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Digia Releases Qt 5.1 With Preliminary Support For Android and iOS
An anonymous reader writes "Finnish software and services firm Digia, which bought Qt from Nokia back in August, has released version 5.1 of the cross-platform application framework. Among the changes are 'significant improvements' to Qt Quick and preliminary support for Android and iOS. The latter means Qt on Android and iOS are both considered Technology Previews, letting developers start building for the two mobile operating systems and porting apps from other platforms by reusing the same code base. Although most of the Qt functionality and tool integration is already in place to start developing mobile apps, Digia promises complete ports to Android and iOS will come with the release of Qt 5.2 'later this year.'"
Can't wait for that.
Qt could be the answer to rich internet cross platform apps
Nokia could have made a compelling cross-platform play. Write one app, have it run on iOS, Android, and Meego -- and others. Like what HTML5-on-mobile was supposed to do, but without the performance and compatibility headaches.
It wouldn't necessarily have a native look-and-feel on each platform but there are plenty of apps that use non-standard themes anyways.
Google released the NDK (Native Development Kit) not long after Android was introduced because they finally clued in that Java simply isn't fast enough on slower processors to do gaming.
It has been possible for some time via necessitas. Now they only added it to the official package. Most Qt apps are written on desktop using QtWidgets. When you are developing for mobile devices, you should use QtQuick. QtWidgets aren't designed for mobile devices.
I've been a QT developer for a number of years. Over the last few years, I've done some Linux embedded. A few months ago, I even built and ran a QT app on the Raspberry Pi. Everything worked except for animation. Nokia messed up by not staying the course. And now they announced they are happy being the challenger. Seriously? You were the world dominater several years ago. One thing not mentioned is the Blackberry port. The framework is well done and it just works.
Not only that, but it allows integration of Web technologies and native code, having the best of both worlds. For example, on the desktop side, you could call Javascript code in Webkit from the C++ side of things, and vice versa. I actually just uploaded a video showing this on the Raspberry Pi (starts at ~50 seconds in): http://youtu.be/JOkks0oVsp8 In case you're wondering what that is, it's a GPS Mapping application for our trackers (for more info, see our Indiegogo page: http://igg.me/p/424464/x/3476322)
This allows for optimized applications on low power devices, while still being able to use web technologies where it makes sense.
My blog, if you're interested: http://www.purp
QtWebKit does not fly on iOS though because Apple insists you use the system's WebKit library. It is all moving in the right direction though.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
That's true, but keep in mind Qt for iOS and Android is very, very new and who knows what the furute will bring. Baby steps :-)
QtWebKit on desktop platforms (Linux, FreeBSD, Windows) is fast by the way. We did some tests on a Raspberry Pi and QtWebkit is faster than e.g., Midori (also Webkit based, and the default on the R-Pi).
My blog, if you're interested: http://www.purp
There was a time in April 2010 when Apple changed the App Store Review Guidelines to ban all languages other than Objective-C and C++ as an effort to keep Adobe from offering AIR, its tool to package Flash applications as iPhone apps. When this policy was in effect, MonoTouch would have been banned, and the developers of Unity 3D were even porting the library to allow writing a game in Objective-C. Such a game would share no code with the same game for other platforms, making it yet another DRY violation induced by a platform gatekeeper. Apple reversed this policy two months later after it became clear that this banned the use of Lua for game logic and dropped all language restrictions the following September.
Yes. There are already Qt based apps on the app store.
Thank you for insulting the other companies and the individuals that work hard on Qt. Digia maybe owns the trademark and the right/obligation to relicense, but is not the owner of Qt, and certainly not the only contributor. See the statistics about Qt created by Thiago Macieira.
The Android port started as a community only project, by the way.
Not really. It's triple licensed - GPLv3, LGPLv2, and commercial.
LGPLv2 means that it's perfectly compatible with App Stores - just you have to release the source to the QT library. The App Store effectively "TiVoizes" the app, but for the most part, there is no license issues between (L)GPLv2 and app stores.
(A|L)GPLv3 is incompatible though.
And you may ask why GPLv3 and LGPLv2 - that's because GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible licenses. If QT remained LGPLv2, you couldn't use it in a GPLv3 project (it's not LGPLv2+).
In fact, there are many GPLv2 apps in the App Store. There were some unfortunate incidents with some GPLv2 apps due to the copyright holders differing interpretations (usually between the spirit vs. the letter), but for the most part, it's compatible.
Of all the app stores, only Microsoft calls out the GPLv3 - most usually just say you either hold copyright to, or have permission from copyright holders to redistribute. And yes, GPLv3 is fundamentally incompatible because of the Anti-TiVoization clause. (It is this clause that also makes it GPLv2 incompatible).