S60 Open to new features

In my initial FP2 post I promised to look into developer aspects of it. FP2 has strong emphasis of making life of developers easier. Open C is the biggest new thing but there are enhancements also in other areas. We have updated Flash Lite to Flash Lite 2.1 and the taken the first step in Java platform evolution to Mobile Service Architecture (MSA).

Open C

Tommi already told the most important points of Open C. For those of you who have been following Symbian announcements lately, Open C was not that big surprise. On 16th of January this came out:

Symbian Ltd today announced the introduction of POSIX libraries on Symbian OS™, which will significantly reduce the effort required to migrate existing desktop and server components, and mobile applications from other platforms, onto Symbian OS. The move will help broaden and deepen application development for Symbian OS and help improve developer productivity. Symbian OS is the market leading operating system for smartphones.

P.I.P.S. - PIPS Is POSIX on Symbian - will enable C programmers to more easily migrate existing middleware and applications, either commercial or open source, to Symbian OS by providing standard POSIX C APIs on Symbian OS. This has been achieved by supplying a new framework of POSIX C APIs for use by both C and C++ programmers. The new APIs are packaged into industry standard libraries - libc, libm, libpthread and libdl - and are tightly integrated with Symbian OS to optimize performance and memory usage. In addition, an updated tool chain will further reduce migration effort.

Now when Open C was announced with FP2 it brought 5 more standard C libraries available for S60 developers. Those libraries are libz, libcrypt, libcrypto, libglib, libssl. The result is an initial release of the Open C library that covers more than 70 percent of the functions contained in the desktop and server projects on which the mobile libraries are based. The implementation includes 100 percent coverage of libraries containing such mobile-critical features as password hashing (libcrypt), compression (libz), and loading DLLs (libdl), while scaling back coverage in libraries containing esoteric functions that hold little relevance to mobile developers.

This effort makes native development on S60 easier and is especially important when porting open source projects to S60. The core application logic and functionality is not dependent on the specific platform on which it executes but naturally also Symbian OS programming skills are needed when porting applications to S60. Forum Nokia pages provide more details.

Java

3rd Edition FP2Java technology supported is Java ME, consisting of MIDP 2.1 CLDC 1.1. For the first time we comply with Mobile Service Architecture. The idea of the Mobile Service Architecture (MSA) to minimize fragmentation of Java. The Mobile Service Architecture defines two stacks: a full MSA stack that comprises 16 JSRs, and a subset of eight JSRs. FP2 follows MSA subset implementation.

If you are thinking, what is behind this MSA and where it all started, have a look to this old Nokia press release. Two and half year ago Nokia and Vodafone were ready to announce MSA. Naturally MSA development work had started earlier than this announcement and development is still ongoing. As you know first PF2 devices are estimated to enter to market 2H2007 so 3 years after initial MSA announcement. I wouldn't call us fast in this case.

Flash Lite

FP2 Flash Lite version is upgraded to 2.1. It has been available from Adobe pages, but from FP2 onward this version is preinstalled to the devices. More information about Flash Lite 2.1 can be found from Adobe pages. A depth of integration is one big difference in FP2 Flash Lite 2.1 when compared to the downloadable version. The downloadable Flash Lite 2.1 is good for standalone Flash applications. Preinstalled works perfectly also with platform applications. S60 Browser is a good example application where Flash Lite components can be displayed. It's a good idea to utilize already available tools and environment to develop Flash Lite 2.1 compliant applications and content.