Nokia Developer News

Are you a student and mobile developer with a good idea? If so, then take Imagine Cup 2012 Windows Phone Challenge, sponsored by Nokia. Nokia will also help you to start creating game-changing ideas by offering several engaging development suggestions on the IdeasProject site in areas that include education, health, and the environment. Find an idea that matches your passion, and build a mobile app or content (sorry, games are not eligible).

Entries will be judged on themes, uniqueness, design, innovation, architecture, utility, and delight. In addition, all applications must adhere to the Imagine Cup 2012 Theme, ‘Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems’. The top three winning teams will receive a free trip to the Imagine Cup World Finals in Sydney, Australia, in July 2012. They will also win cash prizes: $8,000 (USD) for the first-place winning team; $4,000 (USD) for the second-place team; and $3,000 (USD) for the third-place winners. Other prizes will include Nokia Lumia phones.

In Round 1 of the challenge, student teams will need to create and submit an Application Summary and SketchFlow Prototype for a Windows Phone app that is inspired by an Imagine Cup 2012 Theme. Your Round 1 submissions are due by 13 March 2012. Round 2, which includes your actual entry file, will be due by 3 May 2012.


Get the Imagine Cup 2012 Windows Phone Challenge documents, download the tools, check out the complete rules, and register today.

Two new Developer Guides provide step-by-step instructions, including full source code, to build applications from scratch using Qt Quick. Qt Quick Application Developer Guide for Desktop steps the developer through the creation of a simple application that helps users manage daily notes. Programming with Qt Quick for Symbian^3 Devices builds an app to record
a list of daily and upcoming tasks to be completed, sort them into several categories, and manage them.

Both developer guides begin with rapid prototyping, proceed through details of UI design, data modeling, and end with a list of additional resources.

Both developer guides are available as a Qt help file (for integration with Qt Creator) and in PDF and eReader formats.

Accompanying source code is organized in chapter sequence to aid in learning. Beginning developers can start from Chapter 1, load the appropriate project in Qt Creator, and follow along with the guide's text. Each chapter includes a new reference project that includes all code discussed earlier in the tutorial. This allows developers to "step in" to the guide at any point they choose and still have fully functioning code in their development environment.

• Download Qt Quick Application Developer Guide for Desktop with link to source code
• Qt Quick for Symbian^3 Devices Developer Guide with link to source code

 

 

In-app purchasing APIs are now publicly available for both Qt and Series 40. In-app purchasing lets you sell digital content, including virtual goods, add-ons, higher levels in games, and subscriptions directly from inside your mobile apps.

Here’s more information about the two beta APIs that you can try:

The Qt API for In-App Purchasing is now available. You can now start creating Qt apps with In-App Purchasing for Symbian^3 and later devices. To learn more about the API and how to get started, watch these step-by-step screencast videos. You can also view the Quick Start Guide for Qt document.

The Series 40 beta API for In-App-Purchasing currently exists, and the new Nokia Asha 303 will be the first Series 40 phone capable of supporting In-App Purchasing. You can start preparing for the Nokia Asha 303's arrival now by using the Nokia SDK 1.1 beta for Java to create In-App Purchasing capabilities using the beta API. To learn about the relevant API for In-App Purchasing, refer to the Quick Start guide for Java document. You can also watch these related videos.

The latest Appcelerator and IDC mobile developer survey released this month has positive findings for the Window Phone 7 platform that should be encouraging news to anyone who is thinking about developing for these phones.

Specifically, 38 per cent of those surveyed* report that they are ‘very interested’ in Windows Phone 7 – the highest result ever for Microsoft; and when asked about their interest in Windows Phone 7 now (compared to a year ago), 48 per cent of developers report that it is because of the Microsoft/Nokia partnership. The report notes that “Windows Phone 7 separated from the pack to become the clear number three mobile platform this quarter”.

Additionally, 28 per cent of developers report they’re ‘very interested’ in developing for the new Nokia Lumia devices.

Appcelerator describes itself as a “platform and services company that is enabling Web developers to build intuitive, content-rich applications for mobile, tablet and desktop platforms”.

Learn more about the latest report from Appcelerator and IDC online or download a copy of the report as a PDF.

*Appcelerator and IDC surveyed 2,160 Appcelerator Titanium developers from November 2-3, 2011 on perceptions surrounding mobile OS trends and priorities.

 

To help you enter the Nokia Icon Competition, which we first told you about earlier this month, Nokia is now offering a new toolkit for download. The toolkit, available now, contains all available Nokia icon templates. Supported applications for the templates are Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, and Adobe Photoshop (for the Nokia N9 and Series 40 icons).

All you have to do is use our new toolkits to create a compelling new app launcher icon for your Series 40, Symbian, or Nokia N9 app. The winners of the competition will receive free Nokia N9 phones and promotions on the greater Nokia Developer community. But hurry, all entries are due by 30 November.

 

 

 

 

 

Learn more, download the Nokia Icon Toolkit, and enter the Nokia Icon Competition today.

Looking to add in-app purchasing? A new series of Nokia videos show you how -- and on a range of platforms, including Java, Qt, and MIDlets:


Nokia Java SDK: Setting up In-App Purchasing

 

In-App Purchasing: Integration into Existing MIDlets

 

In-App Purchasing: Publishing an App into Nokia Store

 

Nokia Qt SDK: Setting up In-App Purchasing

 

In-App Purchasing: Integrating into Existing Qt Apps

 

Enter Nokia’s new competition to celebrate the launch of its new icon style and templates, and you could be among the winners of new Nokia N9 phones and promotions on the greater Nokia Developer community.

To be eligible for the contest ...

- Your app-launcher icon must be original and based on Nokia templates.
- Your icon must launch an app that runs on Nokia Series 40 phones, Symbian phones, or the new Nokia N9 device.
- Your submission must entered between 14 – 30 November.
- You must give Nokia permission to publish your icon and application description on its wiki, discussion boards, newsletters, and other mechanisms while promoting this competition and its results. (The icon remains under your copyright, however.)
- The icon must apply to ‘real’ apps. If the app is not yet public, include screenshots and a description in your email.

Remember, all entries are due by no later than 30 November. Enter today!

Check out the complete competition rules and guidelines, download icon toolkits, and enter the Nokia icon competition today.

We featured the top-prize winner of the recent Hackathon competition that was held during Nokia World 2011 in London last month, but we wanted to make sure you had the full details from the contest, and got a preview of the other award-winning apps based on the best ideas submitted to IdeasProject that were developed in just 40 hours for use on Nokia phones.

This quick video gives you a taste of what the developers went through during the time in London:

As we noted following the Hackathon, the grand prize went to Visiarc, for their Windows Phone game called “Duudle”, a time-based, multiplayer game that can send push notifications to your opponents playing the game on other phones.

Members of the Visiarc team hard at work.  

The other finalists in the contest were the Seattle-based Viafo, for their mobile app called “BloodSprint” which they developed for use on all three platforms (Windows Phone, Qt, and Series 40); and Tieto, who  submitted an innovative mobile-polling application for use on either Windows Phone or Qt-based devices called “Did You Like It” that can also use NFC. They were joined on stage at the finale of Nokia World by Australia’s Halfbrick, who developed a new first-person game for Nokia Windows Phone called “Ember”.

Member of Halfbrick team, concentrating! 

David O'Neill from Viafo told us that their second-place app which will facilitate blood donations by individuals, helping to connect them to institutions such as hospitals that need donors will be further polished for distribution on all three Nokia platforms, and then they plan to take it to other platforms, since a service such as this one “should be universal”.

It is also worth noting that there were top apps recognized for each of the three platforms:

• The winning Series 40 Web App was produced by South Africa’s AppCraft called “Preschool Aid” – one member of the AppCraft team, Simon Botes, is the current Nokia Developer Champion of the Month, and their award-winning app has already been published to Nokia Store for distribution in South Africa.
• The Qt winner was Futurice, who submitted an app called “mGrafitti”, a virtual, location-based graffiti creator. 
• And for Windows Phone, the winning app was “Ember” by Halfbrick.

Team from Futurice working on their app with help of Nokia Developer UI expert.  

The winners of this year’s Hackathon will share more than 150,000 euros in cash and prizes - the winning app from Visiarc receives 50,000 euros.

Have a look at more images from Nokia World, with a special focus on the Hackathon, in our Flickr slideshow. 

Update (9 November 2011): Following the Hackathon at Nokia World 2011, developers were invited to a special Meetup in London to celebrate their hard work:

 

Online advertising is growing substantially compared to traditional forms of advertising. Nokia and Inneractive have teamed up to help developers capture their share of the opportunity. Many Nokia developers using Inneractive in-app advertising solution have generated substantial revenue with their free apps from Nokia Store.

For example, Indian publisher Migital is generating about $50,000 a month in advertising revenue serving many J2ME and Qt applications via the Nokia Store. Many studies show that online campaigns now demand more of the average company's ad budget than ever before, often at the expense of traditional advertising channels such as television and print.

As online keeps growing, advertisers are looking to the next frontier, the mobile space, in their quest to match users with marketing messages, in particular with In-App Advertising. Revenue is typically paid to the developer based on:

• Impressions – the number of times the ad was displayed by your app
• Total clicks or click throughs – clicks from ads served by your app
• Click through rate (CTR) – the percentage of clicks from the total number of times your app displayed the ad

In the mobile ad market, advertisers rarely work directly with developers; most developers can't offer on their own the millions of impressions per month required to make an efficient ad buy, and they don't have a sales force with the skills and contacts to make the sale. That's where ad networks come in.

Developers creating apps for Nokia can now partner with a number of leading providers of in-app ad solutions to create a revenue stream that lasts long after the initial download.

Here's a typical arrangement:

Get started

• Explore new ways to monetize your app through in-app advertising, in-app purchasing, and subscription services and go to download inneractive’s SDK and start monetizing beyond paid downloads.

 

Get promoted

Nokia and Inneractive have teamed up to help developers new to the in-app ad revenue model. Nokia will provide special promotional support to 10 new developers / publishers submitting ad-supported apps to Nokia Store, winning a whole full week promotion on the Nokia Store spotlight in appropriate markets.

For your chance at these promotional opportunities:

• For your chance at these promotional opportunities download the Inneractive SDK (compatible with Qt, Symbian, and J2ME) now!
• Submit your new app to Nokia Store using your unique ID from the inneractive ad-exchange SDK.
• The first 10 publishers with new apps in Nokia Store will receive the promotional boost. (Publishers are of course encouraged to submit more than one new app, but only one promotional slot per publisher will be awarded.)

Qt project went live just as over 900 members of the Qt Community descended on Munich for the first half of Qt Developer Days last month in Munich. Marco Argenti, head of the Nokia Developer Organization, opened his keynote at Qt Developer Days 2011 by noting I need to provide you with two fundamentals: the ability to make money, and platforms which offer you true scale and global reach. Daniel Kihlberg and David Stone provide details on the event in their blogs.

Qt 4.8 is on track for release in time for Qt Developer Days in San Francisco, along with further improvements in the Qt Creator IDE.

If you were not able to join us in Munich, don't worry. Check out the following two videos for a quick overview of the event and the demos on display.

Better yet, join is in San Francisco on November 29 - December 1. Learn from the experts who build Qt, get involved in the Qt Project, and maybe be among the first to try Qt 4.8.

This 1.1.4 update of Qt SDK brings the SDK build targets to the level of the latest Symbian devices and the Nokia N9. It also introduces right-to-left and pinch area support (Qt 4.7.4 / Qt Quick 1.1) and new NFC (near field communication) and Bluetooth APIs (Qt Mobility 1.2)

With the new Qt SDK 1.1.4 you can take advantage of opportunities with the latest Symbian phones and the Nokia N9. The release includes target updates for:

• MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan, now a full release.
• Symbian Anna Qt 4.7.4 (with Qt Mobility 1.2.1).
• Symbian Belle Qt 4.7.4 (with Qt Mobility 1.2.1), which is included in the online installer only.

The release also updates the following Qt features:

• Qt Quick 1.1.
• Qt Quick Components 1.1 — a common set of components for Symbian Anna and Belle as well as the Nokia N9.
• Qt Mobility API 1.2.1, which introduces new NFC and Bluetooth APIs, as well as quality improvements to the existing APIs.

 

• Download and get started with the Qt SDK 1.1.4
• Get more information about the release on the Qt Labs blog
• Read more about the Symbian update

 

 

The responses to the new Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710, launched at Nokia World, have been wonderful – consumers, operators, analysts all alike see the tremendous opportunity with these new smartphones. And for our developers - we have something exciting for you!
 
At Nokia World we announced a device seeding plan of unprecedented scale for Nokia – 25,000 of the Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710 will be put into the hands of developers around the world.  Through a combined effort of Nokia and Microsoft, these new devices will be distributed to help you get started developing for Windows Phone right away.
 
If you received a Nokia E7 back in February when we announced our new smartphone strategy, you’ll automatically receive a Windows Phone device.  If you are currently a Nokia Developer Champion or a Nokia Launchpad member, you are already eligible, and you will soon receive an e-mail to explain how to get your new Nokia Windows Phone.  If you are new to the Nokia Developer community, then we encourage you to attend one of the many outreach events that will happen over the next few months which will give you the opportunity to get a Windows Phone device.

In order to build an app for Windows Phone you must be a member of Microsoft App Hub. In conjunction with the device seeding program, we are also working with Microsoft to give you a rebate for the first year of App Hub membership (valued at $99 USD) to further assist with your development of great apps for Windows Phone.  If you are an active Nokia publisher, you will soon receive details about how to receive this rebate.
 
We want you to use these devices to develop apps for Windows Phone.  You have given us great apps in the Nokia Store for Qt and Series 40.  We want more great apps like those for Windows Phone, too. In addition to the devices, there are handy online resources to help migrate your apps to Windows Marketplace.

10 November update:

"Currently a Nokia Developer Champion or Nokia Launchpad member" means you need to be a current member as of Oct 26th (when we announced the new device). The purpose of the seeding is to help our current developers and publishers take advantage of the new devices and join the Windows Phone ecosystem. We welcome all new developers and publishers and encourage them to attend the upcoming outreach events that Nokia and Microsoft will offer.

For the November Wiki Contributor of the Month we'll be giving preferential consideration to articles that show how to use MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan platform specific APIs, and/or how to create a QML layer for these APIs.

There are plenty of APIs to choose from: Accounts, Application Settings, Notifications API, Sharing, Telepathy, SignOn Framework, and Global Search. You're not limited to just these APIs of course, there are many more!

While contributor of the month recognition is based on contributions to the wiki, we highly recommend that you join the Harmattan Platform API Examples Project and host your source code there. Joining the project means that you'll be able to work with others and are less likely to duplicate either articles or code. In addition, the project already has some great code showing how to use the Transfer UI both from Qt and QML, so is is a very good starting point.

• See contributor of the Month details
• Join Harmattan Platform API Examples project

The beta release of the next version of Nokia SDK for Java is now available from Nokia Developer. This update, version 1.1, brings you closer to delivering In-App Purchase features in Series 40 Java apps.

The Nokia SDK 1.1 for Java has been updated to use the new Nokia Asha 303 phone as the baseline for its emulator. The SDK also includes a beta version of the APIs for In-App Purchase and features for simulating purchases within the emulator. You can define the details of transactions you wish to enable for your users; then test transactions against a remote server provided by Nokia.

In-App Purchase represents an exciting new way to monetise your apps. It could be as simple as enabling users to buy an unrestricted version of your app from a trial version. But the sky is the limit -- In-App Purchase can be used to sell any digital content: You can offer extended levels or new play pieces in your games, or sell ebooks and magazines. Almost everything is possible. Best of all, users -- whether using a credit card or operator billing -- do not need to leave your application to visit Nokia Store to complete their transaction.

The other updates in Nokia SDK 1.1 Beta for Java, while more prosaic, will help you build better apps by enabling more comprehensive testing in the emulator. These features include:

- New system properties for battery state and country and operator code.
- Simulation of phone calls among instances of the emulator.
-Simulation of both SMS and Bluetooth communication among instances of the emulator.
- Nine additional languages, bringing the total number of supported languages to 74.

Learn more about In-App Purchase.

Download the Nokia SDK 1.1 Beta for Java.

Check out this series of exciting new videos for Nokia developers and content creators, all recently posted on YouTube:

 - From Nokia World 2011, Marco Argenti, Nokia’s Senior VP of Developer Experience & Marketplace, discusses the tremendous scale and reach available to you in the new Nokia with Windows Phone ecosystem.

- Also from Nokia World 2011 -- Reggie Hutcherson, Director of Windows Phone Developer Experience at Nokia, and Brandon Watson, Senior Director of Windows Phone 7 development at Microsoft, explain how the Nokia-Microsoft partnership will engage developers worldwide.

- Nokia World panel moderator Jussi Nevanlinna, Director of Product Marketing for Nokia Developer Experience & Marketplace, sets the stage for developer pitches and demos live on stage. Participants include Virtual City, Distinction, Seesmic, Quikr, MusiGames, ToffeeTV, and HRS.

- Bart McCormick, VP of Global Distribution at Poynt, showcases the new Poynt application and features for Nokia with Windows Phone.

- James Clarke, co-founder and Director of Thin Martian, talks about creating a beautiful and engaging British Airways application for Windows Phone with the Metro UI design.

- Loїc Le Meur, CEO of Seesmic, discusses application development, and John Yamasaki, Director of Product Management at Seesmic, explains the process of creating a new Windows Phone application.

Also, check out these photographs from the recent Qt Developer Days conference.