Qt on Android 2.3 seems promising

disperso · wrote on 9 Dec 2010, 17:20

For those that don't know, the "android lighthouse":http://code.google.com/p/android-lighthouse/ project is a community effort to bring Qt apps to Android (that means neither Nokia not Google are involved, from what I know).

It seems that "from Android 2.3 and later everything will be much simpler":http://groups.google.com/group/android-qt/browse_thread/thread/3c5322fb2f433792, and now to develop Qt apps you will need much less effort, and less Java code as a wrapper. It seems that even device debugging, Qt Creator integration, and packaging will be simple.

This is great news for us, Qt developers, but probably both Google (or the Open Handset Alliance in general) and Nokia have mixed feelings. Probably both want to have "exclusive" APIs so you can have some sort of differentiation when selling phones.

I, however, think that this is good for Nokia as more people might want to code an app in Qt, and Qt is a first class citizen on Nokia devices. The same app will be a bit faster/stabler (Qt more optimized/tested there), lighter (Qt is already loaded in memory when all the UI is coded in Qt), and will have probably better integration with Nokia's services.

What do you think?

disperso · wrote on 9 Dec 2010, 17:29

[quote author="disperso" date="1291915201"]
The same app will be a bit faster/stabler (Qt more optimized/tested there), lighter (Qt is already loaded in memory when all the UI is coded in Qt) (...)[/quote]

What I meant here was that a Qt app from a third party will probably be lighter on startup if the device already has Qt loaded in memory because it's the main toolkit of the phone (which only will happen on Nokia devices).

It seems that there is at least one Qt app on the Android Market (Cumulus), but has an old UI that uses too many desktop widgets (comes from the Qtopia times!), and doesn't look very "touch friendly".

fcrochik · wrote on 9 Dec 2010, 18:30

That is exciting...

and I have to agree with you: Qt applications should always run, at least, a "little" bit better on Nokia phones.... If not, then Nokia will have bigger problems to worry about ...

baysmith · wrote on 9 Dec 2010, 19:36

This question implies that software on mobile devices is a significant determining factor in a customers choice of what to buy. Is there any evidence of this?

DenisKormalev · wrote on 9 Dec 2010, 20:12

We are developing mobile project (based on Qt) targeted to be ran at Android, WinMo, Symbian. For now we have less or more stable version at Android and not stable at all at WinMo (memory problems). For symbian we are waiting for 4.7 release, so can't say anything about it.
As for Android I can say that we are now using main repository (not fork of it by Sergey Galin, as some of other developers do) and it shows good results. We are waiting for alh to be upgraded to 2.3 for further tests, but changelog for this version looks very promising.
Now about mine thoughts about alh at all. For me it is of course great thing because it allows to target for more platforms and it gives us a bigger market.

anselmolsm · wrote on 9 Dec 2010, 20:52

That's really interesting! More platforms supported (officially or not) makes Qt stronger, IMO.

disperso · wrote on 9 Dec 2010, 20:58

[quote author="Bradley" date="1291923368"]This question implies that software on mobile devices is a significant determining factor in a customers choice of what to buy. Is there any evidence of this?
[/quote]

I suppose that companies do that research, and judging from what we see and hear from marketing, public relations, and advertisement in general, they think that people want some applications.

Jobs always talks in the keynotes about how good their Store is, and I've seen many ads in which the apps are a central part, like when you see the phone in a sea of icons that represents the many apps that it has available.

andre · wrote on 11 Dec 2010, 21:04

A "rumour":http://developer.qt.nokia.com/forums/viewthread/2344 goes around that Nokia considders picking up Android. Who knows, maybe that may could lead to an official Qt version for Android?

disperso · wrote on 11 Dec 2010, 21:26

[quote author="Andre" date="1292101453"]A "rumour":http://developer.qt.nokia.com/forums/viewthread/2344 goes around that Nokia considders picking up Android. Who knows, maybe that may could lead to an official Qt version for Android?[/quote]

I hope so.

BTW, Andre, I din't knew you were the author of Cumulus. Did you know somebody packaged and uploaded to the Android Marketplace? :) I installed it to see how well it run, and I was pleasantly surprised (android port uses patched versions of everything, IIRC). Any idea if it will be updated to a more finger friendly UI?

andre · wrote on 12 Dec 2010, 10:19

[quote author="disperso" date="1292102782"]BTW, Andre, I din't knew you were the author of Cumulus. Did you know somebody packaged and uploaded to the Android Marketplace? :) I installed it to see how well it run, and I was pleasantly surprised (android port uses patched versions of everything, IIRC). Any idea if it will be updated to a more finger friendly UI?[/quote]

I did not know it was actually uploaded there, no. And I am suprised it was. I thought you could not distribute Lighthouse-based stuff yet? I did know somebody worked on it. However, though I am the original author, I am not the current maintainer. I have not contributed to the development over the last couple of years, and the port to Qt 4 was not done by me. I know there is work to get Cumulus in the Ovi store.

I think work is done to make it more finger-friendly, but as with any open source project, there is always a need for more hands. Note however that the in-flight UI is pretty finger friendly already. Configuration perhaps less so.

jaak · wrote on 17 Dec 2010, 09:26

Users doesn't care what language / tool an application is written in. So I don't think a Qt version for Android in anyway affect sales for Nokia. But some people do think that Qt shouldn't be used to create applications for a competitors platform. I think such an argument is baseless. Also I don't understand how the problem of differentiation happens, since on Android, only third part apps will be written in Qt. The UI layer of the phone will always be Android native code. If an app becomes so popular, it will be available on all platforms and user don't care for Qt or dalvik or ... sdk. If Qt is ported to Android, then
Qt will be the primary platform for mobile development. Qt will be the king.

dangelog · wrote on 17 Dec 2010, 09:57

[quote]Users doesn’t care what language / tool an application is written in. So I don’t think a Qt version for Android in anyway affect sales for Nokia.[/quote]

User don't, developers and companies do! If one wants to reach the largest market share for its application, the "Write once / deploy on symbian+maemo+meego+android+..." strategy is winning.

jaak · wrote on 17 Dec 2010, 10:01

[quote author="peppe" date="1292579820"][quote]Users doesn’t care what language / tool an application is written in. So I don’t think a Qt version for Android in anyway affect sales for Nokia.[/quote]

User don't, developers and companies do! If one wants to reach the largest market share for its application, the "Write once / deploy on symbian+maemo+meego+android+..." strategy is winning.[/quote]

Exactly. It will be a big win for mobile developers.

changsheng230 · wrote on 20 Dec 2010, 15:39

Ha, No one votes for "Bad" :) , though Nokia did not invest it.

dreevespracticeinsight.net · wrote on 6 Jan 2011, 22:07

What is important for Qt developers is "write once and run everywhere". I am a Nokia commercial customer. Ultimately Nokia benefits from meeting the needs of its customers.

So supporting Qt on Android platforms is good.

robson.ramiro · wrote on 12 Jan 2011, 15:37

I think that nokia is spending a big oportunity to come in, strong, a fight against iOS to gain more market share.

I´m tried to use Lighthouse, but without success... (problems posted on site)

If anyone have way to make it works I´ll appreciate a lot!

[]s

doubitchou · wrote on 13 Jan 2011, 09:20

I am in the same case as David one : the need to commercialy deploy the same app for all platform and actually what we are doing is a java app for android and blackberry phones, Xcode for Ipad/Ipod mobiles, Qt for the others platforms.

So when Win7 mobile seems to avoid Qt apps now, why having "C.O.D.E." and in that case with android would be a bad thing ?

mohsen · wrote on 13 Jan 2011, 10:42

i vote for Android too

Schneidi · wrote on 27 Jun 2011, 07:01

I can't wait to start developing on Android systems.
So I hope that the lighhouse project will get some support.

DenisKormalev · wrote on 27 Jun 2011, 07:06

Scheidi, you can start it now. Necessitas is not a "started-yesterday" project so it can be used in development now (we used it without any critical problems, but of course it is non-stable software so you should double test it before production)