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Cross-platform mobile application development and paymentsPosted on September 30, 2009 by Mikko OhtamaaFiled Under android, blackberry, html5, iphone, javascript, locationing, payment, series 60, symbian, technology We have been piloting multi-platform mobile application development and payments in few client projects. Target platforms usually include iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Nokia Series 60. Also there are two notable usual cases which need to be specially handled
Sounds easy, right? Well it isn’t… Below are some notes for our due diligence work which you fellow developers might find interesting. SDKsMobile phone vendors are jealously and don’t want to co-operate with each other. Building application which works in all handsets is major headache. We found some reasonable candidates for cross-platform mobile development doing HTML and Javascript. HTML and Javascript pages are converted to native application using a wrapper technology (a.k.a. appaccelerator). Doing Flash Lite or Java ME can be pretty much forgotten nowadays as they won’t run on the most hyped platform, iPhone. Flash Lite has poor support for anything except content authoring due to primitive and limited APIs. Java ME provides horrible user experience. (X)HTML is the only common language spoken by mobile phones. Thus, there has been a rise of “appaccelerators”, technologies which allow to create mobile applications with HTML(5) and Javascript.
All these wrap the browser component (WebKit) and provide some extra Javascript APIs when your web pages as executed under the application mode.
Rhomobile has little different use cases from the rest of the bunch as it provides client-side programming using Ruby and less focuses on Javascript/web applications. Payments and in-application purchasesThere are four major way to do mobile payments “inside” the application for bought content and subscriptions. The price tag on the application itself is left out on this discussion as the application stores themselves take care of it.
App Store payment is the most attractive as it provides the best end user experience. It allows you to use App Store payment mechanism inside the application. It is safe and no need to hassle with external payment providers. However, App Store payment can be used only for content consumed directly inside the application. You cannot use it e.g. for ordering a pizza. I think this might be related to recent EU legislation forbidding SMS payments for services not consumed in the phone itself. SMS payment is ok for little payments. Operators take big cut of the revenue, generally 30% – 70% depending on the country. Short code fees usually start from 500€ set-up fee + 500€ / month. SMS cannot be often send as a background, but the user is presented the normal SMS editor which reduces the user experience somehow. For credit card payments there exists several providers. Credit card has the cheapest entry fees, but the downside is that the user needs to have the credit card. This excludes teenager audience. Direct operator payments are not very well supported yet globally. Most western operators support them. The operator also takes a big share and the fixed fee is pretty high. My favorite payment provider thus far is Bango which provides credit card payment starting 9€ / mo. and scales up to worldwide SMS payments which cost few grannies per month. In most cases, the payment experience will not be smooth. You need to open the phone main browser on the payment provider page to do the payment. This usually will close your own application. Rarely you can do the payment inside the application and support multiple platforms. After doing the payment most platforms allow you to close the browse and reopen your application using a special URL handler. Wikipedia mobile payments page is also useful. Image upload<input type=”file”> won’t work on iPhone and some other platforms as those don’t have user browsable file system. Also the file dialog usually doens’t have image preview making it useless. Phonegap has a branch which supports images picking using iPhone’s own gallery browser. In any case, there is not yet cross-platform solution for this. Future prospectsIn some time-frame we will get rid of the need to wrap HTML applications natively as the web browser applications will support all HTML5 features without extensions and probably have some proprietary extensions for mobile specific features like SMS. We already have had some taste for this:
Introducing Python for Series 60 Community EditionPosted on September 1, 2008 by Mikko OhtamaaFiled Under mobile, python, series 60, symbian This blog post will introduce Python for Series 60 Community Edition. Pythor for Series 60 Community Edition is a new open source effort to push Python for high quality mobile phone development. It aims to provide a maintained software stack for creating real mobile applications. The codebase is derived from the original Nokia’s Python for Series 60 codebase, but has been refactored for better integration with third party extensions and patches and commercial grade application deployment. MotivationBuilding and distributionIt is difficult to distribute Python for Series 60 applications to the end user with the current Nokia’s PyS60 distribution. You probably want to modify or extend PyS60 in some way. Since the build chain and deployment model is not designed for changes this would collide with the other PyS60 installations. Symbian Platform security prevents installing conflicting binaries. Thus, one can effectively have one Nokia PyS60 application in the phone once. There are other problems: Nokia PyS60 distribution has UIDs in Nokia protected range. Embedded SIS file cause extra installation dialog and an application manager uninstall entry. Trimming down Nokia PyS60 distribution is a little bit difficult. To overcome all these issues we created a build chain which spits out monolithic PyS60 distributions. We build only one DLL whose name and UID can be decided. Also the build chain is Scons for Symbian, scrapping the obscure, inflexible and difficult to understand Symbian ABLD once for all. Evolution towards higher qualityCurrently there is no centralized authority to co-ordinate PyS60 open source developers and maintain the repository of all the extension and patches. This effectively prevents the biggest benefit of open source: open innovation and gradual evolution of the product. It would be very nice having all those third party extensions, now scattered around the internet, under one maintained source – making PyS60 more functional out of the box. The community maintained repositories do not have the same restrictions as ones managed by a big public corporations. It is not a probable target of a trigger happy lawyer action and ungentlemanly competition: the discussion and plans can be public and due dilugence check of the code more relax. We started the project in the Launchpad. Launchpad provide a distributed version control system (Bazaar) which streamlines the process of integrating third party commits and patches. This should encourage contribution. The standard build system makes it easy to roll out applications and extensions from bare C++ source up to the end user distributable SIS files. It is yet to see what kind of co-operation possibilities between the community and Nokia exists. In the future, it should be possible to cherry pick patches from PyS60 community edition to Nokia’s own version. Showing the commercial potential of PyS60 in the mobile application developmentOn Python you can write native Series 60 applications with very little effort compared to hardcore C++ banging, lowering the barries to enter the mobile application development. We do not deny that we have an extrinct motivation called money. Of course we have also instrict motivations like thinking Python is the best programming language in the world and we all want to be most respectable gurus in it. Gurus need to eat still, though. We hope that our effort does not go unnoticed in the mobile application development world and good subcontract offers fill our inboxes. Also, there is the John McClane effect. Unless we had done it, no one had. Somebody has to save the world, despite the hangover. It runs on LinuxSince we are no longer dependend on .BAT/Perl/Windows hindered ABLD buildchain, we can (almost) crosscompile and build native Symbian binaries in Linux and Python applications. All good hackers use Linux – but currently there are still kinks and you need to use WINE for some parts – all sane Symbian developers are tied to Windows based tools for now and so are these instructions. PrerequisitementsYou need all this stuff to get things running. Install BazaarYou need Bazaar distributed version control client. We are not planning to have fixed releases for Python for Series 60 community edition any time soon. This is because 1) the most magic happens at a compiler level and we are providing a buildchain 2) we hope this fosters incoming patches. Why Bazaar?
Install ActiveState PerlSeries 60 SDK has ActiveState as a prerequisitement for running its installer. http://www.activestate.com/Products/activeperl/index.mhtml Install Series 60 SDKUse only Series 60 3.0 maintenance release. Other releases have SDK bugs preventing correct Python compilation. Get the Windows installer from http://forum.nokia.com. Forum Nokia Registration is required. Please use the default installation location C:\Symbian\9.1\S603rd_MR. Install Carbide.c++ expressCarbide.c++ comes with a Windows compiler to compile the emulator binaries. You need this only if you indend to develop and test your applications on Series 60 emulator. http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/dbb8841d-832c-43a6-be13-f78119a2b4cb.html Forum Nokia Registration is required. Use Software updater in Carbide.c++ to install PyDev, Python developer extensions for Eclipse. Install Python 2.5Scons build chain and our utility scripts use Python. http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5.2/ Use the installer EXE and the default installation location C:\Python25. If you want to use advanced Bluetooth shell (PUTools) you also need wxPython and pyserial packages. Install SConsPython for Series 60 build script are based on SCons. It is a build system using Python as a recipe langauge. http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=30337 Install SubversionInstall Subversion client for Windows. This is needed for checking out Scons for Series 60. http://www.collab.net/downloads/subversion/ Registration to CollabNet is needed to download Windows binaries. Scons for Series 60SCons for Series 60 is available as a separate project. SCons for Symbian is a build toolchain intended as a replacement for Perl and MMP files used on regular Symbian projects. SCons for Symbian is not limited to build Python – You can use it to build any Series 60 C++ application. http://code.google.com/p/scons-for-symbian/ This is later checked out during to the environment construction, so you do not need to install it now. We have included a workaround for a problem with limited command line length on Windows. Included toolsThe following tools are included in the trunk tools folder: These tools are not licensed under Apache license. Some of them are under GPL license. However, we believe that distribution them is ok, since this falls under GPL’s mere aggregation clause. However if you indent to distribute commercial applications built from PyS60 Community codebase, make sure that you understand the set of different licenses involved. Set up build environmentEnsure that Bazaar is properly in your Windows path. Create a workspace folderFirst you need to subst (make a folder appear as a driver letter) in Windows. Open command line. Go to SDK folder. C:\Symbian\9.1>subst t: S60_3rd_MR T: mkdir workspace Now choose this folder as a workspace folder in Carbide C++ and create an Empty Symbian C++ project called ”pys60” there.
Checkout PyS60 community editionThe go to this folder T: cd workspace\pys60 bzr branch lp:pys60community cd pys60community\src Preparing the buildThis needs to be done only once. We need to pacth the existing Series 60 SDK headers which have some bugs. T: cd \epoc32\include \workspace\pys60\pys60community\src\tools\patch.exe -p1 < \workspace\pys60\pys60community\src\pys60-fix-3rded-sdk.diff EPOCROOT must be set for some Series 60 SDK tools to work. We point to T: drive root. T: cd workspace\pys60\src set EPOCROOT=\ As we still have some dependencies to the legacy system, one needs to configure the build system using PyS60 setup. This will generate some files and defines for Series 60 versio 3.0. c:\Python25\python.exe setup.py configure 30 Do not run bldmake bldfiles. You need to convert legacy MMP build files to SCons based. First we need to possibly fix up PATH, since Carbide C++ might break it. set PATH=c:\program files\bazaar;c:\program files\CSL Arm Toolchain\arm-none-symbian elf\bin;c:\program files\CSL Arm Toolchain\libexec\gcc\arm-none-symbianelf\3.4.3;C:\program files\CSL Arm Toolchain\bin;t:\epoc32\gcc\bin;t:\epoc32\tools;t:\epo c32\tools;C:\program files\CSL Arm Toolchain\bin;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symbian\Tools;C:\Perl\site\bin;C:\Perl\bin;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem c:\Python25\python tools\mmp2scons.py ext\\calendar\\calendar.mmp:60:7: warning: no newline at end of file Creating recipe ext\miso\build.py Creating recipe ext\socket\build.py ... Done! Checkout SCons for Symbian. We assume it lives in src tree. "c:\Program Files\CollabNet Subversion"\svn checkout http://scons-for-symbian.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ scons_symbian Running the buildNow we can execute the actual Python build script. This will create one monolithic emulator DLL which has almost all the PyS60 extensions built in – some extensions need manual building, since they rely on headers not found from standard Series 60 SDK. You might need to reset PATH to default to Carbide C++ after the previous mmp2cons step by reopening the console window. c:\Python25\Scripts\scons You should see the following output. As you can see, UIDs are being allocated dynamically as instructed in Scontruct UID_BASE argument. scons: Reading SConscript files ... EPOCROOT=\ Info: SIS creation disabled Building winscw udeb Defines [] Getting dependencies for e32socket.pyd Getting dependencies for _topwindow.pyd Getting dependencies for zlib.pyd Getting dependencies for _locationacq.pyd Getting dependencies for _location.pyd Getting dependencies for _graphics.pyd Getting dependencies for _sysinfo.pyd Getting dependencies for Python222Config.lib Getting dependencies for Python222.dll Getting dependencies for Python_appui.dll Allocated UID:0xE1000000 Getting dependencies for Python.exe Allocated UID:0xE1000001 Getting dependencies for Python_launcher.exe Allocated UID:0xE1000002 scons: done reading SConscript files. scons: Building targets ... ... scons: done building targets. Now you should be able to start a custom built Python shell in the emulator. You should see the following applications in Installation menu: helloworld, btconsole and filebrowser. Try launch helloworld and if it opens a pop up dialog the build has been succesful. Building a SIS file for mobile phonesTo build a target distribution type: scons release=urel compiler=gcce dosis=true This should yield to the result: scons: Building targets ... ensymble(["MyPythonForSymbian.sis"], []) scons: warning: no package version given, using 1.0.0 scons: warning: no certificate given, using insecure built-in one scons: done building targets. If you want to build a SIS file signed with your developer certificate: c:\python25\scripts\scons compiler=gcce release=urel dosis=true simplesis={'--privkey':'C:\\Certificates\\PrivateKeyNoPassphrase.pem','--cert':'C:\\Certificates\\MyApp.cer','--passphrase':''}
For now, installing the SIS file works only for C drive – we’ll fix this little issue soon. If you do not have a symbiansigned.com developer certificate you can sign the SIS file online for one phone (one IMEI code).
Building your own applicationThe purpose of this project is to make rolling out your PyS60 applications possible – so here we go. Currently we make a quite bad assumption that all the application live in the same source tree with PyS60 community edition due to problems with absolute file paths with Symbian build tools – we will figure out a long term solution for this later. PyS60 applications are stub Symbian executables which boostrap Python virtual machine and start the Python code execution. Executables are linked against a custom PyS60 DLL and they are restricted by capabilities given to the EXE file. PyS60 applications live in applications source tree. The source tree comes with Bluetooth console, Hello world and File browser sample applications. Scons build scripts takes as applications parameter a comma separated list which applications are included in the build. scons builtin=all applications=helloworld,filebrowser Applications consist of
See applications\helloworld folder to examine what files are needed to build an application. All application Python modules go to the private application folder (/private/myapplicationuid). Default.py must boostrap PYTHONPATH (sys.path) for this folder – PYTHONPATH defines where Python interpreter looks for the code. Application UIDs can be chosen manually or they are picked automatically by Scons for the unprotected test range. Note that Python Script Shell application is handled out of this flow due to its legacy heritage. Adding in your own extensionIf you have development an PyS60 extension you can drop in into the buildchain easily. Each extension is defined in ext subfolder. It consists of necessary CPP, H and Python files. The building structure is defined in build.py using SConstruct command PyS60Extension(). Build.py files can be automatically generated from legacy code using mmp2scons.py converter.
c:\Python25\python.exe tools\mmp2scons.py ext\calendar\calendar.mmp:60:7: warning: no newline at end of file ext\progressnotes\progressnotes.mmp:38:7: warning: no newline at end of file ext\uikludges\uikludges.mmp:37:7: warning: no newline at end of file Creating recipe ext\\socket\build.py Creating recipe ext\\glcanvas\build.py Creating recipe ext\\graphics\build.py ... ...Done!
c:\Python25\scripts\scons
>> import applicationmanager If your extension is using thread local storage (Dll::Tls()) you might need to figure out how to workaround with it. See socket module for example. You may also need to play around with the init function of the Python extension – it must be init + module name. Developing on targetIf you want to develop your application on a mobile phone, you do not need to go through the full development cycle for every little change. It is possible to update Python files on a phone without SIS installation. You can either automatically synchronize changed files from your PC to Phone (the example below) or you can edit files in-place on the Phone either using PCSuite or Series 60 SMB server. Here are short instructions how to update files using PUTools console (btconsole). PUTools is wxPython based remote Python shell which allows you to run Python console commands over a Bluetooth connection from your PC. PUTools also has a file syncrhonization feature – after editing source code on the PC changes are reflected automatically to the phone.
T:\workspace\pys60\pys60community\src\tools\putools\pcfiles>c:\python25\python.exe putools.py com5 >> import filebrowser >> filebrowser.FileBrowser.run() Release notesHere is the short summary of differences with the current PyS60 community edition and one available from Nokia. This information is also available in divergence.txt file in the source folder. 2008-08-29 Mikko Ohtamaa <mikko@redinnovation.com>
* PyS60 general
New build chain and static config generation
Migration tool for MMP -> Scons based extensions
Added several tools included in the core distribution: sisinfo, ensymble, cog, patch
Patched py2sis tool
Contains extension: applicationmanager
Contains extension: uikludges
Contains extension: progressnotes
Contains extension: miso
Contains application: Bluetooth shell
Contains example applications: filebrowser, helloworld
Changed Bluetooth console bootstrap to e:\startup.py
2008-08-15 Antti Haapala <antti@redinnovation.com>
* e32socketmodule.cpp:
socket.access_points has more information, two new
fields is given per access point: isptype and bearertype,
whose values are integers corresponding to values returned
by CApSelect::Type and CApSelect::BearerType respectively.
No symbolic constants are yet exported.
* appuifwmodule.cpp:
multi_select_list has a new argument, selected, which defaults
to None. Given a list of integers, the items with the given indices
are initially selected.
ConclusionWe hope this helps you to get started with PyS60 community edition. It’s still a bit complicated, since setting up the build environment on Windows is a such a pain. In the future, when the Linux based build system is reading settings up the development environment should be easier – all those boring steps happen automatically. This might be still too difficult for some of the readers, since a lot of prerequirement work must be done before anything useful can be done. Feel free to comment the article in this blog, but we hope that you use Answers section in Launchpad to ask help and technical questions related to PyS60 community edition. Logging with LogManPosted on June 23, 2008 by Jussi ToivolaFiled Under development tools, pys60, symbian This is my first post on our company blog and I thought I’d tell you something about LogMan, which is developer’s utility for getting logging messages from Symbian device over a USB cable. It is written by me and mostly on my own time. I started the project because I had to do a Symbian excercise for university course and I thought I’d do something useful instead of quickly tinkering something small and easy. LogMan supports both C++ and Python. With LogMan, you can send data to the same location from Python and C++ in real-time instead of using log file(s). Browsing through multiple log files can be tedious and you can’t see the debug output while using your application, because on Symbian you must read the file after the debugging session – Symbian cannot share opened files between applications. It is also possible that you create too much log and you run out of Phone internal memory. LogMan helps by removing the use of log files and you never run out of disk space because messages can be stored directly to PC. On simulator, the messages are also sent to RDebug (%TEMP%\epocwind.out). Surprisingly I have not seen a Python module, which would enable use of RDebug. Even though it is very easy to implement. With RDebug, there is no need to open a serial port on simulator for reading the logging messages. Of course, I tried to use RDebug on device first, but I never got it working. I also tried REcmt, which is supported on S60 only and the service just kept on crashing on my phone. This is why I decided to write LogMan. Plus both are closed software, which effectively prevented me from fixing the problems. Just wondering what kind of benefit Symbian or Nokia gets from keeping development tools such as these closed? What is there so secret about them? It didn’t take me very long to write the first working version. *sigh* The use of LogMan is similar to RDebug. There are static class methods, which are a bit slower but easier, and instance methods. Check the project’s homepage for more examples.
I recently added a new feature for LogMan, which allows you to log stack and heap usage of the current thread with one function. When you are unsure about your heap or stack usage, these might come handy. Of course there is some memory used when calling these so take that into consideration. Python can access MemoryInfo only, which logs both stack and heap (Well, I got a bit lazy at that point). There are equivalent macros for these, so check them out from “logmanutils.h”.
logman.HeapInfo(); The output from MemoryInfo is something like this: Browser for PyS60I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get Browser Control working on PyS60. In a nutshell, CBrCtlInterface wrapper for Python. I have developed it against PyS60Community version in Launchpad. See /src/appui/appuifw/. I have used LogMan extensively to debug the extension so if you want a real example, check out “browsercontrol.cpp”. Browser Control would allow one to embed a browser into his PyS60 application, which would be quite cool. No need to do user interfaces with “appuifw”, which is not very portable. With Browser Control, one could create his user interface with html and javascript, which are a lot more portable indeed. Less work leads to more time. And what is time?… it’s money. Or so I have heard. And being able to handle events with Python instead of C++ is another bonus. Unfortunately, the API is not very stable as you can see by searching for “CBrCtlInterface” at Forum Nokia. The browser worked fine on the simulator with small pages such as “www.google.com”, but it crashed miserably with larger pages. The crash happens in browsercontrol.dll when calling e32.Ao_sleep() in Python. On device it was unable to open any page and crashed instantly when trying to load one. With LogMan, I was able to verify that the crash happened in e32.Ao_sleep() on device also. This reminds me to test on device all the time, which I didn’t do for the first versions. But this is why I added the memory logging feature to LogMan, but it only revealed that I was not out of stack or heap. At least not before the browser started to mess around. I tried to compile the WebKit myself to see what is going on, but the build instructions didn’t work and the build scripts are written in Perl(my eyes started to hurt). What a mess. I don’t wonder anymore if there are bugs in browsercontrol.dll. I finally gave up because my idea pool dried up. Any help getting the wrapper working would be very much appreciated. Plans for LogManI’m planning to add remote shell interface so that you could control your phone from PC. I want access to the file system first. Transfer files, list folders and such. If you have TCB rights ( or hacked phone ) you can speed up development remarkably by simply replacing your binaries in \sys\bin or your Python files with new versions. No need to install sis files and fiddle with certificates and play with memory cards. It would be so nice… I can use 1 day in a week for a personal project so this may happen in near future PyS60 application release build toolchainPosted on April 19, 2008 by Mikko OhtamaaFiled Under mobile, pys60, python, series 60, symbian A common question for Python for Series 60 newcomers is how to build standalone Symbian applications from Python source code. We have been using Makefile based toolchain internally. I describe it in this picture, I didn’t bother to add thumbnail for the image, since it’s a 3400 pixels wide diagram. The diagram describes building a PyS60 application with some Python extensions (Symbian native C++) mixed in and bundling it all to one downloadable SIS file. The application will appear as any first class S60 application in the menu and the user does not know it’s running Python internally, besides bad installation experience (it challenges Microsoft installers with all those unnecessary yes/no questions), extra uninstaller entries and slow start-up time. The biggest problems are caused by embedded SISs (SIS inside other SIS files) which are not treaded very wel by several Symbian parties. In theory, it could be build one monolithic SIS, but you’d need to recompile PyS60 from scratch and patch UIDs inside it for your own UIDs received from symbiansigned.com. We are planning to explore SCons based build solution to address this problem, since Makefiles are a bit unflexible with tasks like PKG file and UID range generation. Here is a PKG file example for final user distributable SIS file. Also, see UIKludges project for additional details for PKG files of Python extensions. You need to have
You need to master
Pros
Cons
Ps. I would have put this thing to wiki.opensource.nokia.com, but their webmaster email address is non-functional and one cannot upload images to their Wiki. Symbian digging its own grave with symbiansigned.comPosted on March 14, 2008 by Mikko OhtamaaFiled Under mobile, signing, symbian Edit: Made correction to iPhone SDK price/added self-signed option I have been recently involved in Symbian development. Unfortunately, I could say. Symbian has made the life of Symbian developers headacheful. The main problem is that the application signing is made unnecessary cumbersome. Getting a required developer certificate to just to run your one liner test code is a long road paved with curses, stress and ponder how a world class company can screw up things so badly. I write this post to vent out the frustration. Hopefully someone picks up the feedback presented here. Personally, I don’t care anymore really. After explaining to the customer once “I am afraid that we cannot have the demo in this meeting, since we were unable to get the developer certificates in time. It was nice you did summon all of your executes, though.” my sympathy towards Symbian has fallen to zero. In the long run, I believe, this will hurt Symbian when developers leave the platform. When this happens Symbian will miss 1) developer base 2) the wow value of all new cool things when hackers move to happier platforms – after all you don’t want to work with things causing a headache even if you are paid generously. Professional Symbian capable developers are already rare and scaring away the potential candidates (students, open source developers, freeware developers) won’t really help the matter. Of course, for us, who are already in the business, it’s good since we can raise our hourly fee and die as rich dinosaurs (remember COBOL). Looks like the root problem is the cocky attitude: “We are the biggest mobile operating system in the world. You are not our customer, the biggest mobile phone brands are. Thus, you are an insignicant fly and we don’t need to listen to you. Please go away.” The big boys tell that this very same reason lead to Motorola’s fall from the number one mobile phone vendor position – so let’s see if the history is repeating itself. The problems of Symbian development process, especially signing, are well known. Symbian Signed forum category has 120 000 views. Symbian signed support requests has 57 000 views and 2000 messages, since November 2007. Over a thousand support requests in four months. Symbian has money. It could fix the problem if it has will. If there is will in the organization and the work just does not progress, the corporate world has a simple solution: fire the management and hire capable responsible persons. I won’t go the details of the problems in this post. I have prepared a post containing over 50 bulletins with detailed steps to get the developer certification process done and it lists every little mistake in Symbian Signed process. Unsurprisingly, the post mentions fuck and hell over twenty times, so I am reluctant to post it on our company site. So I sketched a manager comprehensible overview of the state of the process in this post. To justify my criticism, I compare Symbian to Apple iPhone and make some suggestion how to fix things. Certificate costsSymbian: 200$/1.5 years (you need a publisher id to get a developer certificate) + 20$ per signing round Update: You can still make self-signing certificates yourself with limited capabilities (no GPS), but symbiansigned.com doesn’t bother to mention it. Apple: 99$/year (for testing and distribution applications) Suggestion: Make the developer certificate free. It used to be free, but based on this post, Symbian signed claims that they do not have enough CPU power, because of all kind of nasties are knocking their server. Come on! it’s Internet. You are hosted by Cidercone and by knowing how much they charge for the hosting I believe you can get every possible server power in the world to generate your keys. This development start up cost automatically excludes third world people, freeware makers and students i.e. the future Symbian professionals. It’s hard to maintain a platform if there is not enough skilled people to work with it. There won’t be meat into Nokia’s and Sony-Ericsson’s innovation machines. Development start lead timeHow long it takes to get “Hello World” code to the phone. Symbian: 8 workdays Apple: 6 hours Complete Guide to Symbian Signed guide (manual) is 20 pages PDF. How often you need a user manual to use a web site? Even with this page amount, the manual lacks crucial pieces of information which you need to hunt and ask help from the Symbian Signed support forums. I had to make 3 support request for Symbian Signed and 1 for TrustCenter. Set-up processSymbian: Create 3 user accounts (symbiansigned.com, developers.symbian.com, TrustCenter). Fax your passport and some signed papers to TrustCenter Germany. Wait when your request is manually processed. Ask TrustCenter what I do with the link they send me (hint: the only working web browser for their site is the very same browser you orignally submitted your application from). Convert TrustCenter key to Symbian specific format using obscure BAT tool. Use half-baked Windows EXE to generate files. Ask at the support forums permission to be allowed to create the Publisher id. Apple: Download SDK. Click “I Agree.” Symbiansigned management team must be either incomplete or inexistent, or they just hate their users. Looks like no one didn’t bother model or test this process, since the flaws are so apparent. Why do we need three user accounts? Why do we need a user account at all, isn’t my credit card payment enough? Why there can’t be a single web page on symbiansigned.com where I could do these all things without? Also, Symbian could do these things without third parties (TrustCenter) who are badly integrated to the process. Web site and information reachabilitySymbian: Two sites with different user accounts. Information is spread around and hidden behind various for registred users only pages. Often Symbian PDFs (yes they seem to prefer zipped PDFs) and web pages cross-link to other sites and these links are broken. Their internal site search engine does not give meaningful results. Google cannot search pages, since they are hidden behind the registration. Web forms don’t work. Navigation paths are unclear and you often need to guess where a certain piece of information could be. Apple: One site – and it just works. Why Symbian hides a crucial BAT tool in the page labyrinth of developers.symbian.com and behind login? Does the 100 lines of BAT code contains a very hidden trade secret? I doubt. (I also doubt that a BAT tool is a good way to solve a problem which could be fixed with a web form or Javascript, but that’s another matter.) I think this is the part of the attidude problem. SymbianSigned.com mission is not to “secure” the development and control the developers of the platform. It’s mission should be easily enable developers to start development and release their software for Symbian. The meaning of “easily” includes that the web site is working and up to the standards. Please hire a usability expert (we are here) and get it fixed. This problem is not solvable by writing yet-another user manual PDF. Giving feedbackSymbian: Support like goes to the Symbian developer forum. A bulleting board with unorganized, angry, posts. They don’t give a feedback form to report the problems on Symbian Signed. Apple: “There are three great ways to get answers to your questions about ADC membership, products, and services: visit our Frequently Asked Questions web pages, submit your questions or feedback using the form below, or call us to speak directly to a worldwide support agent. We look forward to assisting you.” I’d help symbiansigned.com to get its site better if I could. When there is a broken link, I can hit feedback and ask them to fix it. But looks like they want to be ignorant about the matter – if I report a problem on their forum I bet no one will ever fix it. There won’t be even “thank you.” Probably no one ever reads my post. On the other hand, when having such non-functional service, this feedback channel would be flooded in overnight. ConclusionSymbian has unforgiveable screwed up with its signing process and doesn’t seem to get the feedback from the developers who suffer from it. Steve Ballmer’s famous quote “developers, developers, developers” refer to what’s the important factor making the platform succesfully in long term. This is especially crude when you know that things used to be good. |
