Writing Apps for the S60 Platform?

O

ongtina

New member
I have an E72 and am thinking about possibly
writing a few apps for it just for the fun of it.

I'm not intrested in writing for other phones since
I have an E72 so that is what I'd write the app for.

The real question that comes to mind in how
long will this platform most likely be around?

Is it worth learng yet another OS/Language?

Thank you
 
Not Yet, I could use this as an excuse to actually get off my butt and learn it.

Or just write it in basic (there is a basic compiler for S60) that I already am good at.
 
Not to be too cocky about it, but "being good in BASIC" is roughly equivalent to claiming expertise in car manufacturing from playing with LEGOs. Well.

There is C++ (a good idea to learn), and then there is C++ for Symbian/S60 (not so much). The various APIs in the Symbian platform are quite arcane, and not very portable to other platforms.

As an alternative, you could consider obtaining the SDK for Qt (e.g. Qt/Free edition) from trolltech.com. Now that Qt is ported to both Symbian and Maemo, this will give you a lot bigger bang for the buck. Qt experience is also a very marketable skill to have, since it is used in all sorts of embedded environments (heck, my company is looking for Qt developers as we speak!)
 
Speaking of developing (symbian), can anyone recommend a few books that would get a complete and utter noob some basic knowledge? :D
 
I'm an IT guy by trade and really don't need a new career
this late in my life. If I write anything it would be more or
less something for Fun (aka for me).

I've beenwriting in basic for about 30 years and for
simple apps and Microcontrollers it does the job well.

I more or less look at it like is it really worth learning C as a hobby?

If I can find a decent Basic compiler it would proababy
be good enough for anythig I really would need.

The real question is: How long will this platform most likely be around?
 
Well from the looks of he N8 leaked preview, Symbian 3 will be very similar to the current S60 version. If S3 is just S60 with a new look, then apps written now should run well, and you won't have to worry about re-writing in a few months.

As for Symbian's future, it is difficult to say but it looks very bleak. If phone mfg. want a full featured, attractive, customizable and free OS they can use Android, and so far that is what they are doing.

There isn't really a good reason for manufacturers to release Symbian phones at the moment. Nokia will keep pushing it for the time being it, but even they have MeeGo on its way.

It'll be around for a while, Nokia is too big for its marketshare to dwindle overnight, but it is declining.

Don't invest any time if you'll feel disappointed in supporting a dying platform.

There's a chance Symbian 4 may radically improve things, but don't hold your breath.
 
if you look at forum.nokia.com might give you a ood idea if you want dive into carbide C. I wrote a few simple apps for my E63 and had prgramed with visual C++ on windows and windows mobile and I found carbide c confusing so dont know if that is a good platform to learn c on
 
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Yep, so he should just focus on using Qt. Don't even mess with the current s60 set up. The N8 and others running Symbian^3 will be out soon enough.
 
Twoface, will Qt apps work on his E72 though? I thought he wanted to primarily develop a few simple apps for his own use on the E72.

As for Symbian's future being bleak... well, it will more likely than not sell 100m+ units a year so it should do ok, volume terms (and I would imagine that is an interesting proposition to a lot of developers too, especially now with Qt around).
 
Thanks for the help all.

I'm moving forward learning "C" but doubt I'll be writing
anything for the s60 platform (at least not for a while).

I currently program Microcontrollers and write small programs
that will run on a pc. Since the Microcontrollers typically use
C and not C++ it makes more sense to learn C first.

Then if I decide to move on I'll look at C++ but for now.....

Thank s again
 
Had to scroll awfully long before somebody finally makes the most important point. :)
Qt as whole is where it's all going from Nokia and you get other platforms too with it.
 
Came across this very interesting training course which can be used for both self-learning and educational purposes. Topics that are covered in this course are:
• Qt for Symbian introduction
• Development environment set up
• Smart installer
• Memory management
• Active objects
• Platform security
• Mobility APIs
This ZIP package includes training documentation in 3 lectures and lab exercises with example code. This is a beta release of this training course.
Download it here http://bit.ly/bbNYF5
 
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