10 Reasons why you should develop for Nokia’s Symbian smartphones

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - I studied Computer Science at University back in the late 90s. Back before smartphones and mobile developing. Back when C++ was the language of the land. Back when development was all done on a PC or UNIX box. Are you surprised I took a vow to never write another line of code ever again? Gosh, I wish I was developer now and not back then. I missed out on all the fun! So here’s my Top Ten reasons why I wish I was developing for Symbian (..and young again and back in college)…

10. Versatility – Which is the only platform that supports devices from the high end, low end, QWERTY keyboard, touch, feature, and smartphones? You guessed it. Symbian. Having just a touch screen is so dull!

9. Ovi Store – Once your app is complete you’ll need a popular store to sell it. How about a store with 2.7 million downloads per day? Or a store where the average consumer downloads 2.6 apps per visit? Or a global store that’s available in 30 languages? How about one billion downloads per year, which is in the same league as our top competitors?

8. Ovi Growth – 2.7 million downloads per day? …That number has doubled in just 9 months. The Ovi Store keeps getting bigger, by the second. 2.6 more people per second to be exact. That’s 200,000 new Ovi accounts per day.

7. Always improving – Symbian is constantly being developed and improved. Some 250 new features were introduced in Symbian^3. With features for the next Symbian^3 release already announced, including split-screen text input, Swype, QWERTY keypad in portrait mode, and an all-new web browser. (It’s coming in early 2011).

6. Future – No binary break. That means your app will be compatible with future devices for many years to come. And when MeeGo comes, your Qt apps will be easy to port over.

5. Symbian and Nokia are #1 – Nokia plans to ship 50 million Symbian^3 devices. That’s a LOT of potential customers. After all, Symbian is the most-used smartphone platform in the world.

4. Languages – Goodbye confusing C++. (how I hated you in college!) Hello Qt, Qt Quick, and HTML 5. Developing for Symbian has never been easier. With a 70% reduction in code, that gives you more time to improve your existing apps, or make new ones.

3. Calling All Innovators – I said I’d give you ten reasons to develop for Symbian, maybe I should have said ten MILLION reasons. The Calling All Innovators competition is giving away $10 million for developers. That’s 17 prizes for $150,000 and two grand prize winners win $250,000 in cash and $1.9 million in Nokia marketing. LIKE!

2. Operator Billing – Trivia time: What’s the credit card penetration in Germany? A low 30 per cent. So for 70 per cent of Germans, operator billing is essential. Ovi Store has operator billing for 99 operators in 29 markets. More trivia: How many different operators have billing for Apple, Blackberry, Android, and Getjar COMBINED?? Just one. Wow. Two out of three users with operator billing options choose it over credit card. And purchases can increase by 13 times compared to when only credit card payment is available. That’s Wow x13.

1. Success Cases – Facts, shmacts, right? How about some real world examples: 70 developers have passed one million downloads on the Ovi Store. Offscreen Technologies have had 45 million downloads in over 200 countries. Digital Chocolate has more than four million games downloads. HeroCraft more than 10 million downloads. Lunaforte six million downloads. Idevio two million downloads. And shortly after their launch on Ovi Store, Shazam doubled the amount of countries they were in from 60 to over 120.