This series consists of three parts (yes, I finally realized my posts are too long) :
- History - the timeline of Qt with regard to Symbian and Maemo/MeeGo
- Adoption - describing what problems have hindered a "more than words" Qt adoption so far
- Resolution - what are the remaining logjams and how to break them
As described above, in this part, I’ll write about the history of the Qt timeline in Maemo/MeeGo in order to gain some perspective:
- 2008 Jan - Nokia buys Trolltech (makers of Qt)
- 2008 Apr - Qt support for Maemo is announced
- 2008 Oct - First Android handset released
- 2008 Dec - Qt4.5 becomes available as a community edition for Maemo 4.1
- 2009 May - Symbian^4 deprecates AVKON and carbide C++ in favor of Qt4.6 and the Nokia Qt SDK
- 2009 Jul - Qt4.6 is announced as the base application framework of Maemo 6 (Harmattan)
- 2009 Oct - Official Qt support (4.6 for 2010Q1) announced for Maemo 5 on the Maemo Summit, and beta made available
- 2009 Nov - The N900 ships with the not-overly advertised community Qt4.5 version, first post-ARM11 Android 1.6 is released
- 2010 Jan - Stable Python Qt bindings are released
- 2010 Feb - Nokia and Intel announce MeeGo, Qt4.6.2 released with Smart Installer beta allowing install of Qt apps to existing S60 devices
- 2010 Apr - The Nokia N8 is announced, the first Symbian^3 handset that will ship with Qt4.6 preloaded, bridging old AVKON based S60 and the future Qt based Symbian^4
- 2010 May - After much delay, the PR1.2 firmware for the Nokia N900 is released with Qt4.6.2
- 2010 Jun - The Nokia Qt SDK is released and Ovi store starts accepting Qt apps
In any case, seeing the timeline it is obvious that the Qt strategy was not a whim, it was a broad, consistent strategy. Qt has come a long way, it has been available to developers living on the mobile edge for well over a years (and two decades for those that are familiar with Qt from the desktop). It fought it’s way to actual devices and stable repositories (an install base of several million handsets via the Smart Installer and the N900 since PR1.2). Ovi now accepts Qt apps. The Nokia Qt SDK is released with the nifty QtCreator IDE largely reducing the pains of the powerful-but-linux-guru-oriented scratchbox environment of the Maemo SDK. The Qt API is a lot friendlier than the AVKON APIs or the generic rag-tag Linux APIs ever were. There are already thousands of developers (both FOSS and commercial) with a lot of previous Qt experience. Qt is touted as the future of all Nokia smartphones. We should be swimming in cool Qt apps, right ? Well, sadly, as many N900 owners are painfully aware, that is still not quite the case, and while there are a few community efforts and the telltale commercial app, it’s far from a landrush. In this blog post I have outlined the Qt’s history, it’s promise on mobile platforms and all the good stuff. If you want to know where the sand is slowing the gears down and what both Nokia/Intel and the community can do to unblock the cogs, check back in a couple of days for parts two and three !
nice blog. I will be back and see the 2 and 3.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently working on 2 Qt apps for desktop/maemo/meego/symbian. The first one should be released soon, and the other one before september... but Qt 4.6 is only here since 1.2 and some may wait Qt 4.7 and QML to start working...
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ReplyDeleteGuys check out The Nokia Qt SDK has ushered in a new era in mobile development for Symbian and Maemo , and forthcoming MeeGo devices from Nokia.
ReplyDeleteWith the Nokia Qt SDK, creating apps for hundreds of millions of Nokia device owners has never been easier or more rewarding.
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i found so mmany interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion..thanks for the post!
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