GLOBAL – Symbian Horizon is a new application-publishing program previewed today by the folks at The Symbian Foundation. The program, set for release in October is designed to make publishing applications to Symbian platforms faster and easier for developers. Symbian Horizon also sports a range of support services to smooth the way for introducing applications.With 49.3 per cent of the world’s smartphones running Symbian OS, the way is clearing for developers to tap into a huge audience. The OS also appears on over 70 devices from different manufacturers including of course the wide range of Nokia devices.
Symbian is the only platform that supports a comprehensive runtime suite including Java ME, Adobe Flash Lite, C++, Python and a full web toolkit. In short, the range of tools on offer to developers is unique and powerful, enabling rapid development of fully featured applications.
Developers using Symbian Horizon will also be able to tap into services such as in-store promotion, language translation, app certification and marketing programs. Naturally, Ovi Store from Nokia is already participating, along with a number of others who are already signed up or in discussion.
Marco Argenti, VP of Media and Games at Nokia said
“Symbian Horizon will further complement Ovi Store in cooperation with our global developer community, Forum Nokia, to discover the best quality apps and make them available for Nokia consumers around the world”
Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation said
“Our goal is to encourage robust application development, increase revenue and application diversity in mobile stores, and improve the consumer experience – all for the greater benefit of the mobile ecosystem.”
UK newspaper and global news provider The Guardian is one of the early app developers involved. Hugh Macdermott, head of New Product Development at The Guardian said
“Mobile is a significant and increasingly important area for us. We are therefore delighted to be involved with Symbian Horizon so early on, as part of our ongoing mobile development program through which we will be working with a number of mobile platforms in order to introduce a wide range of applications for our global audiences.”
This is another step forward for application developers, and for users who will soon have access to even more applications and services to extend their device’s functionality. With the increase in app stores of late, Horizon provides a perfect complement to sit between application publishers and Symbian-based app stores, enabling developers to reach a wider, global audience quickly and easily.