Tag: Nokia

Imminent Death of Adobe Flash

My fellow Flash developers, this post’s title and the post is not to start a new flaming war on the subject, it’s just an opinion which you may or may not agree with.

I posted some of the following ideas in a private forum, so I thought I’d just save some typing and add some more thoughts in original forum post(s) and publish here on my blog. This post is also long overdue, so here it goes.

I think Flash is really a strong brand and awesome technology. There are certain things Adobe have done wrong in terms of strategy and vision for this technology.

Macromedia and later Adobe pushed Flash Player too hard on mobile devices. Back in 2005 when I won a t-shirt from Flash Lite competition, all the developers sent a clear message to Flash team, that on mobile, Flash apps are the future, as all the apps submitted were installable apps on Symbian OS, not mobile browser based.

Flash’s experience in mobile browser was too bad, there were no contents optimized for mobile, and Adobe tried to run existing content in mobile browser, which failed miserably. So we saw Steve Jobs’s thoughts on Flash. Which I agree to, also for lazy engineers part. The focus should’ve been on installable mobile apps from the start. For same reason Adobe had to pull the Android version. I do not see why Flash team failed to see it early.

I also noticed that Flash product team tried hard to sell the Flash Player / AIR to ODMs to embed / pre-install in devices. They did for some, like Nokia / Blackberry. Idea was a clear fail from start, as there was no way to update Flash Player / AIR until ODMs releases an OS update. Also the failed idea to get share of revenue from Flash Player based games/apps if a developer makes more than a million in a year. That was just crazy.

Pretty late, Adobe recognized and thought, oh! we should package the runtime with the app, so it will run correctly with its required version of runtime, and not depend on ODMs (we made a product SWF2Go in 2007 which did this). I can’t believe what sort of people were in Flash team who did not recognized this from the very start where I personally sent emails to Flash team, managers with same idea, am sure many other developers may have asked them the same.

Now in current situation, the only bad name Flash gets is from its Flash Player in the browser. What Flash team can do now is to split the player, one only with AS2 support, which I believe is the root cause of most security issues, and one with only AS3 runtime. This should’ve been the strategy from the start. But Adobe kept two runtimes in same player. Continuously improving on AS3 version, and deprecating the AS2 version.

We need tons of new language features in AS3, not just renamed APIs. Look at C# for example, evolution from v1 to latest. And this is really important moving forward. I do not see any new language features since AS3 was introduced with Flash Pro CS3. Here I’d like to share a post from Dave Yang’s FB feed, which summarizes exactly my point about why I and many other Flash developers held on to AS2 for too long.

DaveYang-FB-Post-Programing

For installable apps, AIR needs to drop HTML (webkit) and just keep AS3. I have not seen a single AIR app which is done with HTML, it’s a useless feature which wastes bytes with every deployment. All I see is AS3 apps and games in stores, so I always think why there’s this HTML thing in AIR, when Adobe also promotes another product PhoneGap, which does the same thing, makes mobile apps with HTML. Can anyone from Adobe tell me why AIR needs HTML support?

Also, AIR needs to support more platforms if it needs to gain some ground in future, i.e. Windows Phone / Mobile support which is top requested feature, but it seems that no one at Adobe cares anymore.

flash-cs3

Now Flash Pro, this tool was awesome until CS3. Even before that there were versions which didn’t come with new features but just re-write of the Panels system. I’ve seen so many versions of Flash Pro which just did that. The team wasted time in re-writing Panels system, instead if improving on or adding new useful features. For example, the Info Panel did not show real-time X, Y and other details when mouse was held down (fields just froze until mouse is released), until I filed a feature in CS4 (I was first time in beta), and it was implemented in CS5.5. Two versions later, because team were re-writing the Panels (lazy engineers as Jobs pointed out). Unbelievable.

There are tons of things which Flash Pro team can bring, return to the core idea which made Flash popular, Design, Timeline, Animation and Scripting them. Each of these features Flash Pro can borrow ideas from other tools. And even they can come up with a new version in one iteration which can be so new and feature rich, many designers and developers will appreciate and will upgrade for sure.

I see why Flash is dead as there’s no revenue coming from this investment for Adobe. I.e. Flash Pro CC, most are holding back on CS6 or older versions like myself. AIR is free and a developer can use AIR SDK with free FlashDevelop or other tools to make apps, so Adobe do not get anything for their investment going forward with AIR. Flash Player team also gets a bad name when we see some security issues now and then, again there’s not much revenue from Flash Player (other than the Flash Player install page which keeps trying to install some useless software along).

Update 1:

Another reason, that all my Flash developer contacts from 2004 onwards have moved on to something else around 2010-ish. Some switched technology, some even on different directions doing amazing 3D printing, embedded hardware stuff.

What Adobe needs to do is to make Flash Pro, the tool so feature rich, so awesome that developer buys a copy, like the old days of Flash 5. Make the app store prominent and attractive to developers, to buy and sell pre-built assets ready to use in projects or to extend the editor.

unity3d

Unity is a perfect example Flash team can follow. Look how they’ve not wasted time in re-writing panels, but they made Unity Editor so open that there’s a whole ecosystem for extensions. And brilliant idea of selling pre-built assets. They are making tons of money from this idea. They were able to give away free version of Unity, along with a perpetual or subscription version and cloud build. I see great strategy to make revenue from tool, and the assets store for developers. I am using free version, but I have bought extensions, from which they got something. Maybe in future I might go for Pro version as well.

There’s still time, and if Adobe can make and follow good strategy, which I currently don’t see (hence the post’s title), they can come back in game again.

BTW, about me, I am developing with Flash since 1998 (ver 3/4). Done great stuff with Flash, contributed to Flash Player (no credits) and Flash Pro (top beta tester, CS4 to first CC), and developer of SWF2Go.com, Flash Lite to Symbian app maker.

Would love to hear what you think about Flash and its future.

// chall3ng3r //

QR Coder for Mobile Devices

Being a mobile app developer, I have to keep few devices around me all day for debugging and testing my apps. Nowadays, all smartphones come with Bluetooth, WiFi and now NFC technologies, but they all fail to talk to each other for even simple text data exchange.

I find myself in situations where I need to quickly get piece of text from one device to another. It could be a link, some text copied from browser, or SMS message I received on one device, and need to get on other device without messing around with apps or wires.

QRCoder-demo

Yesterday this idea came to my mind when I was reading a lengthy article on my HTC Titan and received system notification that I need to recharge or else phone will power off. I wanted to quickly open the same article on my Nokia E7 which I was also carrying with me.

As I described earlier, that we currently don’t have any standard way to get these devices talk to each other directly without going through the “cloud”, so I was stuck there.

I quickly jumped back to my seat, and started some experiments. After an hour I did my first test and and it was a success!

I wrote a tiny JavaScript which can be added into mobile browser’s favorites, and when you need to share current page’s link with another device, you can just go to that saved Favorite, which will execute my JavaScript, which will finally render a QR Code right on top of the page.

Now you just need to point your other smartphone or tablet camera to it with a QR Code reader app of course (built-in in WP and other OS’s), and voila! The link will now open up.

It works in PC browsers as well, so if you need to quickly open a link on your tablet or smartphone from PC, you can save this in bookmarks toolbar in IE/Chrome/FF/Safari, and click it to instantly make a QR code for current link.

I tested it on all major PC browsers, and on my Nokia E7 and HTC Titan. Works great! It should run on all mobile browsers which support editing of bookmark URL, so you can insert the code there.

BTW, I used old Google Charts APIs to make the QR codes.

And finally here’s the code which you can copy and save as favorite in your mobile browser.

javascript:(function(){function QRCoder(){var u=window,t=document,n=t.createElement("div"),r=t.createElement("img"),i;r.src="https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=200x200&cht=qr&chl="+window.location,n.id="QRCoder",n.style.padding="60px",n.style.border="1px solid #f00",n.style.textAlign="center",n.style.backgroundColor="#ccc",n.onclick=function(){t.body.removeChild(t.getElementById("QRCoder"))},i=t.createElement("div"),i.style.fontFamily="tahoma",i.innerHTML="tap to hide",n.appendChild(r),n.appendChild(i),n.style.zIndex=6999,n.style.position="fixed",n.style.top="10px",n.style.left=u.innerWidth/2-130+"px",t.body.appendChild(n)}QRCoder();})()

Remember, there are no line breaks in this code. It’s just one long line of JavaScript code :)

Step by step guide:

  • Select and copy the above JavaScript code. On PC, do triple-click on code to select all code
  • Open web browser on mobile or PC
  • Add / save this page as bookmark or favorite
  • Now select and edit the saved bookmark
  • In name field, type “! QRCoder”. The character in start makes sure the bookmark is always on top of the list in your bookmarks list. Easy to tap :)
  • In Location / Address field, just paste the JavaScript code you copied in first step.
  • Ok / Done to save. Now go to any website and from bookmarks / favorites, tap on “! QRCoder”

To quickly land on this page, scan this QR code from your smartphone or tablet:

qrcoder-chall3ng3r

Tested on following devices / OS:

  • PC / Mac / Linux – Check
  • iPhone, iPad – Check
  • Windows Phone 7.5 – Check
  • Symbian Anna / Belle – Check
  • Z10 / BB10 – Check
  • ToDo: Android

I know when this gets published, many non-techy users are going ask how to save this code in mobile browser as favorite. So, here’s a little video demonstration on a Windows Phone:

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]

Kindly ignore audio/video quality and any narration mistakes, this is my first ever video, done really quick :D

It’s a quick and dirty hack to solve a problem. You can also hack it further as per your liking.

I would love to hear any feedback or a tweet :)

// chall3ng3r //

Slides & Code from Nokia Developers Workshop in Islamabad-PK

I am really happy to be part of Nokia Developers Workshop which was jointly organized by Nokia Pakistan and Telenor, in Telenor’s premises in Islamabad.

It was a two day workshop (28-29 Feb 2012) where I talked about Qt Quick runtime and QML for designing and developing great looking apps and games, with focus on game development for Symbian and Meego based Nokia devices, such as Nokia N8, E7, X7 and the recently announced Nokia PureView 808.

The 2nd day of the workshop was even more fun as we explored the Box2D engine APIs using QML. One interesting thing I’d like to share was that I did not practiced making Ping Pong using Box2D before the workshop. But I was confident enough as I’ve been playing with Box2D and QML for some time, to do it live ;)

pingpong-qml-desktop

pingpong-qml-develop

Below is the slide deck of my talk. You are free to download and modify it and use it for your own presentations. I will appreciate if you include my name in credits as original author.

[slideshare id=11822582&doc=gamedevelopmentwithqml-chall3ng3r-120301152703-phpapp02]

Download PowerPoint file

And here’s the project for Ping Pong game we developed at workshop. PingPong-QML.zip

As we figured out on the first day of the workshop that Box2D was not getting compiled with default MSVC2008/2010 compiler Qt SDK uses. Box2D compiles correctly with MinGW 4.4 compiler for Desktop and Simulator targets, which is an optional component in Qt SDK.

For Box2D development using QML, install Qt SDK in custom mode and check all components to be installed. When you open the Ping Pong project, remember to check if you have selected MinGW 4.4 as the compiler as shown in screenshot below.

pingpong-qml-compiler

There were few things that I needed to skip due to time constraints. One of them was making icons for your applications. If you are targeting Meego OS then you can safely use a PNG file as an icon. But if you are targeting Symbian OS you need to make your icon in SVG-Tiny format. It’s a vector format, and you need to draw again in Inkscape or Illustrator if you have done it in Photoshop.

The easy workaround for you is that we have developed an online icon making tool specific to cover this issue for beginners. Use our popular SVG Icon Maker tool to make SVG-Tiny icons from any image.

The second thing I skipped to discuss was, the Ping Pong game is hardware accelerated. Yes, it uses OpenGL to draw the graphics. So you can use heavy graphics in your game and it will never lag. To find out how I have enabled this take a look in main.cpp file of the project ;)

And finally here are some photographs taken on the last day of the workshop.

DSC_0020

DSC_0018

 

DSC_0063

It was a great experience for me and I hope all the participants enjoyed developing with QML and publish a game or an app soon on Nokia Store.

Another great news for all the participants of the workshop is Nokia have announced a global competition for developers who will develop an app or game using Qt Quick components can win a free Nokia PureView 808 device which features a 41 megapixels camera!!! More details here.

It’s a great opportunity and perfect timing for you to develop and publish a new Qt Quick app in Nokia Store and win a great new Nokia PureView 808.

Nokia Pakistan is planning to do more workshops in coming months, so join Nokia Pakistan Developers group on LinkedIn for updates and share your feedback.

// chall3ng3r //

Nokia Developers Workshop in Islamabad – Day 1

Is was great energetic first day at the Nokia Developers Workshop in Islamabad, PK. I covered the basic concepts of QML GUI development with focus on dealing with games.

We also took a brief dive into the State Machine, Transition & Animations for GUI elements. We did a small prototype game-kindda thing which is not complete, but attendees asked me that I put the code for download.

BTW, we ended up with a funny name for this game, Ghobara Ghobara (in english Balloon Balloon) :D

So, here’s the Qt Creator project down for Ghobara Ghobara.

See you guys tomorrow at Telenor’s Office for getting our hands dirty with some Box2D ;)

// chall3ng3r //

Highway Racer is #1 on Ovi Store

I would like to share our success so far on Nokia’s Ovi Store with our Flash Lite based game Highway Racer. You can read my previous post for our initial experience of publishing.

We are really happy with our experience so far. Highway Racer reached #1 spot in Sports category, and #3 spot in overall Games category on Ovi Store in just four days after published on Ovi Store for Pakistan region.

Now it’s 29th day on Ovi Store, it’s been jumping up ‘n down in top 30 games. Highway Racer have been downloaded 175000+ times and counting, on it’s way to million downloads. It’s current rating is 4 stars with 149 reviews.

Highway Racer is also reviewed by two popular mobile technology blogs, SenseApplied and TechProlonged.

This is quite a big achievement for our team at Orison Technologies.

Highway Racer - Promo 3

As of yesterday, Highway Racer is one of the featured applications on Ovi Store, and also it’s on #1 spot for Games and Sports sections. Thanks to Nokia team for the help on this :)

We have decided to keep Highway Racer free for more time as we work on an updated version. So, if you haven’t downloaded Highway Racer yet, just visit Ovi Store now!

// chall3ng3r //

Updated SVG2Go and PlayBook Icon Maker now live!

Finally I got some time to do the most requested updates to our online icon makers, SVG2Go for Symbian devices and PlayBook Icon Maker.

They are really helping a lot of developers and we have been receiving many suggestions and appreciation from around the world. And we thank you all.

We have so far 1800+ SVG-Tiny icons created for Symbian apps, and they include icon for games like Angry Birds Free version as well. And 2700+ icon for the PlayBook apps.

There are two major new things in this update.

  1. Option to enable a background fill color. This is also useful when you are dealing with a transparent icon which is hard to see on that checker-box in the preview area.
  2. Icon selection box and loaded image is opened centered by default. We have noticed many users confused that the selection box doesn’t move from the top-right corner. Well, it does and user can use Arrow Keys to fine tune the selection.

Click the screenshots below to start SVG2Go for Symbian or Icon Maker for PlayBook.

iconmaker-svg2go

iconmaker-playbook

Do let us know what you think about these new updates and any more suggestion you may have for future updates. Also, we’d be glad to hear for which of your apps you used our icon makers.

// chall3ng3r //

Installing Symbian Anna on N8, E7, C7 and C6

You might have already read about the recent announcement by Nokia that Symbian Anna is now being pushed to all the Symbian ^3 capable devices, like Nokia N8, E7, C7 and C6-01. To read more visit the official announcement on Nokia Conversations blog here.

In this post, I will give you some pointers, if you are unable to install Symbian Anna on your device.

The first thing you need to do is find out if the update is pushed for your region or not. Start SW Update app on your device, and wait for it to refresh the list of available updates. Once the list is refreshed, it will show you if the device update is available.

On my brother’s Nokia C7, the update was offered as OTA (Over The Air) 28mb update. Once updated, the SW Update now shows two more updates named as Symbian Anna 1/2 and Symbian Anna 2/2. Both updates are about 30mb each. I did not continue with the updates yet because the battery was not fully charged. So, will update it later.

Update for Nokia C7: Okay, I continued the updates on my brother’s C7, and both of the updates installed fine. Remember, that after update 1/2 is installed, it will ask you to restart device, DO NOT restart, as update 2/2 is already being in installing process. Just wait till the updates are installed (about 20 mins).

Then I checked for the update on my Nokia E7 development device, SW Update app showed me the update on device, but it asked me to install the update via Ovi Suite or Nokia Software Updater.

When checked via Ovi Suite, it always showed update for Here and Now app, but not the device update. So, after many tries in 2 hours, I downloaded Nokia Software Updater.

SymbianAnna-install

The Nokia Software Updater reminded me that I’m using the device without a SIM, so I have to put a SIM to make the updater work. So, remember developers, you need to put any SIM in device before trying update, otherwise the update will fail. Maybe Ovi Suite was also failing because of no SIM.

For my E7, the update size is 325mb, and it’s still downloading. I will update this post with my success, and might write another post to review the new things in Symbian Anna update.

Update 1

Okay, after the download and installation of Device Update for my Nokia E7 via Nokia Software Updater, I got quite a bit of Symbian Anna feeling. The icons and browser have new look.

Just after few hours, I checked for updates via SW Update app, and to my surprise, there were two more updates, like I seen on my brother’s Nokia C7. I checked and started the updates. The interesting thing to note is, the first 325mb update was only available via PC, and these two updates are OTA.

WP_000035

They took about 30 minutes to install. During the installation, I was asked two time for EULA for MS Communicator and JoikuSpot. I think these later updates are new version of built-in apps like Mail for Exchange and couple of new apps.

For me, both of these updates went fine on the first go. It restarted my E7, and everything seems to be working alright.

Important note, that after update 1/2 is installed, DO NOT restart your device manually. Just wait for the 2nd update to be installed as well.

Thanks to Nokia for this much needed update.

// challn3g3r //

Highway Racer – Now On Nokia Ovi Store

I am excited to announce our first entry into Nokia Ovi Store with our first Adobe Flash Lite based game, Highway Racer. It’s a simple arcade style racing game, to take a fun break in your busy life.

Click the banner below to head over to Ovi Store and get it FREE now. It’s a limited time offer ;)

Here are some screenshots before I get to details and our experience so far in publishing to Ovi Store.

1-Splashscreen 2-MainMenu

5-InGame 3-About 

Game Development Experience

Highway Racer is a Flash Lite 3 based game developed using Adobe Flash CS5.5. The development experience is best you can get. We used traditional timeline for animations and scripts on frames for interactivity. Most of the resources are small components and reused to keep the runtime memory footprint small.

flash-cs55-highway-racer

Highway Racer runs on all Symbian 5th Edition (Nokia 5800XM, N97, etc.) devices as well, but the performance is not as good because these devices have slower processor.

For best experience, we recommend playing Highway Racer on any latest Symbian ^3 device like Nokia N8, E7, C7, X7 etc.

Packaging and Distribution

For Highway Racer, we used SWF2Go Pro 2.6 to compile a SIS file to post on Ovi Store for QA. SWF2Go is our most popular development toolkit used by tons of developers in more than 50 countries around the world.

Since SWF2Go allowed us to get past the SIS making process in less than 10 minutes, we were then quickly on the phase to make graphics for Ovi Store submission.

Ovi Publisher portal is now really easy to use, I must say. The submission wizard is easy follow, and it was like just 4 steps. And you are done.

The QA process took 2 days only, which was quite a surprise for us, we were not even quite ready :D

There’s one small complaint/ issue, which I like to point out. On the Distribution “€œ> Language tab, there should clear note, if content is in English, select Works With All Languages / Publish To All Languages. We selected English (US) on first QA round, and later discovered that our game was only visible in US / Latin America. Ovi Store team, please add this note.

The After Shocks

It’s a complete surprise to us that Highway Racer is on #1 position in Sports category and #3 position in overall Games category for Pakistan region, just in 4 days!

We are very proud, and excited, as we have just stepped into Ovi Store, and finding such success in few days. It’s a big milestone for us.

We have already plans for follow up versions of Highway Racer as well as couple of cool new game ideas we are working on to publish on Ovi Store in coming months.

Download Highway Racer now from Ovi Store, and let us know your feedback and suggestions. And keep visiting Ovi Store for more of our exclusive games and apps to come ;)

BTW, Highway Racer is also our entry for Nokia and P@SHA MakeMyApp 2011 Challenge. Wish us luck!

// chall3ng3r //

Fixed: Ovi Store not working after Hard Reset

I have seen many users complaining Ovi Store app not working at all after they Hard Rest their Symbian^3 device, such as Nokia N8, E7, C7 etc.

Ovi Store app is developed using Qt and it requires the Qt runtime on device to work properly. When a user Hard Rests his device, the runtime is gone. And unfortunately, Nokia is unable to tackle this issue so far when installing Ovi Store again on device.

I have to reset my Nokia N8 once, and I got hit by the same issue. I knew what was missing, so I just installed the Qt runtime (4.6.3) SIS from the Qt SDK 1.0 folder to my N8 and it started working just fine.

Normal users don’t have Qt SDK, which is ~1.3GB download. So, I thought it would be a good idea to put the Qt runtime SIS files on my server and let the users having issues with Ovi Store, download and install the Qt runtime without downloading the Qt SDK.

ovi_store_fixed

I created a special mobile friendly page on our SWF2Go website, where any user can just go directly using his mobile and download and install the Qt runtime.

Direct Download Qt Runtime: https://chall3ng3r.com/downloads/qt/

I uploaded Qt 4.6.3 as well as Qt 4.7.3 runtimes. You just need only one of them. I’d recommend the later as the most of the new apps such as LinkedIn for Symbian is based on it.

Update: Based on feedback I have also added Qt Mobility 1.1.3 SIS along Qt runtime. Some users have reported Ovi Store app uses Qt Mobility as well. I guess this will fix Ovi Store always loading issue after installing Qt.

Update 2: I have now added Qt Notifications APIs SIS on the download link above. The new version of Ovi Store uses these new APIs as well.

Update 3 “€œ Recommended for Symbian ^3: Nokia team has finally made available a standalone download of the Ovi Store client app. Just visit the following link to download the latest version. Read more about this at official blog.

Direct Download Ovi Store App: http://lr.ovi.mobi/store/client-symbian-3/

Update 4 (26 Oct 2011): Download new Qt QML based beta Nokia Store app. 18mb download contains Qt runtime and the client. No need to install Qt. Get it from here.

My suggestion to Nokia / Qt Team: There should be similar Qt runtime download page optimized for mobile devices, for end users. Who disparately search on internet when Ovi Store stops working.

Update 5 (Sep-2015):
Nokia Store for Symbian is no longer available. Most of the apps are moved to Opera at http://apps.opera.com. Visit this website for Opera Store installation on your Symbian OS phone.

Have fun downloading great apps from Ovi Store!

// chall3ng3r //

Thoughts on Nokia + Microsoft

I believe this is the biggest mobile technology news since announcement of Apple iPhone back in 2007. And to be honest, I am all excited as one Apple fanboy would have, on such big news!

nokia-microsoft-valentine

There are reasons why I am so much excited, but first let me start with the fact that many developers showing concern that Nokia made a mistake for selecting Microsoft Windows Phone 7 as it’s primary mobile OS.

I have been reading lots of news, reviews, analysis and comments around this partnership, positive and negative. I gone through official Forum Nokia’s blog post "Letter to Developers about Today’s News" and in comments I see many developers not so happy.

I would like share some of the facts and personal experience about Symbian OS.

Symbian for End-Users

This is the base fact that everyone, including Nokia also admits that Symbian’s UX is ugly. I have been using Nokia smartphones since 2004, and my first one was second-hand Nokia 7650, and I have witnessed that Symbian was doing great in terms of UI until iPhone. After that, I haven’t heard anyone praising Symbian’s UI.

Symbian for touch enabled devices, proved to be complete nightmare for Nokia. Since it’s introduction to date, they are still trying to tweak it to work better for touch input, sadly without any luck.

Honestly, tell me any 10 great looking native Symbian applications, which provide smooth, beautiful, and animated user experience. Oh, I know one, Gravity and my big applause to the guys who did it. Other than this, I have not seen any Symbian application which impressed me with such great UX compared to iPhone, Android or WP7 apps.

Other than this, I was quite disappointed from Nokia from the end-users’ perspective, as they’ve been selling Symbian devices by showing cool animated UI transitions, but in reality, the actual device, when rotated from portrait orientation, taking more than 7 seconds to show up the UI in landscape (personal experience). Yes, I’m talking about Nokia N97 and other Symbian 5th Edition devices. Lets take a look at this video.

Cool, isn’t it. But if anyone who have used one of these devices must know what I’m talking about.

All this Symbian ^3 hype is waste of money and resources. I have a Nokia N8, and I was not able to compose new or reply to an email until I upgraded to firmware PR1.1, which was released few days ago after months of delay, using my primary account of Mail for Exchange (I use Google Apps). And there were also many other users who were have same issue.

I was making jokes on this”¦ "Nokia – Connecting People NOT", and imagine Borat saying it, you’re gonna laugh "automagically" :D

Nokia N8 is really a fast device as compared to Nokia 5800XM I own. But the UI still lacks all the richness, smooth transitions, and usability I find on iPhone, somewhat on Android and now on WP7 devices. Even Nokia wasn’t able to deliver what they showed in an imaginative video demoed back in 2007. Lets take a look, and pay close attention to animations and transitions.

Symbian was the main reason of Nokia’s failing all this time. They have tried to tweak its UI to make it work on touch enabled devices, but unfortunately it didn’t worked out until now.

Last thing to add here is, Nokia’s official end-user support forums are filled with so many complaints, most of them are related to Symbian OS.

Symbian for Developers

I started learning Symbian back in 2006. My aim was to develop a compiler, which would allow Adobe Flash Lite developers to easily package and distribute their games and application on Symbian platform. I successfully delivered SWF2Go in March 2007 after 8 months of R’nD, and it’s been quite a success so far.

During my journey on Symbian OS, I learned how hard and time consuming it is to develop. Setting up it’s SDKs was quite big task for anyone new to Symbian, but who have worked on other mobile platforms. Other than my work on SWF2Go, I never developed any native Symbian C++ application.

Just in 2010, Nokia’s investments in Qt started to show up. Even though Qt it easy and fun to develop with and its been here for so long and already gone through embedded platforms, but still not ready for real mobile applications. When developer needs to do some real work, he ends up with same old dirty Symbian C++.

Qt Mobility 1.0 is released but it has some quirks. For example, there’s no native Qt APIs of dealing with device orientation. The new Qt Creator project wizard now adds that dirty Symbian C++ code for you.

Nokia could have at least replaced the UI shell of the Symbian ^3 using Qt with all it’s cool transitions and effects. Like HTC replaced Windows Mobile’s UI (almost same as Symbian) with HTC Sense UX. And they actually did a pretty good job on that.

So, Symbian is an outdated legacy OS, which have completed its life long ago. Its making Nokia, developers and the whole ecosystem around it completely slow.

Now stop being angry and join, celebrate with me ;)

Why I Am So Excited?

Microsoft really knows software. They also make mistakes, like everyone does, but they are pretty good. For example .Net, Xbox, Windows 7, Silverlight.

Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is developed from experiences of Windows Mobile. It is targeted specifically for next generation hardware and touch input. It is user friendly, stable and it works. Go checkout some cool reviews to find out for yourself.

Microsoft is the king of developer tools, specifically Visual Studio 2010. If you have never used it before, this tool will teach you, help you and make you expert within weeks. It’s code editing features are one of the best available today.

With tons of online resources already available, so you will never get stuck with any issue. There’s a vibrant developer community as well, from where we can learn more and share back expertise.

Microsoft offers a complete set of tools for development of Windows Phone 7 games and applications. And best thing about them is, all of these tools including VS2010, Expression Blend and XNA Game Studio are completely free. Installation experience is really smooth as well.

Once you are aboard, you’re gonna love it. You can take my word on that ;)

I also found some users and developers asking Nokia, why they didn’t selected Android? Well, other than what Mr. Elop already said about it, I would like to add, haven’t you guys already seen enough Android devices?

Everyone is making them, HTC, Samsung, Motorola, LG just to name a few. Now even those Chinese companies also started making them in masses. You will be getting a lot of them in coming days.

Don’t you guys want to see something new, something different, a competition, using new technology, developing for it, innovating with it, having a choice? I mean come on”¦ Guys!

Nokia + Microsoft = A Wining Combination

I believe that this partnership is a great opportunity for developers on Nokia platform to get back into fast lane, and rapidly develop and compete against other platforms. Provide best of the best games, applications and user experiences to the end-users. A winning combination for everyone.

/// chall3ng3r //