The Ovi Publisher Alert blog has just published the reports listing the top countries and devices, as per number of downloads, on the Ovi Store during November and December 2010.

We have two new top countries in November, Egypt and France, while December just confirms all the top countries, that are (in alphabetical order): Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vietnam.

If you are targeting any of these countries with your app or game, then take a look at the top downloading devices for these countries:

• November 2010 Downloads by Device report
• December 2010 Downloads by Device report

After a long pause, Nokia Devs is back with new conversations, featuring Nokia developers from all around the globe.

Today Matt Harney, a mobile developer from Bangkok, shares with the Nokia Devs’ readers his experience with Java ME and his thoughts about his latest app: Carpe Diem.

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

Well I’m a self taught developer from a games industry background. I’ve been an animator, game developer and programmer for over 10 years and have worked on most consoles and handsets. I am currently based in Bangkok and working on Unity3D and mobile freelance contracts.

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

I really love Netbeans – I think its the best IDE I’ve ever used. The only let down in the chain is really the Nokia emulators – they work but just don’t compare with the speed and quality of the Apple stuff. But with Netbeans, Java ME, LWUIT, the s60 emulator and a bunch of handsets it still fun to make a mobile app.

ND: As a Java ME developer, which are the main benefits and difficulties you find in using this technology?

Java is a great language to work with as I find it feels soft and pliable. It’s a bit like sculpting an application in clay. Java is really fast to work with and has a great debugger ( if a little slow ).

Also, the way it handles phone hardware, multithreading and the libraries and help available are awesome. But then you are always at the mercy of Nokia and how the JVM is implemented.

ND: How do you see the Java ME offering by Nokia? Which improvements and changes should Nokia bring to its Java ME support?

To be honest I stayed away form the Nokia specific Java stuff – and for my last application I didn’t need anything not supported by the general S60 platform. In terms of general java implementation from Nokia the performance really needs to be improved. For instance reading from the camera, updating a screen because of an orientation rotation or just reading and writing a file are still very slow. Also the security settings and how java treats the data connection is a little shallow – for instance its hard to say ‘Only connect via Wifi’. But apart from this Java is a robust solution for developing a Nokia app.

ND: Let’s talk about your Java ME app: Carpe Diem. Can you describe it, and the main difficulties you had during the development process?

Carpe Diem is a daily ‘todo’ – every day you are given a simple task to complete which makes your life and those around you more wholesome. So every day you complete a task with a photo, video or text to then share this with the community. You can see from your handset or the web what everybody else has uploaded and how they approached the tasks. Once you completed a task you can tweet about it from the app, and upload to the web for posting to Facebook. The 365 tasks included in the app are really fun and were written by a project called ‘The School of Life’ and ‘Wiedens&Kennedy‘. I developed the app under contract from the digital production house ‘Specialmoves’.

The main difficulties I had with the app was in implementing the custom UI – for this I needed pixel perfect screen designs and custom fonts across a range of handsets. To help out here I used the LWUIT framework. Other problems I had is with the camera control – always a nightmare when using the camera for photo, video and playback on a slow handset. Oh and I had many headaches trying to solve all the cases when the app tried to connect to the webservices but the user had either disallowed the security pass, or had simply moved out of wifi or cellular coverage.

ND: Why did you choose Java ME to implement your app?

I needed to get into the Ovi Store, and needed to support multiple handsets with camera, video and file storage. And I needed to get something up and running quickly, so from my experience JavaME just made sense. I thought JavaME would have allow Facebook API integration too, but officially it doesn’t

ND: Have you distributed Carpe Diem through the Ovi Store? What’s your impression about it?

My initial impressions are good – its not as slick as the Appstore but much better than the Android Marketplace. Submission is fairly painless, the only requirement for it was Java Verified gained by paying an external testing house. I used Bable Media and they were very good, helping me through the basic, common errors.

ND: Concluding, how do you see Java ME in the long run, compared to other currently emerging mobile technologies?

Well, there is a long legacy of old handsets across the world out there – and Java is the great way to target them. But at the same time if you want to do something with a custom interface the Flash Lite can support most handsets and most features and can be a much faster way to develop a rich application.

ND: Something else you’d like to tell to Nokia developers?

Be kind to your handsets! I trashed 2 developing this project! A new N97 and a 5800XM just stopped working after being blitzed with Java too much. On a technical note also be careful of how much data goes into and out of your app, for instance I had many kb’s of video’s being uploaded, downloaded and saved to the RMS store and this really kills the user experience.

Today Nokia Devs talks with Manikantan Krishnamurthy, a mobile developer from Singapore, about his development experience on Nokia platforms. Manikantan has recently published a Flash Lite game for Series 40 devices, Deep Days, and other applications realized with the Ovi App Wizard.

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

I am Manikantan, a student of NTU, Singapore studying Masters in Digital Media Technology and I posses a computer engineering background from under-graduation. My interests lean towards developing games and Web 2.0 apps for mobile devices. I primarily have used Flash Lite for development over the past two and half years. Sometimes, I also indulge in programming using PyS60 and J2ME, and lately Qt. I am also part of Adobe Flash communities in India (a.k.a. IndiMaD). I also have published a broad range of applications and games at the Ovi Store under the publisher name Chompgames. I am a Forum Nokia Champion since 2009 and also a Forum Nokia Wiki moderator. I blog at flashactions.com and croozeus.com and active on twitter @manikantan_k.

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

As far as Flash development goes, Adobe Creative Suite is the only thing I use. Adobe toolkit comes with an emulator program called Device Central with which all Flash content can be emulated on a plethora of phones. I like the Nokia Qt SDK that was released few months back. I faced problems installing the Symbian S60 SDKs on my Vista. But Qt for Nokia has solved those problems for me. I also sometimes use Eclipse and ERIC IDE for PyS60.

ND: When have you started working on Nokia devices, and what has changed since then?

My first app on mobile phones was in 2006, when I was not aware of Forum Nokia. My only support was Adobe Documentation. Over the years, there has been constant innovation and many transformations in various aspects. Devices have grown smarter with multiple sensors, UI has undergone a complete revamp. Mobile web is exploding and I have seen the mobile developer community grow multi-fold. Mobile development is starting to become the key skill that companies are hiring.

ND: Have you used Ovi App Wizard? If yes, what’s your opinion and how would you improve it?

Yes, Ovi App Wizard is an excellent tool that helped me build three applications, King Khan, Bollywoodie and Wallet Watch in practically no time. Though the tool doesn’t offer much UI customization, it promises a clean UI and has supports feeds from Twitter, Flickr and mechanisms like RSS and ATOM feeds.

I think, with mobile web exploding and many people enjoying internet from their handsets, these tools with quick time-to-market are handy. Some UI customization is an improvement I would like to witness.

ND: You have recently published a Flash Lite game for S40: Deep Days. Can you describe how you had the original idea, and the main hurdles you’ve found during development (and how you solved them)?

Deep Days has a funny starting, quite similar to Doc. Brown’s idea of time travel in Back to the Future movie. It was a sudden vision that came to my mind on a Saturday night at 2 am. And I was off to my machine to code it immediately. Within a few hours, I had written the core logic and mechanics of the game.

Being a programmer, I am not good at designing game assets. After some time, Wrecker Tike was generous to do the design and skinning of the game and I finally launched it in Ovi as Deep Days. I must say, being targeted at the lower S40 audience, it has been doing phenomenally well in the Ovi store.

ND: As a developer and publisher, which was the overall impression about the Ovi Store itself?

I am happy with how Ovi Store has been evolving in the recent months and Nokia users are beginning to enjoy a wider range of applications. However, not many indie developer studios have seen cash flow. I would also like to see featuring of localized applications in the Ovi main menu just like recommendations, and better costing abilities in for developers. For example, iAd from Apple is a wonderful initiative for developers creating free content. I would like to see more protection for these indie developers from Ovi and in totality a richer mobile ecosystem.

ND: How Flash Lite did help you to create your apps, and which limits did you find in using it?

Flash Lite is the rapid prototype creator’s dream tool. I think it is the best and quickest way to create games and rich media content. However putting it in a mobile context from Flash is a bit hard. For example, getting access to native file system or the sensors can sometimes cause erratic behavior on some Nokia phones.

So, if I had to harness these resources, I wouldn’t take Flash Lite, as I did in my master’s dissertation, where I control a vehicle on the PC using the sensors on my phone.I used PyS60 in this project and it proved to be very reliable.

ND: Which are the main resources and libraries/frameworks (if any) that you use for Flash Lite development?

Many game development or physics engines in Flash are available today only in AS3, which is still not supported in Nokia handsets. So I generally don’t use third party libraries. I think the Adobe Help and Documentation is the best resource for Actionscript developers. I sometimes use UI Frameworks like Shuriken in app, and sometimes use the Forum Nokia UI components.

ND: Is there something in Nokia technologies that you think it’s missing, and you would like to see in the near future?

After seeing iPhone, Android and Maemo phones, I am beginning to feel the Symbian phones’ UI is a bit outdated. I hoped to see a complete revamp in Symbian^3, but Symbian^3 looks quite similar to the current S60 phones in the market. I hope to see them in Symbian^4 devices. I also feel that there are too many programming languages within Symbian phones like java, Flash Lite, Python, Symbian C++ and now Qt apart from WRT. I hope this streamlines into fewer languages and more libraries in them rather than seeing the same platform services in different languages.

ND: Something else you’d like to tell to Nokia developers?

I have enjoyed my way in developing for Nokia handsets. I think it’s the right time to develop for these handheld computers today and encourage others to do so.

ND: Welcome Leonardo, please tell us a bit about yourself!

Hi! I’m Leonardo Risuleo, a passionate mobile designer/developer working as freelancer from Italy. Forum Nokia Champion & Co-Manager of MobileRevamp.org, the Italian Adobe Mobile and Devices User Group (J2me user group too). I started my career as graphic designer but my passion for mobile began in 2003, when I started developing Flash Lite and Symbian mobile applications for Nokia devices. During the past years I worked as freelancer on a variety of mobile-related projects for big firms and studios in the mobile industry.

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

I use different technologies for my Nokia projects: from Symbian c++ to WRT and Webkit but my main focus is on “Flash on Devices”. Recently I’m playing with a little bit of QT too.

ND: Talking about Flash Lite: which do you think are its greatest pros and cons?

Well, the first pro is definitely the active developers community. Friendly people always ready to help and share ideas. With Flash is easy and fast to build stunning mobile interfaces, working prototypes and multi-screen applications running on a big variety of devices (hardly possible with other technologies… ah right, now we have Qt too!).

The con is that while is super-easy to create mobile content with Flash is not so easy to find “Quality” contents. But I hope that new Adobe efforts with Flash Player 10.1 and Flash Lite 4 will bring a new quality standard for Flash on mobile.

ND: Which improvements would you like to see in Flash Lite support on Nokia devices?

I can’t really wait to see Flash Player 10.1 or AIR Mobile running on a Nokia device. The biggest limit I see now is all about packaging our Flash Applications. A real cross-device standard is actually missing from Nokia…

ND: Which technical resources would you recommend for developers who want to start learning Flash Lite?

Developer communities first. Places like Forum Nokia and Adobe user groups are really indispensable for developers to find answer to their questions. My suggestion is to follow as many top bloggers as possible too in order to be always updated with latest news! NokiaDevs.com for example.

ND: Have you published some app on the Ovi Store?

Yes, of course. My latest Flash Lite project “10×10 Mobile” is free to download from the Ovi Store. It’s basically the mobile version of 10×10™ (www.tenbyten.org). “Ten by ten” is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. For this application I used Flash Lite as the only technology (except for the stub application used for packaging). The application is designed for touch enabled device and gives to users an engaging user experience balancing visual animations and performances. Curious? Give it a try, it’s free!

ND: Which is your overall impression about the Ovi Store experience?

With the Ovi Store now Nokia users have a real, working app store. The overall experience is pretty good but unfortunately is still a little behind competitors.

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

I would like to see Nokia investing a lot more effort on User Experience. Other platforms are gaining a more solid position in the market while Nokia lost the leadership on UX. My suggestion is to put more attention on the design phase for both Nokia and Symbian.

ND: Something else you’d like to tell to Nokia developers?

Yes: keep up the good work! =)

Are there any more questions you’d like to ask Leonardo? If yes, please leave a comment!