Nokia Releases Qt SDK For Mobile Development

An anonymous reader writes "Nokia has released its unified Qt-based SDK for cross-platform development for Symbian and MeeGo (plus Maemo) devices. The blurb reads: 'Today sees the release of the Nokia Qt SDK, a single easy-to-use software development kit (SDK) for Symbian and Meego application development. Developers can now develop, test, and deploy native applications for Nokia smartphones and mobile computers. The beta version of the SDK is available for download from today, ready for developers to kick off development for new devices, including the just-announced Nokia N8.'"

Comments

Can this be what Symbian needs?

[Hognoxious]

Can this be what Symbian needs to stop sucking shite up a straw? As an E71 user, I say no. Even if it could produce cold fusion and showers of unicorns it still wouldn't be halfway there.

Re:Can this be what Symbian needs?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but it could be what Nokia needs to transition Symbian developers to Maemo/Meego instead of losing them all to Android.

When done right, crossplatform is always good, even if you've got no use for one of the platforms.

Re:Can this be what Symbian needs?

[MrNaz]

Qt plus Nokia's commitment to open source plus Nokia's affinity for Python I think will make it the overall winner, despite being behind in the smartphone development race. Building apps using Qt+Pyside should be far nicer and allow for a very modern programming approach with fewer mobile-specific development skills necessary given that Python+Qt are a very common combination for desktop apps as well.

Also, Nokia is the only company that seems to be doing the open source mobile platform right. Android is only half open source, and realistically, it's only open to OEMs. Garage developers are about as welcome in Google's ecosystem as herpes.

Alternatives to C++

[CondeZer0]

I wish Nokia provided some better alternatives to C++ for development on Symbian.

Java is not any better (and in many ways worse), and the S60 python port is nice, but it doesn't quite cut it for writing things like games in such limited hardware.

I would love to be able to build Symbian apps in Google's Go, it is an ideal language for secure, fast, lightweight programs for mobile apps.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[soppsa]

Oh god... I am totally not shocked to see that the bio on your homepage lists your occupation as philosopher. If you were a software developer I would have been quite confused by your statements...

Re:Alternatives to C++

[TejWC]

You will probably want PySide since it gives all Qt functions to Python and was written with mobile devices in mind. It is not "done" yet but there is just enough for you to get your hands dirty with.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the D Programming Language. Go looks nice for multithreaded apps, but it still lacks an awful lot of basic things, like exceptions and templates.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[loufoque]

I wish Nokia provided some better alternatives to C++ for development on Symbian.

If you don't like that language, just use another language that compiles to it (or a subset of it). Most languages can be compiled to C.
Nothing should even prevent you from compiling to machine code in most cases.

I would love to be able to build Symbian apps in Google's Go, it is an ideal language for secure, fast, lightweight programs for mobile apps.

Now you're just trying to be cool and trendy. You should have mentioned Erlang to get extra cool points.
You can write perfectly secure, fast and lightweight programs in C++. Actually, you can code however you want in C++, since it's basically a meta-language: feel free to reinvent a language within the language; not that the standard dialect -- which, ironically enough, is little used -- is any bad though.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[CondeZer0]

D is C++--++, and C++ is messed up enough already.

Go is more in the style of simple, elegant and powerful languages like C.

By the way, an kind of 'exception-like' mechanism (panic/recover) has recently been added to Go, and it is much more clean than 'classic' exceptions which make code a horrible mess.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[serviscope_minor]

I would love to be able to build Symbian apps in Google's Go, it is an ideal language for secure, fast, lightweight programs for mobile apps.

Why is go so much better? As far as I can tell it is no lighter than C++ (it has garbage collection which implies some non-trivial runtime) and it lacks parameterized types. It does have multi-programming (as does C++0x, and the variants of C++ and C on many common compilers via openmp), and fast compiles.

But, I don't see any particular advantage.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[loufoque]

By the way, an kind of 'exception-like' mechanism (panic/recover) has recently been added to Go, and it is much more clean than 'classic' exceptions which make code a horrible mess.

panic/recover is not "better" than exceptions. It only really allows to trace and log serious errors -- most likely programming or system errors --, to provide debug data, with no automated cleanup and operation cancellation being done.
An exception-based programming style however, allows to enforce invariants, model atomic constructs, and guarantee deterministic resource management.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[Ecyrd]

I do believe there's a go compiler already for the N900 - at least I recall seeing it in the repos.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[CondeZer0]

C++ damages the brain.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[serviscope_minor]

A witty quote proves nothing. There is not a single argument in that list. Without exception, every C++ detractor that I have personally met dislikes C++ for a misture of reasons including FUD from the internet, fundamentally misunderstanding basic features and in some cases outdated knowledge from maybe 2002.

With the exception of the vexing parse, I suspect that fixing any things you think are broken in C++ would make it slower and/or less expressive.

So, what do you think is broken and how would you fix it.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[CannonballHead]

A witty quote proves nothing.

No, but a misplaced one can cause compile errors...

Re:Alternatives to C++

[npsimons]

I wish Nokia provided some better alternatives to C++ for development on Symbian.

Come to Maemo/Meego! It's got Perl out of the box, and Python and C++ are just a few taps away. Packages for Ruby and Go are in repositories. I've also heard murmurings about Erlang, Java, etc. As this is an open platform, the sky's the limit, and I'm sure more and more languages will keep showing up.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here.

http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/

Re:Alternatives to C++

[Anonymous Coward]

The basic problem with C++ is that it is more complex than just about any other language. Some people can handle it, but many otherwise competent programmers feel that it takes far too much of their brainpower just to concentrate on getting the language right, instead of thinking of application domain problems. It is often suggested that you limit the features you use, but as soon as you go down that route, you limit what libraries you can use, and in modern software development a wide selection of libraries is not something you can compromise on.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[geminidomino]

I dunno. I do kinda agree with the various quotes about error messages that can only be called "Lovecraftian"

Re:Alternatives to C++

[Klivian]

I wish Nokia provided some better alternatives to C++ for development on Symbian.

That is exactly what they just did! The way Qt extends C++ gives you a fast and powerful development environment, surpassing plain C++ big time.

Re:Alternatives to C++

[Hurricane78]

Hmm, GHC (Haskell’s compiler) has a project to make it compile on ARM. I heard that they are already pretty far.

Yes, but...

[vikingpower]

...will it blend ??

Sarcasm should be a little less "subtle"...

[sznupi]

(hey, can it be anything but sarcasm if Symbian has half od smartphone market? Even if it's just a minority of what Nokia sells...)

now Android

[bflong]

I think this makes Android the only open platform left for QT to get into. Someone already started work too:
http://code.google.com/p/android-lighthouse/

Re:now Android

[scorp1us]

You can use the NDK to make a C++ application library (your application class) and use a sub Java loader to load it.

Word has it Qt already works thanks to light house.

MeeGo GUI?

[drinkypoo]

does this mean it's going to be possible to get a GUI on MeeGo-on-Atom-Netbooks?

Exciting Developments

[simula]

As a Qt developer and an n900 owner, Nokia's efforts to extend the Qt platform to portable devices is extremely exciting.

Don't forget that Qt has been an inspiring cross-platform toolkit for years and is the framework behind KDE.

Along with some great improvements to publish to phone support in Qt-Creator (Qt's LGPL IDE), we are getting expansions to the api which include: bearer management, contacts, location, messaging, multimedia, and sensors, among others.

For more info:
http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2010/04/27/nokia-qt-sdk-what-is-in-and-what-is-not-and%E2%80%A6-what-is-it/
http://qt.nokia.com/products/appdev/add-on-products/catalog/4/new-qt-apis/mobility

Re:Exciting Developments

[godrik]

I own a N810 (which is not a not, but more like a PDA). I must say I really like what nokia does.trying to get a standard for AC adapter is really nice. They have been really nice to the free/open source community, paying developpers for quite general things. And I find their hardware quite robust.

PS: I am not paid by nokia, I just like their business model!

Re:Exciting Developments

[mxh83]

Isn't the N900 screwed now what future phones will use 'Maemo'? I think Nokia has abandoned it

Re:Exciting Developments

[mxh83]

Isn't the N900 screwed now *that future phones will use 'Maemo'? I think Nokia has abandoned it

Re:Exciting Developments

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the N900 screwed now *that future phones will use '*Meego'? I think Nokia has abandoned it

FTFY

And probably not, in that Meego is pretty much Maemo renamed. From what I read at maemo.org, at least the first Meego release should work on N900.

Re:Exciting Developments

[simula]

If you look at the first link I pasted, you will see that this Qt release directly supports the n900 with a bunch of portable device specific new features.

In fact, once 4.7 is released within the next couple months, you will be able to publish directly to the n900, interact with your app, and trigger break points in Qt-Creator on your PC.

As a Qt developer I have been pleasantly surprised by Nokia's commitment to expanding my ability to develop software for my n900 :)

Re:Exciting Developments

[ultrabot]

In fact, once 4.7 is released within the next couple months, you will be able to publish directly to the n900, interact with your app, and trigger break points in Qt-Creator on your PC.

What you want is PR1.2, not Qt 4.7. PR1.2 will happen earlier.

Re:Exciting Developments

[Nursie]

N900 uses Maemo. I think you mean Meego, the Moblin/Maemo meld.

N900 seems to be at least the test platform for this, so it's highly likely us N900 owners will be able to transition.

I don't know what you mean by "screwed" either. M5 will continue to be supported and, hell, I'll probably get another phone in a year anyway so I'm looking forward to the next Meego device.

Re:Exciting Developments

[simula]

So if I had PR1.2 on my n900 I would be able to remote debug on my n900 using the just released Qt mobility SDK?

Re:Exciting Developments

[ultrabot]

Nokia Qt SDK - yes.

Re:Exciting Developments

[simula]

Thanks ultrabot :)

It's not sarcasm. He's American and immune

[Colin Smith]

http://peach.rlsl.org/files/2008/07/america-sees-world.jpg

Laugh! It's funny! Not sad, or terrifying at all. (They have nuclear weapons you know)

 

It started to sound funny

[Ilgaz]

Even more sad, Symbian will be the standard OS on _all_ Nokia low end to mid end phones. I speak about 100M devices/year and rising.

Well, companies and developers who takes Symbian market serious and watching the World outside Gizmodo/Engadget land enjoys millions of downloads and a huge money, recently it was uncovered that largest share of ad supported apps comes from Symbian handsets.

Now with Qt unified release, it means first time, both Symbian and Linux (extend it to Android, easy) UI code, the most hard and demanding one these days can be unified. It isn't some Sun Java promise either, I use KDE 4 apps/parts in OS X, compiled from exact same code.

The most unfortunate news (!) is, Symbian gigantic market share even rises even without the massive S40 to S60 transition.

Re:It started to sound funny

[sznupi]

Well, if "on _all_ Nokia low end to mid end phones" then you're speaking of close to half a billion devices per year...

Symbian is already close to 100M per year probably - 20% of all Nokia phones being Symbian sounds roughly right; yes, it will gradually grab more and more from S40, but there will be a place for the latter (and for S30) certainly for quite some time.

Re:It started to sound funny

[mdwh2]

I think this will be interesting to watch - already there's devices like the Nokia 5230, offering Symbian on a phone costing about £100 on PAYG.

The distinction between "smart" phones and "feature" phones is rather ill-defined, and the only clear thing that the low end "feature" phones lack these days is a "smartphone" OS. Give them Symbian, and you're there. It won't have the extra bells and whistles that people get on more expensive phones, such as GPS, wireless access, and CPU/RAM will be more limited, but they'll be running Internet an apps on a smartphone OS.

The other one to watch will be Android - I'm not sure what the cheapest Android phone is at the moment, but I can't help wondering why all the non-Nokia manufacturers aren't jumping at the chance to run Android rather than a custom "feature" phone OS. Unless either the fees are too high, or the system requirements too high, for low end phones.

Of course Apple will be nowhere to be seen, if they stick with their usual philosophy of making money by selling expensive products at the high end.

Re:It started to sound funny

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Here's a big question.

What are application sales figures like RIGHT NOW for Symbian? What about consolidated application market? Does one even exist? What about for Maemo?

Re:It started to sound funny

[GameboyRMH]

For Maemo, sales are small to nonexistent, the app store is widely regarded to be a joke. But who needs an app store with so many great free apps available? Sure it's not great for the aspiring I Am Rich: Maemo Edition developer, but it's great for users.

Re:It started to sound funny

[sznupi]

5230 is a nice example - it's one of the models for which new Ovi Maps is available. Even when looking at that single capability it's a great value...

Re:It started to sound funny

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Perhaps I want to make money on an application? Being an American, will I even be sold in a European App store?

Re:It started to sound funny

[Hurricane78]

I never got the point of an “app store” anyway. I guess that’s because I’m used to that very old concept of PACKAGE MANAGERS! ;)

Seriously: emerge $everything_I_ever_want; !!

Re:It started to sound funny

[rdnetto]

I own an N900, and I had no idea there even was an app store. Every program I could possibly want is available free of charge, with only one exception (which I wrote and uploaded).
Maemo/Meego is great for demonstrating the benefits of FOSS to end users, because it has a thriving FOSS community that actively works on adding functionality to the device.

Re:It started to sound funny

[GameboyRMH]

Oh so you're the guy who made uremote...

I put together a flashblock plugin for MicroB. (works much like Flashblock for desktop Firefox). I should probably get around to packaging it but for now it's manual installation only:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=625937&postcount=3

Also it loads everything locally unlike adflashblock-css which depends on an Internet connection, so it's much faster.

Re:It started to sound funny

[Tuntematon]

Perhaps I want to make money on an application? Being an American, will I even be sold in a European App store?

I don't know. One of the most successful OVI app store developers is Digital Chocolate, which is based on California. I can buy their games just fine here in Europe.

Re:Too little too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Nokia, by using Qt is the only one which doesn't reinvent the wheel.
Application made with Qt will work on Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD, Symbian, Megoo etc..

Nokia, even if their smartphone are not perfect are really doing some nice stuff and are the one which are not playing alone like Apple, Google or RIM.

Well, they can ship it, no interns to reject

[Ilgaz]

If Google is serious about Go language, they can release its SDK for Symbian as soon as tomorrow and I bet its runtime will even be "featured" on Nokia's "Ovi" (App) store.

We aren't speaking about Apple here, everything is open and free. Nokia currently features "Locago", a J2ME competitor to their own, multi billion maps application.

For example, MS already released an alpha (or beta) of Silverlight for S60 along with SDK. Adobe Flash 10 is next to come.

KDE 4 needed

[Ilgaz]

I know it won't be that practical for an handheld device but someone should really port KDE 4 to Meego/N900 along with the compile instructions and we will really understand if people are being truly ignorant or maliciously ignorant about whatever Nokia does.

Obviously Nokia has such manpower and KDE devs are busy. If I were them, I would release a full meego/KDE4/Flash 10/desktop java/j2me install package for N900 to show what a "tablet" should be and what kind of power Qt represents in this age.

Re:KDE 4 needed

[stilborne]

We're already working on it: http://www.notmart.org/index.php/Software/KDE_on_MeeGo

We had been working previously with both Maemo and Moblin, so this in a way simplifies things a bit for us. It's early days yet, but we're making great progress. The more the merrier, so feel free to join us (you can find us in #plasma on irc.freenode.net)

I wish more outfits did things like nokia.

[mirix]

I for one, welcome our Finnish open source overlords.

Christ Qt is awesome. I've only played with it a bit, but the cross-platform effortlessness is more than I could have asked for.

Why the flaming?

[Ilgaz]

I have a E/1 too and I will just ask one question. First of all, you know E71 has upgrade, E72 with basically twice the processing power and free RAM with extras like compass... It is basically iPhone 3GS compared to 3G. So, our devices are previous generation.

Did you even try Qt demos, very early alpha ones from qt.nokia.com blogs? Or, did you use your devices unique advantages like absurdly long battery life, multi tasking, free navigation, open platform?

Yes, any company these days can invent cold fusion and nobody will be impressed and the will line up for iPad instead but it doesn't change how huge change this represents in mobile space and even open source.

Re:Useless

[Ecyrd]

But once you learn Qt, you can use the same skillset and nearly the same toolchain to target Mac, Windows, Linux DESKTOPS in addition to Symbian, Meego/Maemo and Windows Mobile. So you can release a few slots from your memory like Carbon or Microsoft classes to learn Qt ;-)

Re:Useless

[shutdown -p now]

That's because you're late on the bandwagon. Symbian has been around for a very long time, and there are plenty of people who know how to develop for it - all of those will be interested in this. Furthermore, given how popular Qt already is for desktop development, that's a very large crowd that can use their existing skills directly.

That, and also Qt is much more sane than either Android or iPhone APIs. And, of course, C++ - a language that'll let you not only shoot yourself in the foot (like C), but also rape yourself with a chainsaw - but also a language which is so much more powerful than everything else out there...

CORRECTION: Beta Release

[scorp1us]

The upcoming release will be Qt 4.7 + QtMobility 1.0.0 + QtCreator 2.0

QtMobility is the API for accessing all the bits found on phones but sometimes on desktops. QtMobility has been released, just the other day. You can get it and run it against Qt 4.6
-Messaging (mail/SMS)
-Sensors
-Multimedia
-Services
-Bearer Management (Network management when connected via Cell & WIFI)

Qt 4.7 just went Beta status and should be expected soon.
This release bring in QML, which has been called "Declarative UI". This is the sexy Flash competitor with CSS-style interfaces, animations, and JavaScripting. That's all it adds.

Qt Creator 2.0 I believe is in Beta and will be released with Qt 4.7 as well.
This is the (optional) IDE. But its really good in its own right for Qt development. It features ability to cross-compile and remote debug. You can compile and have it load the app onto your phone and debug that way. It also has QML viewer and WYSIWYG GUI development (Integrated QtDesigner)

Re:Useless

[scorp1us]

Mind share sure, market share no way. Nokia has 50% market share. Apple, only 9%

Today only?

[HTH NE1]

The beta version of the SDK is available for download from today

"From today"? Only today? I'm sure I won't be able to download it from yesterday, but what about tomorrow or three weeks from now?

(Something's missing.)

Re:Today only?

[mangu]

I'm sure I won't be able to download it from yesterday, but what about tomorrow or three weeks from now?

If I could download something from tomorrow right now I surely wouldn't want Qt. A list of winning lottery numbers would be much better, IMHO.

Re:Useless

[mdwh2]

"Mindshare" == "What I think is the best platform, inside my head".

Re:Too little too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

webOS. HTML, CSS, Javascript.

Not a lot of wheel reinventing there.

Re:Useless

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Objective-C lets me read byte from an allocated memory location, lets me write byte to an allocated memory location. Sounds like what C++ can do.

Everything else is just libraries and semantics.

Re:Useless

[shutdown -p now]

That's a fscking big "just".

Re:Too little too late.

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm not going to spend my time dealing with yet another platform that doesn't have an emerging market like the htc does, or an already well established one like apple.

It's obvious this will be ported to Android next, perhaps WebOS after that. Apple's latest developer EULA seems to obviate the possibility of it being ported to iPhone, though. Too bad for the users - they're going to find themselves forever in the 20% zone, but Apple makes enough money on that.

Re:Useless

[Anonymous Coward]

If it takes a 6+ months to learn those platforms, maybe they're a bit too difficult?

Re:Useless

[Just Some Guy]

Objective-C lets me read byte from an allocated memory location, lets me write byte to an allocated memory location. Sounds like what C++ can do.

So can a Turing machine, but I don't want to implement a GUI networked application with one.

Re:Useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you're in the wrong job then.

Re:Useless

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I know.

But, this is a, "Your favorite language/OS/GUI/Browser/whatever sucks" comment for the sake of realizing that no, languages aren't really *that* different.

Re:Too little too late.

[Hurricane78]

If you compare them on the global phone market, Nokia is the blue whale, Samsung is the sperm whale, Apple is a tuna, RIM is a bigger shark, and Google is a sardine. ;)