Nokia's Ovi Software Development Kit released to invited and excited Javascripters
By Tim Stevens 
posted September 4th 2009 8:16AM
posted September 4th 2009 8:16AM
Nokia's Ovi Store launched in late May -- and then promptly crashed. The company has long-since gotten everything working smoothly and so is now so confident about its stability that it's letting other developers in on the party. Coders proficient in HTML, CSS, and Javascript can apply for access to the beta SDK, invitations for which are being doled out right now. The navigation-focused kit includes a number of UI widgets and controls that will help any 'ol app sport the clean, understated Nokia look, as well as things like the Ovi Navigation Player API, which makes nav-related apps much easier to get up and running. Nokia's not giving any indication of just how long the line at the door is or what criteria it's using to judge who gets past the red velvet rope into this shin-dig, but we'd recommend at least a shave and a clean shirt before applying. Vids excitedly discussing this wondrous new world are embedded below.[Via Nokia Conversations]
At last a Nokia article by engadget free of mockery.
thats exactly what i thought ,the wait is over , at last !
At last a Nokia article by Engadget free of "Espoo" being worked in somehow!
But I came here specifically to find out how certain Nokia fans would take this article negatively! Surely, I thought, someone would complain about mentioning the Ovi store's crash. But instead, I'm pleasantly surprised that everyone seems to have chosen to see the bright side of things.
Finally Engadget publishes this news. Actually it should have been published yesterday. But they didn't.
I even tipped them of the news by the above link on their page. I even commented on every Nokia post they made
yesterday, but they didn't publish the news.
And now, they finally do it.
Surprising, ain't it?
lol hary, our comments are being taken seriously at least! let's just hope this lasts
Maury Povich and Mila Jovovich endorses the ovi store.
I may be reading the article wrong, but is this the same story as with the iPhone? Again only being able to make widgets?
Only being able to make widget ? If you consider any application that is based on nokia maps a widget ok..
To me a widget is some useless crap that gives you the weather conditions in singapour when you live in Paris and really really don't care (that's for you WinMo and HTC ty very much)
This is what mobile apps should be like : web based and/or GPS based. For the rest just buy a fucking PSP sony NEEDS you
iPhone doesn't support widgets and never did. (The "web SDK" which Apple touted in 2007 just meant that you can make your website look mostly like an iPhone app, that's all there ever was to it...)
Nope. Fully installable apps.
My next phone will be a Nokia.
lol @ the 1st video where Russia is completely part of Europe accordingly to Lonely Planet. I'd put my travel safely to the hands of LP anytime.
you're as safe in russia as in Czech republic for exemple... and CR it's definitely part of europe.
The problem in Russia is not safety, it's human rights and democracy or the lack thereof. you have more cops than in the US and that's saying alot.
It nice to see that someone other than Apple has learned from the iPhone project. You NEED to work with content providers in order to make a platform successful. However, Ovi has a huge technological problem. Unlike the iPhone SDK it is extremely limited and it's more or less a Maps API with small additions to it. To make matters worst, the communication channel used in http which basically means a half duplex channel. Real time applications would be very hard to build and in fact what DB calls real time application most likely is not a true real time app.
Nokia has nowhere near the programing genius or man power of Apple so their effort is quite commendable. Only I'm afraid it might be too little too late since Nokia is literally the last one of the big players to enter the game.
You do realise that this is just the Ovi Maps SDK?
Nokia provide a regular SDK for all of their phones. They even provide an IDE called Carbide. You can write apps in Java, C++ or in JavaScript using Nokia Web Runtime. Nokia provide APIs for all of these languages to access phone features including accelerometer, GPS, camera etc.
This new API simply allows you to use the Ovi Maps viewer to create your own mash-up, similar to a lot of Google Maps mash-ups that exist currently.
In response to your communication channel issue, using the full Symbian SDK you can create many different types of connections. For example I currently have a Bit Torrent client on my Nokia phone, which I am sure would not be allowed on Apple's app store.
The Ovi store will never catch on. As of now most of the widgets are made for the N97 and 5800, alienating the other 99% of Nokia users. Not to mention, anything and everything on the Ovi store is useless or an attempt to duplicate functionality of apps available for the iPhone, BB or Android, but yet fail at it miserably.
I was a Nokia fan/user for the past 10 years, but they're way, way behind on everything.
Currently, maybe. Come back in a year or two and things will look quite different.
The battle has just begun. The past two years don't mean much, because still, most of the customer base has no interest in app stores. They don't even own a smartphone, yet.
All that is about change, now that smartphones are coming down in price, and Nokia is cleary in the lead of that race.
The same exact situation happened decades ago. Nobody thought Microsoft would get anywhere with DOS/Windows. IBM was huge, Apple was leading with the graphical UI, etc, but as soon as MS started shipping their products with every frickin PC available they soon took over the whole market.
It's not about who gets there first, or who has the best stuff, it's about who ships it to the most customers. There won't be any clear winners or losers in the next few years, but yes, ultimately there will be.
@Spiel,
There are tons and tons of applications for Nokia phones available.
I pity your ignorance. Most of the apps available on Ovi Store are for S60v3(ex: E71, etc) and S60v5 (ex: 5800, N97, etc).
But there are apps available for S60v4 also.
For lower end feature phones, there are so many other websites and blogs,where there are so many apps available that you wouldn't
feel deprived of.
Also when you say apps on Ovi store duplicate functionality of Apple or BBerry apps, thats conceptually wrong.
For ex: If you want to have a weather app for any platform, its main functionality is going to remain same and that is to show weather.
Now Nokia won't show traffic info in a weather app to avoid duplicating functionality? Would they? Should they according to you?
So think before you speak. Quantity is not just the measuring point, and you seem to be one of those blurred by the quantity of 50,000 apps?
very well said, papari!
Sorry, i meant S40 and not S60v4 above.
@Spiel
You do realise that most of the good apps were written a few years ago for Symbian and WinMo and that the ones you have on the iPhone are ports, right?
I mean, don't get me wrong - Ovi has a long way to go until it measures up to the App store in terms of usability but there's plenty there.
The past 2 years don't count???? You've got to be kidding me.
Did they have to name it after the official charge for drunk driving?
Ooops sorry, i meat S40 and not S60v4 above.
@ Félix:
hmm, I guess I was misunderstood. I feel completely safe when travelling in Russia, but trusting my safety into the hands of Lonely Planet, which is the biggest (?) travel-info contributor in the world and which doesn't know it's geographics I'd be worried about. But, again, this was intended as a joke so please continue. :)
ps: russia has zero cops, militsiya is their resemblence of the westernworld police. It's more of a military than ordinary police.
Good luck to Nokia and Ovi.
A little late to the party, but it can be argued that the show has only just begun, and the next few years will tell the whole story.
However, as we know with hindsight, a few moments' head start is like forever in the hi-tech world, so there is quite considerable catching up to do. This is the price to be paid for complacency and inertia, especially when occupying a leading market position.
Those expecting another shenanigan-laden Microsoft-esque repeat ploy to achieve domination in this market as occurred in the PC world should think again - only natural, legitimate monopolies of technology, marketing and innovation (Google?) will rule the roost given the current global hindsight, knowledge and vigilance of the world's legislative bodies when it comes to "doing evil".
This race is for the agile and for the far-sighted, not the unethical...
To be fair Nokia has good reason for falling behind. They purchased the company Trolltech a bit ago and plan on using their development platform which supposedly will enable the source code for applications to be platform independent while using C++. This coupled with the fact they are going to integrate their apps for two different ecosystems, symbian and maemo, we see a pretty different approach here. I think Nokia will do fine here and be quite the powerhouse in the app world in the next couple years. I doubt we'll see them overtake Apple any time soon but globally I imagine things are looking pretty good, assuming execution goes well, for them.