Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

I think another huge difference between the iPhone and the Maemo devices is that iPhone was a HUGE project for Apple and they probably had a huge amount of the company working on it at the same time. Nokia's pretty much exclusively phones and Maemo probably didn't get anywhere near as many resources in comparison to Apple.

Also, let's admit it... the entire phone industry was pretty much blindsided by Apple's entry into the cell phone market.

Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

We can certainly synchronize on that. ;)

Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

>As to maturing speeds of iPhone and NITs (simplified) :

Closed developement in business has a deadline set.
When that gets close, code must be delivered
with what features time has allowed.

Open software developement is more like scientific research,
when the code is ripe, it is published.


>As to maemo SDK having a steep learning curve ,
a cynical comment:

Nokia at this stage, where the OS needs manpower,
wants (only) really qualified developers.
And with an easy SDK, there might have been to many programs
complaining about non-compatibility as Nokia presents new hardware.

Once the platform has matured, things could get different . . .

Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

As much suck as WinMo was, you'd think that somebody other than Apple would see the gaps and capitalize quickly.

RIM did. Apple did.

Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

gerbick, your feedback is very appreciated! I do see your points. I'm just trying to explain further why the things at Maemo are in the way they are.

For instance, SDKs sit on top of toolkits. This is why the change to the Qt toolkit has such a big impact for the Maemo SDK. And for the Symbian SDK. Remember our announcement in July and the cross-platform strategy.

Now, offering to developers an SDK based on Qt and also simpler runtimes build on top of it, with a simple path for porting apps to Symbian is a very different story that might entice many developers. Not just core Linux developers but also the mobile developers.

About the speed, it could be faster if that OSS code wouldn't be actually developed in several projects out of Nokia and if Maemo would be the one and only platform of this company. However, I personally believe that is thanks to these factors that the Maemo march is powerful, incremental and capable to reach the highest goals.

Yes, it requires more patience and perseverance (but these are good values leading to success, isn't it) ;)

Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

This statement's been bothering me all weekend, and I've realised why: it's short-sighted and puts us in the "always follow" mode.

Instead of investigating the benefits of another platform and why it's been successful in developing lots of apps (some of which most of us would consider "noise"), we just watch what their mass army of developers produce and clone the good stuff?

Can't we entice imaginative developers?

I loved Cube Runner. However I've got an idea for a 3D version using the accelerometers. Writing 3D games is too much up in the air though, with various comments like "stop HIldon Desktop first" through to "use Qt, it makes it easy"; and then there are things like COGL which sound like the best of both worlds. The lack of Open GL-ES testing is also an obvious problem. More leadership needed from Nokia here, methinks.

Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

Considering the topic title, that's important mostly if you are planning Qt presence on the iPhone (at that point will it start to bleed iPhone developers to Qt platforms, Symbian or Maemo, as it will allow developers to address a broader market). I don't think 'just' a shiny SDK in itself is interesting enough (otherwise they'd be already present en masse on WebOS).

Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

Now that basically the Rover is the only foreseeable GNU/Linux smartphone in the pipeline I'd expect to see the number of developers increase. Hope to see some interesting apps appearing in the platform :D

Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

There must be something in my vocabulary that makes you read in such a restrictive way what I'm trying to explain. :)

I was just trying to move away from the idea of 'tens of thousands of apps if you want compare' to a more reasonable 'what is clearly missing if you want to compare'. And that was the only and humble point of my post.

Re: How can we encourage iPhone developers to develop on Maemo?
 

Of course, once we do entice lots and lots of developers to Maemo, we need to make sure the user experience is there for finding stuff. There's an interesting down side exposed in The 35 Best iPhone Apps of the Year (so far):