokia Wiki, including his most recent article, Google Maps With QWebView.




Meet Champion of the Month Sunil Kumar.

Learn more about Forum Nokia Champion, a recognition and reward program for top mobile developers from around the world.

The first beta release of Nokia SDK for Java is now available for test, evaluation, and feedback. The SDK supports Java development for Nokia Series 40 6th Edition, Feature Pack 1 devices and future Series 40 platform versions. It eliminates the need for multiple Series 40 SDKs when coding for multiple Series 40 platform versions.

 

Download the Nokia SDK 1.0 Beta for Java.

What do you think? Offer feedback on the discussion board.

Publish to Ovi is now accepting Series 40 web apps for distribution through Ovi Store by Nokia, marking the final phase of the Series 40 web apps launch. In April 2011, Forum Nokia offered developers Nokia Web Tools, a complete collection of tools to prototype, code, test, package, and deploy Series 40 web apps. 

Nokia Web Tools has been downloaded thousands of times, already. Developers are finding it easy to create their first web app, as the tool includes “getting started” guides and videos in Web Developer Channel and web app templates in Web Developer Environment. In addition, Forum Nokia and the Forum Nokia wiki offers additional in-depth information on Series 40 web apps, such as a development FAQ, API reference and best practices guide, and code examples. Training is available in a series of recorded webinars: Introduction, UI, and UX and Mobile Web Library and JavaScript.

Millions of consumers have downloaded Ovi Browser and are ready to start using web apps. Nokia sells more than one million Series 40 devices every day, and starting in the second half of 2011, Ovi Browser will be the default browser on the most popular of those devices.

Discovery and Reach: Ovi Store experiencing tremendous growth

Ovi Store now serves up to five million downloads per day, with 158 developers from 41 countries passing the one million downloads milestone. Additionally, Ovi Store has grown nearly eight times in one year, with more than 40,000 apps now available. Nearly 1,000 new apps are added every week. Series 40 devices, which will enable apps for the next billion mobile phone users, have experienced more than 35 per cent growth in download volumes in the last two months, making up about a quarter of the total downloads.

Submitting your web apps to Ovi Store

To submit your web apps to Ovi Store you will need to sign up as an Ovi Store publisher. Then you package your web app into a *.wgt file and submit that file to Ovi Store. Details on the submission process and the information you need to provide with each submission are provided in Ovi Publisher Guide and information on appropriate content is provided in Ovi Store Content Guidelines. For general information on distributing your web app, including promotion guidelines, please visit the Distribute section of Forum Nokia.

If you wish to see the process by which users will discover your web app in Ovi Store and access it on their device (or want more information on creating the *.wgt file), please see the Series 40 web apps: Publishing guide.

We look forward to welcoming your web apps into Ovi Store and making them available to millions of Series 40 device owners worldwide.

Great UX for Series 40 devices

Using Mobile Web Library, the Ovi Browser client can execute JavaScript code in Series 40 web apps. This code makes it possible to create interactive user interfaces and use graphical transitions to deliver beautiful web experiences. Now web designers and developers can deliver compelling application experiences to users at low cost — both in terms of development effort and user data charges.

 

Easy to get started: New development option for Series 40

Built on Eclipse and the Aptana platform, Web Developer Environment delivers all the key features developers need to author web content for use on Series 40 devices. In addition, custom features to enable the creation, editing, debugging, packaging, and deployment of Series 40 web apps are included. Development is further streamlined by Web App Simulator, which enables Series 40 web apps to be previewed and tested on a computer. Even before development starts, Web App Designer can help designers to create the right UX by enabling interactive screen mock-ups that can be run on Series 40 devices, so feedback can be gathered on designs.

Get started now.

• Download Nokia Web Tools today. 

• Check out the sample code. 

• Find events in your area.

•  Join the community for ideas and support.

Today, Microsoft previewed the next major release of Windows Phone. Code named ‘Mango’, this newest release brings a number of substantial improvements in both the software platform and developer tools.  

Jo Harlow, executive vice president for Smart Devices, explains today in Nokia Conversations that Nokia is planning to release its first Windows Phone devices based on Mango.

“We are very excited about our strategic partnership with Microsoft, and Mango is a great milestone for the first Nokia with Windows Phone devices,” said Harlow. “We believe Mango offers developers opportunities to create new mobile experiences leveraging both companies’ complementary assets while providing consumers with a new choice in mobile.”  

Featuring over 1,500 new APIs, 16 new languages and hardware-accelerated IE9 and HTML5 support, Mango brings enticing new opportunities to developers. Updates for tools, such as enhanced debugging, emulator support with accelerometer, gesture support and profiling will also improve developer productivity.

Rather than simply create one high-end device, Nokia plans to develop and release a portfolio of products that address as many of our audiences and markets as possible. Knowing that Windows Phone represents Nokia’s primary smartphone strategy, all of Nokia's smartphone engineering resources are being prioritised to make the best hardware for the forthcoming Nokia with Windows Phone devices.  Nokia will work closely with Microsoft to differentiate its devices with Mango by featuring its iconic hardware and services, while applying consistent design principles for a unique look and feel.

As Nokia embarks on the next phase of this partnership with Microsoft, we are beginning to put in place a number of activities that will help our developer community quickly prepare for the upcoming Nokia with Windows Phone devices.  We recently published a technical article on the Community Wiki; and there will soon be a number of development guides that will help developers make the most of the apps they already have in Nokia’s application store. In the Projects site, members of the Nokia developer community are beginning to contribute some interesting examples that illustrate how to build apps for Windows Phone.

In the coming months, we will deliver regular updates from experts on both sides of this partnership to help Nokia developers make the transition to developing for Windows Phone. There will also be new improvements, new benefits and simplification to our Nokia developer support offerings, so please stay tuned.

To learn more, please watch this video where Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president in Windows Phone, shows off some of the new features coming in the Mango release of Windows Phone:



For more information, please take a look at today’s post by Matt Bencke in the Windows Phone Developer blog.

To get the latest tools to develop for Windows Phone, please visit the Microsoft AppHub.

We would like to hear your thoughts about application development for in-car use and how the Car Connectivity Consortium and Terminal Mode specification meet your needs. The feedback received will be used to further develop the Terminal Mode specification, related business models, development tools and documentation. The survey period closes 29 May, so please respond today.

Here's the background if you haven't been following the work:

The Car Connectivity Consortium was launched in March of this year by Nokia and other founding members including vehicle manufacturers Daimler, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai Motor Company, Toyota, and Volkswagen; system suppliers Alpine and Panasonic; and consumer electronics makers LG Electronics, Nokia and Samsung.

This cross industry initiative aims to drive global innovation and standardization of in-vehicle connectivity, including the Terminal Mode standard. With the Terminal Mode standard, the connection of high-performing mobile devices to vehicle-based systems opens up a host of new opportunities for business and a world of innovative applications for consumers. Mobile devices could be tightly connected with in-car systems such as digital displays, steering wheel buttons, rotary knobs and car audio systems. Consumers could use a mobile device via the car controls, as if the device and its apps were integrated into the car itself. Terminal Mode is built upon a set of established standards such as Internet Protocol, Universal Serial Bus and Bluetooth.

The in-car connectivity brings also totally new challenges for application development; applications must be safe to use in a car by the driver. Application UI and content must be context aware, applications must acknowledge the priorities of the driver and cause minimal distraction.  Distractive UI events, time limited user key presses, even content like video could be prohibited depending on the local regulations. Among the tasks for the Car Connectivity Consortium, device and car manufacturers, application developers, legislators and consumers are to contribute to the rules for in-car applications.

• Take the survey before 29 May to have your voice heard

Would you like to develop apps that improve the lives of others? Nokia and the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper are jointly sponsoring (H)activate, a cause-led hack, on 18-19 June. (H)activate will give developers a chance to work on a global project, meet like-minded developers, and apply their vision and creativity to areas that market forces do not normally reach. The weekend event will lead up to the Guardian’s Activate Summit in London on 22 June. A panel of judges will pick the best creation, and the winner will demo their app at Activate before some 300 delegates. But note: While participation in (H)activate is free, you must sign up in advance.

Learn more about the Activate Summit and (H)activate.

Sign up now to participate in (H)activate.

Do you have a useful and innovative idea that could be turned into a product or service by Nokia? If so, a new program, Invent With Nokia, could be your ticket to fame and fortune.

To submit your idea, first register at the Invent With Nokia site. Then provide non-confidential information about your idea or invention. Nokia will then have four months to consider and review your submission. If your idea is accepted by Nokia, it could be patented and included in a future Nokia product or service – and you could receive a financial reward. With Nokia's presence in more than 160 countries, the opportunity could be huge.

Learn more about Invent With Nokia, and submit your ideas today.

Tero Paananen (tepaa to the Forum Nokia Community) is a full-time mobile developer and Mobile Qt team Team Manager at Digia in Finland, where he specializes in Symbian C++ and Qt development. In his spare time he recently began exploring mobile development for Windows Phone 7, and he launched the first two Forum Nokia Projects containing code for WP7 apps: XNASolitaire and Angry Monsters . Forum Nokia talked with Tero via e-mail about his experience as a skilled Symbian/Qt developer approaching Windows Phone 7 work. Here is an edited transcript of our conversation:

FN: Hi Tero. Thank you for taking the time to talk about your experience approaching Window Phone 7 work. Let’s start with tooling: What tool chains are you already using for your Qt and S60 C++ work?

Tepaa: I use Nokia Qt SDK 1.1 and Qt framework for my current projects, and I haven't done native Symbian C++ projects since 2009. The Qt framework has replaced my use of native Symbian C++ really well. Before the transition I used Carbide C++ & Symbian SDK for native Symbian work.

FN: What tool chain did you add to learn C# and create the XNA Solitaire project?

Tepaa: I installed Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, which covers development for web, windows, and Windows Phone platforms. One problem I had was that I had to install Windows 7 OS to run the emulator in Visual Studio. The emulator did not start on my Windows Vista machine because of some old display drivers in Vista. That apparently has been a problem for many developers.

FN: How long did it take you to install the tools and be able to compile code?

Tepaa: Not long, it’s hard to say but a half hour or less. That does not count the time required to upgrade an Vista machine to Windows 7 if you have to.

FN: Do your Qt tools run on the same machine as your Windows tools, or do you work them on separate hardware or VMware instances?

Tepaa: Yes, in the same machine. No problems.

FN: How many of your familiar design patterns from Qt and S60 C++ still work with C# on Visual Studio? What new design patterns did you have to learn?

Tepaa: Symbian C++ has an observer pattern that is familiar to me. I used that same pattern in Angry Monsters where my custom XNA Button sends information to the listener when a user presses the button. There is an interface that “button listener” has to implement to receive the messages.

Compare this to Qt and Qt Quick, both of which use signals and slots to allow classes to communicate with each other. I tried to find some kind of solution in XNA and noticed that Custom Event Handlers might be able to provide some kind of mechanism.

FN: Now that you have gone through the process, what one thing do you wish you had known before you started?

Tepaa: C#

FN: That’s interesting. Let’s dive a little into your experience learning the C# language. Did you find it a difficult language to learn?

Tepaa: Not really, it went with "my best guess". Based on my knowledge working with Java, Symbian and Qt, C# was quite familiar. Of course there are a lot of C# specialties.

FN: What were the most unusual aspects of working with C#  that you had to learn?

Tepaa: Three things popped out:

• Derived class methods have to be virtual (like in Symbian) and an overide method has to be marked as override.
• I needed to learn about delegates and event
• XNA Framework is a game framework where all things happen in a framework update loop that cycles  33 times / second. That is really new for Symbian/Qt developers. I have to, for example, check in this update loop if a user touched a Solitaire Card or not. You can not sit back and wait for mouse events.

FN: What were the most familiar?

Tepaa: C# in general is like Java and Qt, and that helps Qt developers a lot.

FN: How did you approach the learning -- were there videos, or examples in Visual Studio, or tutorials on MSDN that you found particularly useful?

Tepaa: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone SDK supports code IntelliSense that helps a lot. As an experiment, I approached the XNA Solitaire project without any C# or XNA experience, and I did not use any resources outside of Visual Studio. I just used my knowledge of other programming languages and the Visual Studio tools, and that was enough to get the job done.

For example, I needed to generate a random number in XNASolitaire. I just typed "random" in a Visual Studio code editing window and IntelliSense showed immediately that a Random class exists and showed me what parameters and methods are available for it. The same applies to the List class that I needed for managing my card deck. I typed “list” and Visual Studio showed me the class prototype.

While I did not study C# before this project, it’s time for me now and I think I found the tutorial I’ll take.

Here is another set of tutorials that look useful.

FN: If you have thoughts on how C# compares to other environments in which you have worked I think that would be helpful for developers making the transition. From your experience, does the language and environment more closely resemble your work with Qt, Symbian S60, Java, or was it a completely new experience for you?

Tepaa: I would say that working with C# and XNA Framework is a lot like working with Qt, and Silverlight (XAML) is a lot like working with Qt Quick. XAML and C# are integrated like Qt and QML, or even better. If you have Qt or Java experience, that helps.

Check out this short video of the XNA Solitaire game, then check out the full source code in forum Nokia Projects.

 

May’s Forum Nokia Champion is Alessandro Pace, founder of Biskero, publisher of Kero Mobile, a next-generation service-oriented mobile app store. Biskero has also published several other apps on Ovi Store; these apps have been downloaded more than 1.8 million times by consumers in over 190 countries. In addition, Alessandro is active in the Flash community; he teaches Flash Mobile and is a contributor to Flash Lite. A Forum Nokia member since 2005, Alessandro is also a frequent blogger and contributor to the Forum Nokia forums.
 

Meet Alessandro Pace, May’s Champion of the Month.

Five new Nokia Developer videos on YouTube highlight the benefits for developers of working with Qt, Nokia’s cross-platform development framework, and the new Qt SDK 1.1. The videos feature both Nokia executives and developers, and several leading mobile-app publishers. In one video, Christian Kamm, a Nokia software engineer, explains the components and benefits of the new Qt SDK 1.1. In another, Alexander Kluwe, UI designer and project manager at Futurice, recounts how his team used Qt to create the 90elf mobile app, which lets users listen to live football matches, in just 30 days. And in a third video, Wilhelm Taht and Juha Turunen of Digia show how they used Qt SDK 1.1 to create Flowd, a location-based social network for music lovers.

Watch the new Qt videos now:

Final Qt SDK 1.1 Available Now for Nokia Developers

 

Futurice Develops 90elf App in 30 Days with Qt SDK 1.1

 

 Digia Develops Flowd for Nokia using Qt SDK 1.1

 

Developing with Qt: Nokia Smart Installer

 

Qt SDK 1.1: Developing with Nokia’s Qt Creator

Nokia NFC APIs are now available to all developers in an open beta program. These APIs support sharing content by tapping phones together, linking phones or accessories and reading/writing tags. The APIs are included in the latest R&D version of Symbian Anna, can be tested on current Nokia C7 hardware, and are supported by beta developer tools including Qt SDK 1.1, Qt Mobility 1.2 beta Symbian integration package, example code, and an intro to NFC white paper.

If you have been thinking about enhancing your apps with NFC, now is the time to bring your vision to life. As an example, see how Poken is using NFC today:

Check out these Forum Nokia resources to help you get started:

• Technical overview: NFC Tutorials from Forum Nokia's Andreas Jakl gives a great overview of a recent NFC workshop at the WIMA conference, technology, and what it takes to begin developing for the Nokia C7 which will include a Qt NFC APIs.
• Device support: Nokia originally introduced NFC in the Series 40 Nokia 6212 classic and Nokia 6131 NFC devices. Nokia is introducing the technology to the Nokia C7-00 device (through the forthcoming Symbian Anna firmware update) and Nokia C7 Astound available from T-Mobile USA.
• Seminar: NFC: What can we expect for 2011/2012 - 23 May, Cambridge, Mass, U.S.A.
• Tooling: Qt Mobility 1.2 beta for Symbian add-on for the Qt SDK 1.1
• Additional details: Check out the NFC Wiki page for full details on devices, tooling, design tips, and testing material.

Nokia today announced the final release of Qt SDK 1.1. This final release is now ready for developers to submit apps to Ovi Store. And Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian will ensure that the latest Qt libraries are downloaded to the devices.

"With the new features in the Qt SDK 1.1, developers can now publish high quality, graphically rich applications that will stand out on our latest range of Symbian devices," said Purnima Kochikar, Vice President, Forum Nokia. "Developers now have full end-to-end support to develop, publish and deploy Qt applications."

Using Qt Quick, designers can create fluid, animated user interfaces with complete project and code editing support for developers to then implement into the overall application. Designers and developers will find they can work together on the same code in an iterative approach, seeing the design take shape earlier in the build process, and know right away how it will work in the app. This helps to speed up the development process, resulting in applications being brought to market faster.

In addition to Qt Quick, the Qt SDK 1.1 includes map and navigation features, imaging features for camera and photo gallery access, notification API plug-ins and other enhancements that enable developers to provide access to user content on the device.

Learn more about the features and capabilities in the Qt SDK 1.1 in this Nokia Developer video:

As a result of  today's release of the Qt SDK 1.1 developers can now target more than 100 million Nokia devices (75 million of which are touch devices) in addition to the 150 million future Symbian smartphones Nokia intends to sell such as the newly announced Nokia E6, Nokia X7 and the Nokia Astound at T-Mobile USA. It is also possible for Qt app developers to re-use code to speed up the creation of apps on Maemo and the future MeeGo device Nokia will ship this year.

With more than 5 million daily downloads from Ovi Store, unmatched integrated billing and global presence, monetization opportunities and local merchandising of content to consumers, developers can quickly target their apps to consumers from more than 190 countries worldwide.

Download Qt SDK 1.1.