Nokia Improves Developer opportunities

Availability of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 and improving developer opportunities
By Dan Muhuni

Nokia has made a number of developer announcements today, which significantly strengthen their developer services and offerings. Perhaps most interesting is news of a public beta service that allows developers to get their content Symbian Signed at no cost . Also important is the news that individuals can now register as Ovi Publishers and that the Ovi Store is now accepting Qt-based applications. The most significant in the long term, is the first full release of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 and the accompanying Nokia Smart Installer (previously in beta).
Following the new Forum Nokia developer mantra of “Design, Develop and Distribute”, several developer-related announcements are being consolidated into one main message to show developers the improvements that have been made to the overall ecosystem.

Key points

Developers can get Symbian C++ and Symbian Qt content signed at no cost. With free tools and free signing, the only up-front cost for developers distributing via the Ovi Store is a one off 50 Euros fee to register as an Ovi Publisher.

Individuals can become Ovi Store Publishers which widens the number of developers who can upload applications and content to Ovi Store.

 

Nokia Qt SDK released. Nokia's next generation, cross platform (Symbian and Maemo), Qt-based developer tool kit, which is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It provides developers with a modern, robust and easy to use development environment for all of Nokia's existing and future smartphones and mobile computers (Symbian and MeeGo).

 
Availability of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0
The Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 is available starting today (http://www.forum.nokia.com/Develop/Qt/), and it offers a true cross-platform development environment allowing developers to create applications for both Symbian and Maemo devices. Installation is easy, as it only requires one installation package that downloads all of the Qt and Symbian/Maemo components that developers need using the same Qt Creator 2.0 as standard Qt SDK’s for use on Windows, Linux and Mac (beta). The Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 includes the Qt 4.6 libraries plus additional API’s for mobile development. With a fast, new simulator along with on-device debugging and the ability to compile to both .sis (Symbian) or .deb (Maemo) packages, it provides developers with a great opportunity to start creating amazing apps right away.

Individuals can now register as Ovi Publishers
Individuals (i.e., people that are not part of a specific company or business) can now register as an Ovi publisher (https://publish.ovi.com/register/country_and_account_type) and easily distribute their apps worldwide through Ovi Store. Individuals will still have to pay the one-time 50 Euro registration fee, and they can submit apps that are written in Qt, Symbian, Java, Flash Lite or Web Runtime (WRT). Allowing individuals to publish their applications to Ovi Store is competitive to what Apple and Android allow today and helps to provide parity for Ovi Store.

Public beta of Nokia signing Symbian apps for free
The goal here is to lower the barrier to entry for developers by simplifying the tools and the process, as well as removing some of the cost associated with developing mobile apps for distribution in Ovi Store. For developers creating Symbian apps there are initial investment costs such as obtaining a Publisher ID and paying a third party to have their apps Symbian signed. Currently, this can take around four weeks, and impose expenses for the developer up to $215 (USD). With this public beta, we are exploring a developer workflow to reduce the time for developers to two weeks and bring the cost involved to $0 (USD). Eliminating the fee for signing Symbian apps makes our investment story for developing for Ovi Store competitive with Apple and Google.

Availability of Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian
Qt developers can use the new Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 to easily bundle the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian SIS with their app SIS to reach millions of users with Nokia Symbian devices worldwide. When an end user downloads an app, the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian will check for dependencies, and if any missing files or Qt libraries are detected the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian will download them from Nokia servers.

Ovi Store intake for Qt apps
Finally, Qt developers can upload Qt Symbian apps targeting both the Nokia N97 mini and Nokia X6, as well as Qt Maemo apps for the Nokia N900 mobile computer. The Nokia N8 will be supported when it’s released later this year, and additional Nokia Symbian (5.0 and 3.1/3.2) devices will be supported in the future, allowing Qt developers to reach a growing market of Nokia users worldwide. Applications will be published to Ovi Store beginning next month.