Following on from my last blog post about the development of the 3D application created using Delphi Programming for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac from the same code base, I am now happy to confirm that the application is submitted, accepted and live on the Nokia App Store.
Nokia’s new direction seems to be to focus on earning money from the backend services serviced by Nokia and Microsoft. In a similar way Amazon took a base version of Android and added their own store etc, Nokia have done something very similar with then new phones. They have also gone to the length of wrapping a number of 3rd party API’s to their own services to make it easier for developers to migrate over to the Nokia store. This should solve the issue of developers not targeting the Nokia phones (due to WindowsRT) and will allow a great phone manufacturer to regain market share and value.
Honestly, I was surprised how easy it was to get the app published. To publish onto the Nokia app store (ready for the Nokia X being sold) you need to setup an account via http://developer.nokia.com/. You can also easily check your APK compatibility by uploading your APK file onto the website and get immediate feedback which was great (but not this is not acceptance of the app, just that it seems to be compatible). The hardest part of submitting my application was actually creating the icon and having to get screen shots in the right screen resolution, but this was easily solved with a device to hand by just running the APK on the device. Here is me doing this last week at the mobile world congress in Barcelona on the Nokia bus (note the Android Green colour scheme lol).
Following on from the initial submission, there is then a review process at Nokia that hopefully results in acceptance emails being sent over to you and your application shows as submitted. The Nokia development portal online is easy to navigate and under published content you can see the details of your submission and the current state of review.
Once approved, you can then use a Nokia X to download the application from their store. I think that as the store is in Beta right now the links are not publicly visible, but as soon as this goes live I will post that link up.
Anyway – As you can see I downloaded the approved application from the app store and by using the power and volume buttons was able to get a screen shot.
I actually really like the Nokia X from first glance and I think its going to be a great (budget) phone, and the choice to use Android under the Windows Tile look and feel is a great move to gain share and developers to use the services that make the money behind the scene and help people get used to the Microsoft driven style.
The process of posting the application to the store was relatively simple and painless, but I was not using any advertising or anything else so I can’t comment on the experience of doing this, but over all, so far so good!
Will be really interesting to see what this means for the future of Windows Mobile, but right now: Nokia + DelphiApplication := Shipped!