With the recent Qt WRT announcement, mobile web developers gain a new tool to build powerful web apps for Qt-based platforms. In this conversation, Nokia Devs asks Wai Seto, from Forum Nokia, what Qt WRT is all about and what developers should expect from it.

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

Hi, My name is Wai Seto working Forum Nokia as Technical Marketeer evangelizing and executing Nokia Web development offering. I have started this role last year, and prior to that I have been software architect for web and Internet related products on Nokia devices. Love to interact with developers who are interested in developing for Nokia, so please connect with me and chat. Check the Forum Nokia Web Talk blog or find me in twitter @waiseto.

ND: We’ve seen the recent launch of Qt WRT: can you tell us what it is?

On Jul 19 2010, Qt WRT was announced to be open sourced and part of Qt’s new open governance model. It is a technology component that is of interest to OEM’s, operators, and other platform development professionals with an interest in open source and expanding the capabilities of web applications.

ND: Which advantages does it bring over standard Qt hybrid development?

Qt hybrid development is a powerful way of programming. It has the best of both C++ and Web world. However, hybrid program does request some level of C++ development knowledge. Qt WTR is completely Web based, and requires no C++ skills.

ND: Talking about APIs: which ones are supported today? Are you working on integrating new APIs in next releases?

Calendar, Camera, Filesystem, Location, Media Messaging, Sensor, Syst Info, and telephony are included in the current package. We think these are the right set of device API for now. Plus Qt WRT1.1 support HTML5 and CSS3 features such as canvas, local storage and CSS transition. As the technology is open sourced, new improvement will be visible to public.

ND: Will Qt WRT be integrated in MeeGo releases?

At this point, the Qt WTR is part of Qt open source governance model. Qt is designed to work on multiple platforms including MeeGo. According to the MeeGo architecture page there will be a Web runtime component based on Qt, but not in 1.0. Please wait for future MeeGo announcement for details.

ND: Will it be possible to distribute Qt WRT apps through the Ovi Store?

This announcement is about Qt WRT technology going to open source under Qt platform. When the Qt WRT technology is available on Nokia devices, we will make the appropriate announcement about the Ovi Store support.

ND: Where can developers find more information about Qt WRT, to start developing widgets?

To get started, download the release from http://get.qt.nokia.com/qtwrt . Source code and examples are available there. Also discussion you questions and comment in the QtWRT Forum.

If you have more questions about Qt WRT, you can leave a comment here or on the official announcement page.

Lucian Tomuta, from Nokia, has recently shared a really interesting video showing the Nokia Smart Installer 1.0 in action, illustrating how app dependencies can be dynamically deployed at installation time.

Nokia Devs asked Lucian some more information about Smart Installer.

ND: What is Smart Installer, and which benefits does it bring to developers?

The Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian (Smart Installer in short) is an open source tool developed by Nokia (big thanks to Kimmo K., Maheswari G. and Jukka J. for pulling this through) and contributed under EPL to the Symbian Foundation. Its purpose is to allow a rather smart deployment of application dependencies (like the Qt libraries) to devices which don’t yet have it. The inspiration was – of course – the apt-get tool used in Debian-based Linux distributions, such as Maemo.

When packaging their application with the Smart Installer, developers don’t have to worry anymore about whether the receiving device will have all the needed libraries, in the right version, for the application to work as designed. At install time, the Smart Installer will scan the phone for existing components, checking if any additional install/upgrade is needed and if so, perform the needed downloads and installations. Once this operation is completed, if all the conditions are met for the application to run, the packaged application is then installed, and the user can successfully launch it. More information about the Smart Installer solution from a developer perspective can be found at http://tinyurl.com/SmartInstaller

ND: Are you planning to add improvements or new supported libraries in the near future

The Smart Installer solution can be used to deploy any sis package, without any particular effort on developers’ side. We are currently enabling the deployment of Qt, Qt Mobility and Open C but in the future we might extend the set of supported components.

The benefit for the end user is that the size of the application packages to be downloaded is kept to a minimum. Instead of always downloading large application packages, containing libraries which are already on the phone and therefore discarded at install time, the Smart Installer packaged apps will only bring the minimum payload, and any shared library is only downloaded and installed once, minimising the data costs.

If a software package is small enough to be embedded in the application which needs it, I would probably prefer as a developer to use the embedded SIS approach. This is why many other libraries offered through Forum Nokia, such as VoIP Audio Service (VAS) for example, are not currently considered as suitable candidates for Smart Installer based deployment.

ND: Which are the channels to get support and send feedback about Smart Installer?

As mentioned previously, the Smart Installer is a open source component contributed to the Symbian Foundation. For any defects identified in the Smart Installer’s implementation, developers can create bug reports in Symbian Foundation’s bug tracking system. Improvement suggestions are also welcomed there.

The Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian solution, including the servers network which delivers the Smart Installer supported packages, is however on Nokia’s responsibility – so for any problems regarding this solution as a whole, any technical questions regarding the use of the Smart Installer tool for developing applications targeted at Nokia devices or for any related Ovi Store support issues, developers are of course welcome to Forum Nokia’s Discussion Boards.

Have you already played with the Smart Installer? What’s your opinion about it?

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.