TamsS60 - the S60 Blog

So far, S60 phones were like most Palm OS handhelds - theyx supported just one external memory card. S60 FP2 is said to change that(seeing that the N96 will have 16GB of flash and a MicroSD slot), and developers should begin to adapt their applications now to avoid problems later on.

Forumk Nokia has now released a so-called Multiple Drive Support plug-in that allows you to test your apps on multicard devices and also contains loads of example code.

Developers - you are hereby officially encouraged to get this asap!

P.S. The boys recommend to use this only on non-patched SDK’s - there always is virtualization if you don’t feel like tainting your baseline carbide setup…

Mike Trujillo(the Carbide.c++ project manager) has just informed us that owners of Carbide.c++ v1.3 can now install an update via the Automatic Update Manager. Version 1.3.1 is a small maintenance update that fixes over 180 bugs in the product - a complete overview is here:
http://tools.ext.nokia.com/video/v1.3.1%20Update/Carbide%20v1.3.1%20Update.html

Furthermore, Nokia invited all beta testers of Carbide.c++ 1.3 into a private chat forum to discuss version 2.0 of the program(due November 2008)…

Developers currently working on S60 applications could find Nokia’s recently-launched User Interface portal interesting.

It contains a variety of articles on topics like UI design, power management(aka make your app draw less power), application quality and more.

Reading it is free(and there’s no registration required) - if you feel like it, just give them a click here:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/resources/user_experience/

In case anyone of you is particularly interested in developing widgets for Nokia’s new WRT runtime, a free webinar could be helpful to get up to speed quickly.

The announcement below has all the info - if you joined in, please let us know how it went!

“Practical WRT Widgets Development for S60″ - Forum Nokia Webinars

Join us in this webinar, where we will take a practical look at how to
develop widgets for the S60 platform, by developing and testing our very own
widget application using tools available on Forum Nokia web site.

Presentation time: approx 60 minutes.

This session will be presented successively at these times:

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
1.00 pm Sao Paolo, 5.00 pm London, 7.00 pm Helsinki,
12.00 pm New York, 9.00 am San Francisco

Register
here

Finding information on programming Symbian devices is not easy - thus, a group of lecturers at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg in Austria have decided to share some of their own stuff on a web site called symbianresources.com.

Definitely head over to their tutorial section - it’s worth it!

Mike Trujillo, the project manager of Carbide, has just informed us about the availability of a free update for Carbide.c++ version 1.3. The change log is as following:

We will be providing a patch to Carbide.c++ v1.3. The beta form of the patch (v1.3.1) is available now.

To get this – you can update your product using Update Manager in your IDE:
* Help –> Software updates –> Find and Install
* Select “Search for new features to install” and click NEXT
* Select Carbide.c++ Update Site and click Finish

Many bug fixes and a few minor enhancements to the product are available:
* Bug reporting tool –plug-in that will allow you to report bugs to the Carbide Bugzilla site directly from the IDE
* TRK Improvement - –a pretty useful utility that checks the TRK connections and validates that the user has the most recent version of TRK
* ABLD support –- we added support for a number of ABLD options that were removed in v1.3
* Select an MMP or BLD.INF file and right click –> ABLD. Select options for target, export, resource, etc)

All C++ developers will rejoice to hear that Penrillian has finally ported its uSTL library to S60v3. Cutting a long story short, the so-called Standard Template Library is a collection of routines that significantly help C++ programmers(as they contain loads of code that’s needed often).

Penrillian themselves describe their product as following:

Penrillian is pleased to announce the free availability of an open Standard Template Library (STL) for Symbian OS. This has been one of the most common requests from Symbian programmers looking for a ready-made set of common classes to speed the development process.

The library is a port of Mike Sharov’s uSTL implementation. It has the particular feature of generating small object code sizes - an important requirement for most Symbian OS applications.

The library provides a subset of the full C++ STL standard library, along with some features to improve usability for Symbian OS. The additional features include:
* Easy interchange between Symbian OS Descriptors and std::string UTF strings
* Using User::Leave for memory errors.

Penrillian is making the new STL available as a free download from this website under the MIT Licence (virtually no restrictions on use). The latest release has been tested on both UIQ and Series 60 Edition 3 devices.

Documentation about installation and use of the the port is available with the release; there are many good books available on using the STL with C++.

Get the library file here:
http://www.penrillian.com/content/view/82/73/

As expected, a WiMax version of the N810 internet tablet has debuted - here is a stock image of the box:

The color of the device was changed to black - that’s all that can be discerned from the outside. On the inside, nothing seems changed either except for the addition of WiMax - and a operating system update that also is available for the N800 and N810:

Also being introduced with the Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition is the newest Internet Tablet operating system. This new upgraded OS2008 introduces useful new features to the platform, including an enhanced e-mail client, support for Chinese character rendering in the browser and RSS feeds and Seamless Software Update functionality to eliminate manual software updates, making periodic updates of the operating system quick and easy. While standard on the Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition, current owners of Nokia N810 and N800 Internet Tablets with earlier operating systems will be able to upgrade their device to the revised operating system for free during the second quarter of 2008.

P.S. The folks at Engadget have a few hands-on shots…

OK - the 1st of April passed, and no Windows Mobile powered Nokia phone materialized. Just like I expected it. However, a source close to Nokia(who has provided me with loads of interesting information on the future of S60…more soon) has sent me the following bit of text:

I don’t remember seeing a “Windows” division on any of the org charts I saw. They don’t seem too stuck on “not in invented here” syndrome and I suspect the devices group could put Windows on Nokia hardware without causing a fuss. If they haven’t done it then I’d guess that they don’t consider it worthwhile to do a Windows phone (eg. Symbian/ S60 has the same features?).

It looks like people have been “demanding” that Nokia does a Windows device since 2006. There’s a rumor from Feb 2008 that Nokia is going to make a Windows device. I can’t see why they’d bother when they’ve got a technically superior system of their own. Do the needs of a handful of “enterprise” companies that can’t be bothered to teach their programmers how to use something other than Windows really need to dictate how Palm, Nokia, Apple and the Blackberry guys run their business? Palm folded and look at how well that’s worked out for them. Meanwhile Nokia, Apple and the Blackberry guys are doing just fine with their “non-Windows” systems.

In the end, it is exactly as I expected it to be. Nokia could have a few prototypes in-house(given the similarities…for example, my QTek 8500 WMS is almost a 1:1 knockoff of the N71 spec-wise). However, there is little need for them do release these - why should they give up their privileged position?

Any more questions?

Developers who read OpenSource code sometimes probably know the SDL - cutting a long story short, the SDL is a multimedia library that is intended for easy porting. Once SDL is ported to a new platform, porting SDL-based applications is very easy(if the rest of the code is portable).

Anyways, S60 developers are now in luck if the information on this web site is correct - the rather bold promise is as following:

S60 SDL is a Simple DirectMedia Layer adaptation for S60. SDL is a cross-platform multimedia library: Applications and libraries built on SDL can easily be ported to another operating systems. Usage of S60 SDL is not restricted to porting; S60 multimedia applications can be implemented without deep knowledge of Symbian C++ native API and a developer can use SDL and standard C interfaces. The SDL development supports both Nokia OpenC and Symbian stdlib (ESTLIB) C implementations.

With S60 SDL it is possible to port applications to S60 without a single code change. However S60 SDL has a special S60 API that makes integration to mobile platform easier. In practice S60 devices usually has a small screen and limited input posibilities, and CSDL interface helps to do adaptation without changes to the original code base.

The S60 SDL supports OpenGL ES development. Its possible to create SDL Surface for OpenGL ES content and manage that with SDL’s platform independent OpenGL API. In S60 devices that dont have hardware accelerated OpenGL, a software rendered is used automatically.

Anyone of you has further information? Please let us know!