Digia announces enhanced BB10 support for Qt

Digia, the company that acquired Qt from Nokia has announced enhanced support the Blackberry's new Blackberry 10 operating system.

Qt is a framework that works across many platforms (both desktop and mobile) and allows developers to use the same front-end code which will work across all the supported platforms and Qt is used in Blackberry's Cascade framework which is used to develop native Blackberry applications.

Digia maintains the commercial version of Qt and also the open source version that is available from the Qt Project which is where any Blackberry enhancements are upstreamed to.

Nokia dumps Qt

Nokia has sold the Qt business to Digia including 125 staff mainly from Oslo and Berlin. Digia had already purchased the Qt licensing business from Nokia in March 2011.

Qt is a cross platform set of libraries allowing developers to use the same front-end code for MacOS X, Windows and Linux (as well as other embedded system like Symbian, INFINITY, VxWORKS and QNX). Qt was originally developed by Trolltech which Nokia bought in 2008.

Nokia has lost its way in recent years having dropped its lead in the mobile phone markets (though it still has a large base in 3rd world countries) as is now concentrating on a smartphone market using Microsoft Windows Phone.

Digia is hoping to further develop Qt which has been used by over 450,000 developers and Digia is hoping to rapidly support MS Windows 8, Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

The commercial version of Qt will be maintained at Digia and the open-source variant at Qt-Project.

Nokia releases MeeGo v1.1

Nokia has released version 1.1 of the MeeGo Operating System (OS) which contains Linux Kernel 2.6.35, X.org server 1.9.0, Web Runtime, Qt 4.7, and Qt Mobility 1.0.2. It's available in several versions optimised for the devices that they run on i.e. MeeGo for Handsets, MeeGo for Netbooks, MeeGo for In-Vehicle Entertainment.

The Netbook version is actually 2 versions, one with the completely open source Google Chromium browser and the other with Google's Chrome browser which requires the suer to agree to Google's EULA.

Though the handset version supports Nokia's N900, they say it works but it's not really for end-users yet and the the user interface (UI) isn't ready for prime-time.

The IVE release supports text-to-speech using the open source Festival speech engine and speech recognition using PocketSphynx (which is based on the open source Sphynx speech-to-text system).

Though Nokia are developing MeeGo (which is the combination of Nokia Maemo OS and Intel's Moblin OS) it may be another dead-end OS as Android is starting to dominate the smart-phone market and Google will release their ChromeOS for Netbooks (though Android is already being used on tablets).

Qt (the cross-platform toolset that Nokia acquired with Trolltech) is the key technology that Nokia want to push (it sits on top of MeeGo and Symbian as well as MacOS and Windows) and MeeGo may just be a way to ensure they have an in-house development platform that's use don live devices, but that cant be a long-term strategy (MeeGo is only officially supported on the N900 and Aava devices in terms of handsets).

MeeGo version 1.2 can be expected in 6 months i.e. April and will include a more polished UI and other new features.

Nokia port Qt to Maemo

Nokia have ported Qt (the multi-system GUI layer) to Maemo which is the operating system that runs on their tablets such as the N900. Nokia previously purchased Trolltech who produce Qt which now runs on various UNIX like operating system, MacOS X and Windows and of course Symbian.

The Maemo port means there's a consistent programming interface for Nokia's main platforms and it means programs can easily be ported across systems.

The Maemo version should come out by the end of the year (for V5 of Maemo) and the Symbian version will follow.