Symbian development - An alternative to embedding applications

I usually don't write articles about actual Symbian development issues, but this time I think I make an exception, if you don't mind. If you don't speak "Symbianish" or simply are not interested, then please skip the rest of my post. Nevertheless, I hope that the majority of you will just keep on.

I was in London on last Sunday for Nokia Developer Day. I was invited, because I'm a Forum Nokia Champion. There was an interesting presentation about Location Based Services and some technical details were revealed as to what Nokia would come out with as part of their upcoming SDK, namely S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2. It's not secret that they're going publish Map and Navigation API and an important feature of that API is the ability of launching Maps application stand-alone or embedded.

If you speak Symbianish, then you should know what launching an application in embedded mode means: your application loses focus and hands it over to the embedded application so that you have no control over it as long as that application owns the focus. It's worth noting, though, that albeit your application has lost focus it's still the main (hosting in other words) application that just makes use of services provided by another application. This can be seen by having a look at the list of currently running applications, where it's the name of your application that is in the list and not the one you have embedded.

The advantage of launching an application embedded in your application is that you don't have to bother with how it works internally, you just start it up and basically rely on that it works properly. On the other hand, this way of using other applications' services has disadvantages, too: one is that you have no influence on the menu structure of the embedded application.

Why is that important? Well, a real use case that we had to implement recently is that an application 1: shall be able to show some points-of-interest (POIs) on a map and 2:
shall have its own menu structure. We were happy to hear that Map and Navigation API would be available for public use, however, launching Maps application to satisfy our first requirement would mean that we would not be able to satisfy the second.

Then I started wondering how it could be done. Since I was deeply involved in the development of S60 Browser application some time ago, I know quite a lot about the application and the ecosystem around it. For example, I knew that a new approach had been introduced as part of the "Browser-offering" ~2 years ago that allows an application developer to use a (CCoeControl-based) control in her application. That control is called Browser Control (its API is BrowserControl API) and basically it is capable of showing & handling a web page just as the built-in Browser application does. So essentially your application can have its own menu structure, whilst also being able to show a web page. It gives you more flexibility and freedom if you use this API in favor of launching Browser in embedded mode, however, it's also more complex - sometimes unnecessarily.

Finally, we reached the point of my article: wouldn't it make more sense for applications that can be embedded (since not each application can be embedded) to offer such a (CCoe)control-based solution as well? For example, if the newly announced Maps and Navigation framework published such a service, then I shouldn't be worried about how to solve my problem. But this question is more general than to narrow it down to this special use case. I think, if some architects and/or lead designers from Nokia read my article, then I suggest them to think about it.

As a last thought, you might be wondering how I'm gonna work out this problem eventually. Well, there happened to be another presentation on that very day (i.e. Sunday) about Web Widget development on S60. I'm just thinking about writing an S60 widget that makes use of Google Maps API so that everyone is happy. :)

Any comments are welcome!

Tote

Treading on shaky ground

If I were Dumbledore, then I could put my thoughts, memories in my pensive to keep my mind clear and fresh. But I'm not him at all and my mind now feels overburdened with news that I can't keep in - so I let them out.

You know, it's a great thing to tag blog articles. It keeps them categorized, easy to look for, easy to oversee, etc. What I'm now about to write, though, fits in a new category (well, at least to me): treading on shaky ground. What is it? You'll see, just read on!

Everybody paid immediate attention to one of Nokia's recent acquisitions, the agreement for Nokia to acquire NAVTEQ. You know, two things couldn't escape most people's attention: first, the huge amount of money Nokia is willing to pay ($8.1 billion!), second, that it is such an area (GPS and location-based services) that hasn't been fully explored yet. They must foresee something (and of course play an active role in it) that others haven't been thinking of yet!

And it's not the only acquisition Nokia was recently involved in: for example, they also merged with Enpocket. This deal is to give a boost to advertisement after the public announcement that Nokia is opening to the Internet. Not as if we didn't know that NSeries is open to anything, we now know that to the Internet, too. In addition, and I'm sure most of you already know, Nokia has launched new services for content download & consumption lately, check out Ovi and MOSH to see what I mean.

So good, so nice. But you know what? There are some parties who are not happy with Nokia opening to Internet and offering content online. It's said to be the operators (carriers in US) who will lose the most money if Nokia happens to be successful in this area. Although their online offering (mostly ringtones and themes) can usually be described with one word, pathetic, they're still the biggest revenue generator for Nokia. What happens, for example, if some UK operators refuse to sell new Nokia models? What happens if others follow them? Although, as I've already pointed out, Nokia might not be really affected by such a sudden(?) move in the US, it'd still be an unpleasant thing to happen to Nokia. I sort of have a feeling that what we see happening around is a total war between Nokia and others (operators, mobile manufacturers, OS vendors, etc.). That's the way how it goes.

As to mobile operating systems, the competition is also getting more and more tough. Although it's nicely put by Atmasphere that iPhone is a feature phone, in contrast with N95, the über-smartphone, Apple definitely has influence on newer phones not only from Nokia, but other handset makers, too. It's also worth noting what he found about the afore-mentioned two phones:

The iPhone is for consuming content, while the N95 is for creating it.

So from that point of view, Apple might not pose a considerable risk to Nokia's position yet. But how about Google? Even though it's a bit of an old news that Google is working on a mobile OS, I'm wondering how it will threaten Symbian's future. It's said to be a Linux variant (a new distribution to make the market even more fragmented?) and of course will be ad-supported (== cheap). Looking forward to it!

Thanks for being my pensive so far, I feel really relaxed now. And also eager to know what you think about all these things I've mentioned!

Cheers,

Tote

Being featured by Nokia

I am honoured to be the featured Forum Nokia Champion this month. However, to be honest I was not prepared for the increased interest about me and my work and surprised to see the flood of e-mails day by day asking me for help regarding this and that problem. I try to answer these e-mails as thoroughly as I can, however, I'm afraid I can't give perfect answers to all of them.

Nevertheless, e-mails are only one thing. People are asking me to let them join my LinkedIn network, too. Although the way they're asking it varies case by case, I'm afraid I have to refuse these requests all. You know, my biggest concern is that I wouldn't like to acknowledge that I know someone with whom I've never met. And since giving referral of someone is one of the core features of this networking site, it simply doesn't make any sense for me to do so.

But the last thing that happened to me just the other day is that I got an e-mail from Sargam Bansal. Yes, right from him (her?). I don't know where he took my e-mail address from or if it has anything to do with me being featured by Nokia, but it doesn't matter at all: he found me. Let me cite his e-mail in its entirety:

to: my e-mail address
cc: Olli-Pekka.Kallasvuo@nokia.com

Dear Sir,

I ve been using Nokia for past 5-6 years.
I had submitted my Phone NOKIA 3250 at Nokia Care Centre Sector 3 Noida(JOB SHEET NO:-1200196776 ; Serial No :- 357933005291399) for the problem it used to hang when music was on & some call used to come.

I got my cell after 15 days & after that the phone's condition was horrible. Itwas completely damaged , not even it was able to switch on. The Phone was submitted again. It been over one month & on each visit they are delaying the date.Not only me many people coming there are totally frustrated for the service being provided by Nokia care centres .

I emailed over a week ago and I have not received any reply. Similarly, when people email Nokia's Customer Support they are getting no response, which is surely unacceptable.
Due to such irresponsible behaviour, there has grown immense dissatisfaction among us, the users of NOKIA & also it makes me doubted about the name NOKIA have had in the past years. Now it has became a difficult question to answer.. Can we really trust NOKIA now???

I am sure you will be concerned about this matter and I would respectfully ask for your assistance in arranging for Customers to better informed and to receive prompt responses to complaints and enquiries.I hope you can agree that this should not be too much to ask nor beyond the capability of Nokia.
Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks & regards,

Sargam Bansal

Regardless of the seriousness of this e-mail, it's quite obvious that I can't help. Other than publishing this e-mail so that other (more competent) people can also read it and possibly react on it. However, there is one thing that I hope you have also noticed: who was cc:-d in this e-mail? Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's CEO and not other. You know, I've never dreamt of being in the same e-mail group than him, but now that I have achieved it, I think I'll make an exception with Olli-Pekka: I'm ready to accept his invitation on LinkedIn. :-)

Tote