GLOBAL – We wrote in December about the addition of S60 support to Aptana Studio, the open source Ajax and Web development suite. With 3 million downloads so far, Aptana is one of the best app suites to develop mobile applications in, and the addition of support for Nokia Web Runtime (the plugin is available now) means the path to getting apps onto Nokia devices suddenly got a lot easier. Add to this the new Ovi Store and the next phase of the Calling All Innovators competition, and things are looking very rosy indeed for mobile app development.
Making it easy for traditional web developers to create apps and services for mobile devices has previously been something of a tricky nut to crack. Aptana Studio makes it easy and now with support for S60, even easier. We’re not going to into the details of how or why (we’d embarrass ourselves with our blatant lack of development knowledge) but if you’re a web developer who wants to go mobile, we’d strongly suggest you check it out now. You can download Aptana directly from the Forum Nokia website.
Announced at the start of the week, Ovi Store promises to offer a host of applications, games, podcasts and video when it launches to the public before the summer. Right now though, developers can register their interest and from next month start uploading content, including applications. Some of those already in the works will be aimed at making the most of the forthcoming Nokia N97, and it’s enhanced functionality and capability.
With the first phase of Forum Nokia’s Calling all Innovators competition over and the winners announced the other day, the second phase is now kicking off. The focus? Web-based apps, at least for the first two sections. Using standard web-based technologies to create apps for mobile devices was the stuff of dreams a few years ago but now it’s not only easy, but it’s also open season for those who develop the best apps. Our advice? Get your app sketched out and built, get registered at publish.ovi.com and enter the Calling all Innovators competition. Not only will you get your app in front of millions of Nokia users when the Ovi store launches, you could also land yourself a tasty cash prize courtesy of the folks at Forum Nokia.
Oh, and if you want any beta testers for your apps, why don’t you let us know. Now might be a good time too, dear readers, to let us know about any apps you’d like to see on your S60 device.