Advertisment

The Next Level in Mobile App Development

author-image
PCQ Bureau
New Update

Picture this. You are driving your car and get an alert that a new voicemail

has been received. Your mobile phone, as always, is seated comfortably on the

passenger seat. You lean over, and wave (literally) over your phone. If you wave

upwards, it goes to your next voice message, if you wave downwards, it goes to

the previous one. If you tap on your screen, your mobile device 'reads out' your

voice message.

Advertisment

Headquartered in Tel-Aviv, Israel, EyeSight Tech uses the back and front

cameras of a Nokia handset, and uses complex image algorithms to understand and

decipher the motion of your hands and converts them to sensible actions. This

demo was the biggest talking point of the keynote at the first ever Nokia

Developer Summit, held at the Grimaldi Forum, Monte Carlo, Monaco.

The demo was an illustration of how Nokia collaborates with third-party

developers to create applications that would reside on Nokia phones, using an

open platform as part of the Symbian foundation — an effort to upgrade the

Finnish Handset manufacturer into a solution-focused company.

Bringing together 345 developers from around 40 countries, students from 11

countries and select international media, the summit kicked off with the simple

mantra of 'let's make more money together'. A developer could have expertise in

Carbide, Maemo, Eclipse, Ajax or any popular programming language, and Nokia

provides to him, a cross-platform development environment — rather cutely called

— Qt.

Advertisment

In his kick-off keynote, Rob Taylor, head of Forum Nokia, also emphasized on

the company's continued commitment to Flash and Java applications. As a win-win

formula to developers, he said, "Nokia is looking forward to pre-loading

applications on its mobile devices and this is an excellent opportunity for

developers. Alternately, developers can look to featuring their apps in the Ovi

Store — Nokia's online global marketplace for application downloads. The third

option, of course, is Service Possibilities where developer companies and Nokia

can work together, or with network providers."

Going a step further and helping developers understand the nature of

application that can be built, Tero Ojanpera, executive vice president,

Entertainment and Communities, Nokia said, "Maps, music, messaging, games and

media — these are the focus areas for development for Nokia — all landing into

Ovi. It confederates broadly to people and places — and if you put them under a

common umbrella, it is what Nokia called Social Location.  "Users today

need the power to integrate the pictures they shoot, the music they listen to,

the calls they make — to their online social lives. Today, the Nokia platforms

allow widget-integration to the extent that the user does not need to click and

open an application. It is 'live' on his home screen."

The Nokia Developer Summit proclaimed a startling reality that today the

challenge is not to create a killer app. Rob Taylor said, “The killer app is the

mobile phone itself. The challenge is to use the APIs to make the user

experience better and more productive.”

The author was hosted by Nokia at the Nokia Developer Summit 2009, at Monte

Carlo, Monaco

Advertisment