SYMBIAN ON THE LINE

The starting point for the Symbian Foundation WRT solution is the current Nokia (S60) WRT. This is incorporated in Symbian^2, and is now fully open source. The next steps will involve the implementation of the Bondi APIs and security model. Robert notes that at least three separate parties have expressed interest in undertaking this work.

“Ultimately, given that we are open source, my goal is to support as many APIs as possible,” says Robert. “If a widget has been created for Palm WebOS, I hope Symbian will understand the packaging and the JavaScript extensions so that the widget can install and run with no porting. The first step in achieving this is support for Bondi and then extending to W3C packaging formats as well as support for HTML 5.” Robert expects these elements will be in the platform by the middle of 2010. Of course devices with these capabilities will not appear immediately.

Another key aspect of the WRT strategy comes with the move to Qt as the native application framework for Symbian. “One of the exciting things about Qt is that it can run widget code within a native application,” says Robert. “This will enable developers to combine the online usability of a widget with the offline capabilities of a native application.”

This is an interesting not-so-hidden gem in what is a must-read feature from AllAboutSymbian if you care about the future of Symbian at all.

The use of the word 'widget' by Robert Ackland may or may not have been the best possible choice here. Because WebOS apps, as the name of the OS itself implies, are built only on web technologies (the ones that Symbian, for example, puts in the WebRunTime category), there might be some confusion here. It could be me that got this wrong, but since WebOS apps are nothing more than 'widgets' (as the Symbian WRT defines them) with access to hardware APIs, what Robert describes can either be apps with limited access to hardware APIs in Symbian, or, as WRT evolves, perhaps apps that would perform on Symbian exactly the way they do on WebOS.

Very interesting prospect, and I hope it will come to light. Not because at the moment there are so many WebOS apps that it matters, but more from an openness standpoint.

It sure would make some developers happy to have one less porting to do.