Nokia's
Ovi Store may still be
seriously losing in the app war to Apple and Google, but something tells us Espoo's betting on its new Ovi App Wizard to help it gain some ground. Putting mobile software creation in the hands of the code-illiterate, the auto-generated application wizard lets anyone -- and we mean
anyone -- turn any RSS or Atom feed out there into an app, and publish it to the Ovi Store. Surprisingly, it really is that simple. While we could have made a personal app with our Twitter and Facebook feed, we went ahead and finally made an Ovi Engadget app by simply going to oviappwizard.com and going through the four step process -- we put in all three RSS feeds, uploaded our logos, tweaked the colors and hit publish. According to Nokia it should only take 24 hours for the app to be approved -- yes, there's some sort of approval process -- but we're still waiting for our app to show up in the storefront so we can download it on
our N97. There's the ability to serve up third party ads, but you'll have to prove that you own the content you've placed in your app. Again, super simple, but we're a bit wary of the sorts of apps that will start to pop up, and not sure we need everyone's own personal feeds/sites overtaking the store. But we'll let you be the judge of that -- go on, hit the read link, create an app, and Ovi-populate.
posted May 3rd 2010 8:00AM
seriously? iPhone and Android users get real apps and us Symbian users get a shitty RSS feed?
Please be joking.
Don't get me wrong, RSS feeds are useful, but if all I wanted was an RSS reader, I'd get a regular RSS reader and at least then I could read multiple RSS feeds at one time.
@BigJayDogg3 : Um, it's not like this is the only app that you're ever going to be able to use. My understanding is there may be as many as six other native Symbian apps out there, and perhaps four multi-format Java applications.
@BigJayDogg3 I'm not sure that there is much of a benefit over them making just a good quality RSS reader, but hey if it works it works. I'm sure it will allow lots of websites to make their own readers....for some reason.
@BigJayDogg3 (My own RSS reader is Gravity. I don't know what I'd do without it.)
Like I said, there's nothing wrong with RSS feeds, but if I'm going to be using RSS feeds, I'll use something like Gravity. Then I can pull down news from several sites as well as podcasts.
@BigJayDogg3 Josh and Nilay said in the recent podcast that they wanted to take a look at the new developing tools in ^3 before jumping in. Let's just take this for now and let them work on a full, better version.
@N900
True. It is good for the interim.
@BigJayDogg3 Oh, hang on, are you complaining about Engadget's app in particular or this wizard's output in general? I had assumed the latter when I think you actually mean the former.
I think it's safe to say that most of the world's smartphone users don't read Engadget anyway. ;)
@BigJayDogg3 I dont understand actually what is the problem. Basically what all of this mobile apps do, not counting games, is a dumbed down version of a site.
I dont actually need the full engadget experience everytime I visit this place, many times I come here just to check the headlines and that is it. Then, a web runtime environment for this purpose is more than okay.
Also, some companies now will be able to deploy their own "mobile app" just by doing this, which means a surge in apps from night to day. Problems that the author of this article is thinking is just because they have invested in an expensive Objective-C programmer to get that small app running and now they cant fire the guy anymore ;)
I had, on my iPhone, Facebook, LinkedIn, Formula1 apps that basically did just that. Parsed some content from the web into some app and showed me the news.
@BigJayDogg3
Symbian apps are lower quality compared to android, webos, and iphone.
Most of the symbian apps available today are still for v3 -- an os that hasn't been updated in years.
@sockatume I actually am willing to bet that a vast majority of the apps for Symbian are A) more useful than a majority of the iPhone apps, and B) not even available in the Ovi Store. JBak Taskman quickly comes to mind, as well as Ded, Open Video Hub, and other apps.
Ovi Store is just ONE OF the places to get Symbian apps. Just Google Symbian applications and see for yourself. While iPhone and Verizon users must pay to use their device as a modem or personal WiFi hotspot, Symbian has free apps in the Ovi Store, or it is hardwired into the OS itself, in the case of USB and bluetooth tethering.
Don't let app catalog counts fool you. Just because its not in the Ovi Store doesn't mean its not available or easily acquired. Ovi Store isn't even close to a complete catalog of the apps available for Symbian. Yet its the second most popular app store in the world, and download numbers are growing faster there than anywhere else.
@N900
Just tell them to focus on Qt and make an app that will cross translate via packaging to WinMo6.x, Symbian, Maemo, MeeGo, WebOS (unofficially) and all of the desktop OSes as well.
How can they be devs and not know about Qt??
@DoctarPeppar claims:
"Symbian apps are lower quality compared to android, webos, and iphone."
How so? Graphically? Maybe, but not usually true. Different? Yes. But can you give an example or two? There's not many apps that are the same except maybe QuickOffice and Dataviz, which I think are on those platforms.
In my opinion, the Symbian versions have always been better, since the OS had support to pull data from the address book, other apps, and use all device APIs even in the background. Plus it used Nokia's WRT and the OSS Browser engine so it allowed Flash in the apps.
"Most of the symbian apps available today are still for v3 -- an os that hasn't been updated in years."
That is a misleading statement. Symbian 3rd Edition is non touch and already years old. Symbian 5th Edition is a totally different OS with some backward compatibility with previous code, just like Windows.
Because they are back compatible doesn't mean they are expressly meant for 3rd Edition. For instance, Qt apps run on all Symbian OS versions past 3rd Edition. No other OS can boast this. There are plenty of apps from Android that won't work on builds from just a year ago.
By the way, Symbian S60 3rd Edition hasn't gotten an update in years?? The N86 just got an update a couple weeks ago, and E55 a month and a half ago. You have little knowledge of Symbian, but I can tell you you are mistaken. Or no... YOU LIE!
@christexaport : I'm a Joikuspot, JBakTaskman, and Gravity user. My comments about the number of apps were witheringly sarcastic.
@BigJayDogg3
Just downloaded it on my E71, but it almost feels like it's a web app. It's different from the mobile site, but it's a little laggy (has all the pictures though). Loads MUCH faster than the full website, just no comments. If this app is tweaked just a bit, it can be very functional.
@BigJayDogg3 If you want a real Engadget app, get Snaptu! Haha, I use it as my Facebook and Twitter clients (there's no official Facebook app available for the N95, and I prefer Snaptu's Twitter client to Tweets60). It actually looks pretty decent.
@HotDog Ovi Maps is great, and I think this ovi app wizard is their way to promulgate their app store to the people. The best part about OVI is almost everything is free and here in Asia its getting popular. http://j.mp/ovi-in-action
Symbian honestly doesn't get enough love. It's not flashy, it's not sexy, but my god it's functional. It could multitask really well, it's extremely reliable, and it syncs with anything.
I wish there was more symbian love in the USA.
Engadget: Just let us know when it's approved. I was going to make my own but since you already went for it...
@aubreyq I just hope this will work on my Nokia E71.
@aubreyq i totally agree with the comments above. if i want an rss feed, i've got gravity. if there's no proper engadget app, then i'm not going to want this
@brrip
Well Gravity is a Twitter client, not an RSS reader. Some mirror their feeds on their Twitter feed, but that's not the standard. OMPL, Atom, and RSS is the standard, and there's a great reader in Nokia's devices. This is for that guy that wants an app PLUS a homescreen widget just for a specific feed.
@christexaport gravity has a google reader plugin
@tacovsgrilledcheese
Shallow Hal? Unfortunately, it's the US of A. Looks are everything.
@brrip
you just made me realize that Gravity is THE BEST MOBILE APP on any platform PERIOD, HANDS DOWN.
It seems real simple. Maybe I can write an app also
Any luck that'll speed up the download time on my N95. Bit slow downloading the full site all the time.
Try using the iPhone site.
i.engadget.com
@BigJayDogg3
Rock Star - best part is it loads faster on my N95 than it does on my partners iPhone.
@BigJayDogg3: What the h... That site is the love my cell phone was asking for. & yeah before I forget [Thanks]
@cRAZY Canuck
You must have the N95-1, which lacked enough RAM. Go with an N95 8gb or N95-3 for a better web experience. But Engadget runs bad on alot of mobiles because of all the rich media. The fact you can play all the flash and the videos embedded puts it above the iPhone and most Android phones out today! And they wondered why the N95 was such a beast in 2007...
@cRAZY Canuck
Get Skyfire and you'll be loading the full site and much more quickly than Opera Mobile or the default browser.
wow that site on the picture...it has 60% news about one brand...
oh wait...
@fast
come on dont start it again...
@ushpiy
Yes, we shouldnt piss them off, they are on a roll on symbian and other news.
@fast
Hell no don't stop. They need to see they are missing out on alot of readers, and obviously haven't learned to connect with the international reader.
They keep iPhoning us to death, even though we're buying Symbian devices at a rate of 3:1! They keep Palm and Android jocking, but any significant Symbian and Nokia coverage is always the hottest commented topic of the day. This is no news everywhere else, but big here on Engadget. They need to start serving their readers better.
I've always wanted to lend my "expertise" in the Nokia/MeeGo/Maemo/Symbian realm to Engadgets Nokia thirsting staff, but no luck so far. But the offer still stands. I'd love it.
I can see where this is leading fast......
Wow, I can do exactly that with XCode using the 'WebKit application' template, in just under 2 minutes. I'm sure it's equally trivial using the WP7 SDK.
Unless there's something missing from the article and you can actually do something halfway interesting with this "Application Wizard" thing, this is all pretty sad for Symbian.
Surely this will populate the Ovi store. Populate it with millions of crappy RSS readers for 1 specific website, exactly the kind of 'applications' Apple is now refusing in the App store because there's already ways to get to that content: a web browser or one of the many dedicated RSS reader applications.
@drange
How is this sad? People do not have to download these apps if they do not want to, and Ovi just needs to make them sortable easily. Like a "simple rss apps" category.
@JFH
It's sad that the Ovi store needs crap like this because there are no real developers wanting to write real applications for it.
@drange
Why does this imply either or. The way I see it, this is just an additional category. It does not in any way mean that people will not write apps for Symbian, and that they have to do this to make the numbers look good.
@drange well that was a nice little twirl. But quite the contrary, ameego, the Ovi store doesn't need this and has plenty of quote-on-quote real developers making "real" apps. These are just for lazies who don't wanna code in Carbide/Python and just wanna get their little app to market. Also, Qt and ^3 are already available for the developers to work with. You should check them out if you still believe that the Ovi store is riding on this wizard.
@JFH
Personally, I see this as an attempt to attract people to your development platform that don't know the first thing about programming, and have them click together millions of crap apps. Which inflates the number of applications in your store, deflates the average quality of them. If your platform has momentum and developers are willing to develop for it, you'd rather not need cut & paste apps at all.
But maybe I am wrong and the Ovi store is chock-full of great, high quality apps, I wouldn't know since I don't have a Symbian phone (I had one a few months ago, a Nokia 5800, and back then the Ovi store was beyond crap, millions of ringtones and wallpapers but no useful applications at all). But if that's the case I don't see how this is news.
@drange
Well I did take a look at the Android market, and it really is not that much better to be honest.
Look, I am not saying that there a million great games in Ovi yet. I am just pointing out that this is not the way they are trying to get developers interested, this is a service to get businesses onboard that otherwise would not have made an app. On any platform.
That does not detract at all from the fact that they are doing everything they can, to make it easier for developers (like you?) to create better apps. With the SDK & WRT they are putting real effort into it.
@JFH
Fair enough. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Symbian, I've always quite liked it actually. Even went as far as taking a peek at the developer docs with an idea I had for an app. But to be honest, the development environment and API's didn't appear particularly attractive to me so I went for iPhone OS in the end. Which is one of the reasons the Ovi store doesn't get as much attention, even though there's so many phones running symbian.
@drange
I see your point. Perhaps the newer tools would make your life easier there.
@drange
Considering that the Apple AppStore's much bloated number comes from ranks of Fart applications and HDD crash simulators, I think RSS type apps is probably a much more useful category of "non-real apps" for bloating up one's AppStore app count. :-/
@naashak
Well, personally, I'd think everyone would be better off if you had neither. No fart apps, and no glorified RSS readers.
@drange
What APIs didn't "attract" you? I'm interested to hear this one...
I also think you fail to realize you almost don't even need an SDK for a majority of Symbian development. Just use Qt, which binds to various APIs on various OSes. It takes out the hard work, yet still works with other native code.