[BangPypers] mobile application development

Thu Dec 17 10:47:50 CET 2009

I think whether you chose Symbian or Mameo comes down to whether you are
betting on the future of cell phones being Linux or not, and what sort of
time frame you are most concerned about.

Many cell phones currently run Linux behind the scenes.  The N900 (excluding
one or two failed "open source" phones) represents the most Linux-y of these
Linux phones.  By that I mean it is the closest to Linux in terms of the
ecosystem - the same tools, libraries, etc. we find on the desktop and the
server (and again - I emphasize closest..not the same).  I suspect that
twenty years from now the spiritual ancestor of many phones - not just from
Nokia - will be the N900.

I'll be shocked if Symbian is still available on new phone models five years
from now.  It will certainly take a while before Nokia switches everything -
and they have to be careful with what they say today - they still need to
sell plenty of Symbian phones in the meantime.

Now if your goal is to make a lot of money with an application that you
write in the next six months, clearly you'd want to chose Symbian over the
N900.  But really, you'd want to choose the iPhone if that was your goal.
And that would mean no Python.  :(

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai <
abpillai at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:08 PM, Pankaj Nathani <croozeus at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Anand,
> >
> > >Now let me ask you, if you are starting mobile development today
> > and given these two phones, which one will you pick ?
> >
> > I had choose Symbian over Maemo for now, only for the fact that there is
> > just one phone device with Maemo on it and other devices to be released
> are
> > going to be mobile computers rather than phones.
> >
> >
>  Ok. I would opt for N900 cuz I expect the tablet computer/Internet mobile
> device/smart-phone divisions to blur in the coming years. Most of
> mobile computing is going to be on such devices and yes Symbian
> would still run on lower-end phones, but that is not a class of technology
> I worry about.
>
>
> >
> > >I might be mistaken here, but PyS60 has been there for some time -
> > but can  you point out at least a few popular applications entirely
> > developed using it ? I can't find even one good game that has been coded
> > entirely in PyS60 so far.
> >
> >
> >
> http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Python_Technical_Overview#Sample_Applications
> > http://croozeus.com/blogs/?page_id=838
> >
>
>  I see you are an avid PyS60 developer :)
>
>
> > Cheers,
> > Pankaj!
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Anand Balachandran Pillai <abpillai at gmail.com>
> > To: Bangalore Python Users Group - India <bangpypers at python.org>
> > Sent: Thu, December 17, 2009 11:57:52 AM
> > Subject: Re: [BangPypers] mobile application development
> >
> > On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 10:20 AM, Pankaj Nathani <croozeus at yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I have to say something here :-)
> > >
> > > >Symbian is nearing end-of-life as the chosen platform for smartphones
> > > for Nokia.
> > >
> > > Well, thats not true. Symbian is going to be the platform for
> smartphone
> > > development for Nokia. Nothing is stopping them from doing so.
> > >
> >
> > Hmmm...I looked at N97 and N900 specs and apart from better display
> > (OpenGL) on the latter and the difference in the OS (and perhaps camera
> > also) there was nothing much to choose from among them.
> >
> > Now let me ask you, if you are starting mobile development today
> > and given these two phones, which one will you pick ?
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Maemo is target to high end mobile devices - tablets/netbooks, etc. So
> > you
> > > will be seeing some products from Nokia on Maemo targeted to such
> > consumers.
> > > Maemo and Symbian are never on the same level of competition, remember.
> > >
> > > Symbian has its open plan for years ahead - Symbian^1 (already
> present),
> > > Symbian^2 (Starting 2010), Symbian^3 (mid 2010) and Symbian^4 (end
> 2010)
> > > ahead. Also, the same pattern reflects on Nokia's roadmap - the plan
> for
> > > 2010 and ahead from the Nokia's Capital Markets day.
> > >
> > > Regarding PyS60, yes its getting better and getting more mobility
> > > functionalities - it has been ported to core 2.5 and you should be
> seeing
> > a
> > > new release very soon as well. And yes, Python is also supported on
> > Maemo.
> > >
> >
> > Almost anything that compiles on a Debian and can be ported using
> > Scratchbox (which is again almost any Linux app) will run on Maemo.
> > You have a wide choice of platforms to code on - Python, C/C++,
> > Ruby anything.
> >
> > I might be mistaken here, but PyS60 has been there for some time -
> > but can  you point out at least a few popular applications entirely
> > developed using it ? I can't find even one good game that has been coded
> > entirely in PyS60 so far.
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Pankaj.
> > > (Croozeus)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Anand Balachandran Pillai <abpillai at gmail.com>
> > > To: Bangalore Python Users Group - India <bangpypers at python.org>
> > > Sent: Thu, December 17, 2009 9:54:42 AM
> > > Subject: Re: [BangPypers] mobile application development
> > >
> > > On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Anish Kurian <anishk33 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > you sure can develop mobile applications using python.
> > > > u can download the SDK for particular group of handset. Nokia S60
> > mobiles
> > > > use PyS60 SDK. Maybe similar ones are available for other handsets.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Symbian is nearing end-of-life as the chosen platform for smartphones
> > > for Nokia. As you might know N900 was recently released in select
> markets
> > > around the world and it runs a fully Debian-derived Linux OS named
> > > Maemo. I have been reading through N900 and Maemo reviews and
> > > this looks like disruptive technology.
> > >
> > > Symbian is still the largest selling smartphone OS right now, but
> > > can't stand up to the challenges posed by Android, Web OS etc.
> > > Symbian is not developer friendly and has stability issues. I am
> > > looking forward to get my hands on an N900 and hacking on the
> > > Maemo.
> > >
> > > Nokia is betting on Maemo - the only current issue is that it
> > > is fully GTK based (Hildon/Matchbox) but I read that Nokia
> > > is planning to bring in QT as a choice to it pretty soon.
> > > Since Nokia invests a lot in Qt this definitely make a lot
> > > of sense.
> > >
> > > Take a look at N900 and Maemo. It is surely one of the
> > > directions mobile development will take, the other being
> > > Android and its clones.
> > >
> > >
> > > > On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 7:09 PM, pradeep T <itpradeep.38 at gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > hi friends,
> > > > >  am a begginer of this language and dont know much.
> > > > >
> > > > >  Is it possible for me to develop a mobile application using this
> > > > >  language...
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> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > --Anand
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> > >
> > >
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
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> >
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>
>
> --
> --Anand
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