Today Nokia Devs welcomes Pankaj Nathani, mobile developer, active Forum Nokia contributor and Forum Nokia Champion from India. Pankaj, known online as croozeus, has recently published a book that covers all aspects of Python on Symbian, from the basic topics to advanced programming.

This book is the result of the cooperation of many people at Forum Nokia and Symbian Foundation, as you can read in the acknowledgment page, and currently represents the best choice to get started with Python on the Symbian platform.

ND: Hi Pankaj, welcome to Nokia Devs! Please tell us a bit about yourself.

To introduce myself in plain words, I am mobile technology enthusiastic from India. Over the past couple of years, I have been poking my nose into mobile software development and have been working on mobile applications and services – primarily on Qt, Symbian C++ and Python – on Nokia platforms. I am enthusiastic about putting innovative ideas for useful mobile applications into practice. People know me as “Croozeus” in the internet/virtual world.

ND: First of all, congratulations for your book “Python on Symbian: Mobile app development made easy”! Could you please share with us about your motivation to write this book?

Python on Symbian is a great way to start creating mobile applications. Python apps look like ‘native’ Symbian apps and can be distributed in the same way. Over the last couple of years the Python runtime (on Symbian) has developed greatly and made the development/prototyping of apps on the Symbian platform “rapid”.

The lastest stable release/version of the Python runtime on Symbian is 2.0.0 – which not only allows developers to concept or prototype apps rapidly with powerful platform capabilities but also allows to create fully functional and “feature rich” applications to be published in the app stores. Thus, Python on Symbian proves to be a great tool for mobile science researchers and developers! Over the past couple of years, I have been promoting Python on Symbian across various channels (www.forum.nokia.com, www.croozeus.com, www.m-science.net, etc) and believed that a book on this topic could be useful material for developers, researchers and students who are ambitious to create innovative apps with this technology!

ND: Can you introduce us to the contents of this book? Where can we get the book from?

The book is a complete reference to Python development on the Symbian platform. The book is intended for readers of all levels of experience, from beginners to advanced users of Python on Symbian. It doesn’t assume any knowledge of Python and covers (almost) everything from basic Python concepts, such as variables, functions and classes, to advanced concepts like platform services and advanced network programming.

The detailed TOC of the book is available here.

The book is available freely at Python on Symbian on Forum Nokia Wiki. If you prefer a hardcopy you can buy it at Amazon book store.

ND: Can you tell us the main advantages of using Python on Symbian?

Due to Python’s special focus on “ease of use” and “simple syntax” it greattly simplifies the application development on the Symbian platform. Python applications are usable as GUI apps, background (“ghost”/”daemon” processes) or embeddable in native applications. The speed of execution of Python apps is nearly equal to that of native apps (except in highly calculative algorithms). On top of this, Python on Symbian being an open souce implementation – its possible to extend its functionalities using C++ APIs.

ND: Is there any PyS60 application you’d like to show to other Nokia developers?

I would like to mention couple of Python apps briefly:

• Birthdays for S60: Calendar writer for Symbian S60 3rd and 5th Edition Smartphones. It lists birthdays from your contacts in chronological order and writes them to your Calendar.
• Nixie Watch: Fancy clock for your mobile device.
• TouchComic: Comic book reader that handles .zip and .cbz ebook formats, with fullscreen view, automatic rotation, zoom function, presets.
• GoogleVoiceForS60: The app uses Google Voice, synchronizing your phone’s contacts with your Google Voice account. It allows you to initiate a Google Voice call with the same options as the website and allows you to send text messages.
• GTranslate: Lets you translate text from English into 37 different languages, send the translated text as SMS, or copy & paste it, for example, into an email or a note.
• Niime: An application that uses the phone’s accelerometer to control your PC – using it as a mouse.
• Unity: Cool puzzle game. The aim is to clear the whole playing area by removing tiles in groups. The more tiles you remove at the same time, the more points you get.

Wordmobi: A client for WordPress which helps you to manage your blog while saving time and bandwidth.

Tracker: A GPS mapping application for hikers who want to track their position on a digitized map.

GTranslate: Translates text from English into 37 different languages.

FuelLog: A fuel consumption and fuel expense monitor for recording, storing, calculating and exporting fueling data and fuel consumption for your vehicles.

ND: Which types of applications you think are most suited for PyS60 development, and which are not?

With the platform services APIs (scriptext module) available, I think PyS60 is best suited for creating feature rich utility applications – which may include multimedia apps, location aware apps, sensor apps, networking apps, etc. I would also recommend using PyS60 for developing mobile games since it supports operations for drawing basic primitives and text, capturing, displaying and editing images as well.

Since Python is a runtime, it would make sense not to develop very heavy computational apps with it. For example, it would make sense to implement “Face recognition app” in native C++/C which may provide better performance.

ND: Are there any limitations or missing features in current PyS60 implementations that you’d like to see solved in next releases?

Well, yes! Python currently depends on Avkon framework for UI, it would be great so see Qt bindings for PyS60 available.

ND: Anything else you’d like to say to Nokia developers?

Nokia provides a variety of technology offerings for application development – Python, Qt, WRT, Java, Flash. Which one are you working on?

Today Nokia Devs talks with Gargi Das, an enthusiastic Nokia developer from India. If you are a Forum Nokia Community member, you may know Gargi (a.k.a. gaba88) for his excellent contributions, especially in the Python for S60 area.

ND: Welcome Gargi, please tell us a bit about yourself.

Thanks, I am a Software Engineer from India. I am an Nokia Enthusiast and a Forum Nokia Champion too. I love writing applications for Nokia devices. I carry a expertise in getting some good Location Based solutions and GIS, apart from that I also write applications for IPhone and Samsung Devices.

Generally I am fond of Bollywood Music and Movies

ND: Which platforms and technologies do you use for mobile development on Nokia devices?

I have almost used all technologies (except Java) that Nokia provides to write applications for its devices. I started with the open source Python, continued with Symbian C++ using carbide.c++, and I’m still developing apps in Symbian c++. During for a sort period of time I used Aptana studio and javascript to develop some WRT Widgets. Currently I am developing applications using the new Nokia Qt SDK and Qt for S60.

ND: When have you started to develop for Nokia devices, and which are the main differences when developing an app today, compared to when you started?

I wrote my first code for mobile devices which was in Python during my early college days, in mid of 2006. The first Nokia device I used to test my application was the Nokia 7610 which was cool device that time. Through out my college days I wrote several applications using Python, JavaScript and Symbian c++.

Nowadays developing applications for mobile is a part of my profession, and the best part compared to the past regards resources: today lots and lots of resources are available to learn new stuffs which makes a developer’s life bit easy. Apart from that, the options to develop for different kind of platforms have widely opened out, with the presence of other smartphone OS in the market.

ND: Have you published, or do you plan to publish apps on the Ovi Store?

As of yet I have not published any apps on Ovi Store, but as recently Nokia has allowed individual developers to publish applications on the Ovi store, I am developing some apps using the new Qt SDK and as soon as that are finished I am going to make then live on the OVI Store.

ND: Can you describe your Calls Info app?

The main objective of this application is to give a detailed analysis of money spent by the user on his or her mobile phone. Calls info gives a graphical analysis of outgoing calls and incoming calls by which the user can know to whom he is making the most calls and from which caller he is getting the maximum calls.

There is analysis of the calls and their cost which will make the user aware of his or her cost details. If we talk about postpaid customers in India, they don’t get the knowledge of their bill instantly if they want, but by using this application the postpaid customers can easily know the total money he has spent. Apart from the cost analyzing objective the application has the objective to make the user aware of his or her location on which he or she has made a call or received a call.

ND: You have a great experience with Python for S60: which are the pros and cons in using this technology, in your opinion?

As I have told previously Python was the language using which I started developing applications for mobile devices, I helped and still helping lot of people at the Forum Nokia Python section, I also wrote some tutorials for newbie’s which helped them to start developing applications using Python for S60.
The Best part of writing applications using Python for S60 devices is its rapidness, Python for S60 drastically decreases the development time of an application compared to other platforms and at the same time its still functionally powerful.
The bad part is that Python needs a runtime on the backend to make the applications work and the runtimes are not shipped with the devices, so the deployment and distribution of applications become a bit difficult, which makes Python a bad choice for writing commercial applications.
Anyway, if I get any chance I will more than love to write applications using Python for S60.

ND: Generally speaking, which are the biggest hurdles you face when developing for Nokia devices, and which the major benefits?

To be very honest there are quite a few hurdles when developing applications for Nokia devices and at the same time there are lots of benefits which makes the developer happy and enjoy the development.
Talking about the hurdles when using Symbian C++, which was the main platform to write applications for Nokia devices, the bad point was that, if you are a beginner, then by no means you are going to love developing apps using Symbian C++ and, apart from that, development time was also an issue. But with Qt for S60 I hope that these shortcomings will be overcome, as Qt drastically decreases your applications development time, and learning Qt is simple too.
Talking about more benefits, Nokia Developer offerings and support is one of the best in through out the mobile ecosystem

ND: Is there something you’d like to see in Nokia devices or technologies, that you haven’t seen yet?

To start writing this let me remind you all that I am a very big Nokia Enthusiast. I am using Nokia Devices since 4 years and as a user I love those devices. But there are certain things which Nokia has missed out and I hope those things will be back to Nokia soon.

If I talk about features in a device then I can firmly say no devices can be compared with Nokia one based on its features, but recently Nokia has failed to create some innovations and a very good UX, I hope with the upcoming S^3 , S^4 and MeeGo Nokia will strongly fight back and will be on top as always.

ND: Please share with us your impressions about the general mobile ecosystem, and how you see it in the next few years.

We all developers know that this Mobile Eco-System is growing at a very fast rate. We as developers have lots of option to choose a platform and language to give some ideas a practical sense: some factors like ease of development and a better marketplace to distribute the applications play a major role in making a ecosystem very effective and grow rich.
The good thing about the ecosystem is that every one here is taking a step to make developers life very easy and I guess they know what amount of importance developers carry for a particular ecosystem.
The main challenge I personally see as a developer in this mobile ecosystem is the level of fragmentation already occurred and I if I see the future I don’t see this going down at any stage, so we as a developers need to work out on some thing which helps all of us to fight up this fragmentation issue.

The next thing I am going to tell is that Nokia, and particularly Forum Nokia is doing an excellent job in reaching out to the developers, helping out in any manner and form they can. This point gives Nokia a special point in my thoughts and I know whatever be the challenges, Nokia will definitely come up front.

Last but not the least I will thank the Nokia Devs’ guys for giving me a chance to express my thoughts and they all are doing a excellent job and it was just a small help from my side to them.