Nokia World: Nokia reaches out to developers

SDK enhancements designed to encourage developers to write apps for Nokia phones

Nokia has unveiled key improvements to its developer toolkit designed to make it easier and more profitable to make apps for the Ovi Store and reach Nokia's 1.3 billion user base.

Enhancements to Nokia's Qt software development kit (SDK) include reducing the lines of code required when developing for Symbian smartphones by 70 per cent, significantly cutting the time it takes to create an app. Java and Symbian app-signing is now free and takes only one click.

The opportunity for developers to make money will also be increased. Nokia will raise the revenue share from 1 October, and allow developers to include built-in app purchases in games by allowing users to buy extra features, for example.

Developers are now able to future-proof apps by adapting them to run on mobile platforms such as MeeGo, allowing developers to take advantage of any additional features or APIs those platforms may have, the firm added.

Nokia also announced an SDK for Series 40 Touch and Type devices. The SDK is available to download from forum.nokia.com, and will make development for these devices simple, the firm said.

Crucially, it allows easy porting of existing apps created for current Nokia smartphones.

The Ovi Store, meanwhile, has been redesigned to make it faster and easier to find apps, Nokia said.

Nokia has made a lot of progress to create an ecosystem that developers will embrace, according to Purnima Kochikar, vice president of Forum Nokia.

"We have made it much simpler, removed obstacles and made it more lucrative for people to build apps for our phones," she said.

"We believe that this will convince more developers to build apps for the millions of people in more than 190 countries using the Ovi Store on their Nokia devices."

Developers can distribute apps to approximately 175 million Nokia Symbian smartphones, the largest smartphone user base in the world, Nokia said.