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First Alpha of Qt For Android Released 212

An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of Nokia's announcement that it will be cheerfully throwing its existing developer community under a bus by not offering Qt for Windows Phone, a project to implement Qt on Android has announced its initial alpha release. Necessitas project lead Bogdan Vatra writes, 'I had a dream that one day, I'll be able to deploy existing Qt software on any Android platform. I had a dream that one day, all Qt applications will use system wide shared Qt libraries. I had a dream that one day, all Qt applications once compiled and deployed to one android platform, will run on any other newer android platform and will last for years without any recompilation. I had a dream that one day, I'll be able to create, manage, compile debug and deploy Qt apps using a first class citizen IDE. Now, those dreams become reality.' The Necessitas wiki offers some documentation on Qt for Android. A demo video of Qt for Android in action is also available."
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First Alpha of Qt For Android Released

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  • Qt ecosystem... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by arunce ( 1934350 )
    So, how long will take google to trash the java stuff and absorb Qt as the primary toolkit/sdk ecosystem? With or without it how will they fight the Nokia patent pool brought in court by their puppet master?
    • With or without it how will they fight the Nokia patent pool brought in court by their puppet master?

      Why go to court? If only three people use it then it's hardly worth the effort. And if everybody starts writing Android apps with Qt, great! Just do the about face and tell all those Qt developers they employ to make Qt run on WP7 and suddenly WP7 has all the Android apps. Which would benefit both Nokia and Android at the expense of iOS, because it allows developers to target both platforms at once.

      • Just do the about face and tell all those Qt developers they employ to make Qt run on WP7

        How will Qt run on WP7 if standard C++ doesn't even run on WP7 due to not being verifiably type-safe? The excuse for C++ found on WP7 [wikipedia.org] has different, incompatible syntax for pointers and arrays. Even if they rewrite Qt line-by-line for C#, applications for such a Qt on WP7 won't be portable to anything else.

        • They don't have to rewrite Qt and make it incompatible. They just have to [get Microsoft to] allow standard C++ on WP7. Microsoft likes to make ugly language changes like that under the fig leaf type safety or whatever because they like to make it difficult to make portable Windows programs. When the situation is reversed and they're trying to get the larger number of Android apps running on WP7, portability is their friend and excuses like type safety start to look pretty thin.

      • by DrXym ( 126579 )
        It would actually be in Nokia's interests to hang onto QT and spread it EVERYWHERE. If they were smart they even got MS to allow them to use it in WP7, possibly even licence it for app development. Wouldn't that be a turn up for the books?
    • Not soon enough I am afraid, it would finally make android a first class device.

      • by ranulf ( 182665 )
        Well, I'm not too sure of that. The example he demonstrated in the video looks very underwhelming - he certainly doesn't demonstrate that Qt can look more visually appealing than the native android calculator.

        Frankly, the download time for the libraries is unacceptable - it should be packaged along with the application itself. If it's so large (25Mb is much more than most apps), then something is seriously wrong. When I get an app from the marketplace, I'm happy for it to be added to the system download q

    • by tiptone ( 729456 )
      So Android becomes the Sharp Zaurus? Cool, I liked it the first time, should still be fun.
  • Flagged video (Score:2, Insightful)

    by LingNoi ( 1066278 )

    So some asshole flagged the QT video on youtube and now there is no way to report it as incorrectly flagged. A new low for fanboys..

  • Nokia is dead (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GNUALMAFUERTE ( 697061 ) <almafuerte@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Monday February 21, 2011 @11:45PM (#35275242)

    This is incredible. It's hard to believe how stupid are some companies. Nokia had some awesome assets. How could they not see it?

    - You are the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones
    - You own one of the best development frameworks in the world, a framework that is 100% cross platform, and totally Unix friendly
    - The world is changing. Windows is decaying on desktops. Unix runs most servers, many desktops (combining Apple + GNU/Linux + other free Unix-like systems), and is the biggest mobile player (33% Android + 16% Apple)
    - You have an awesome linux-based mobile platform (meego).
    - Microsoft has consistently failed on the mobile market, and is irrelevant
    - Every organization that has ever partnered with microsoft has lost, big time

    So, the logical step is to throw away everything you have, ignore the market trend, and move to windows?

    What. The. Fuck.

    Partnering with Google, porting QT to Android, merging all cool meego functionality into Android, and cleaning up your product line didn't ever cross your mind, Nokia?

    But you can see their main mistake was hiring Stephen Elop. Since he left Macromedia he couldn't hold a job for more than a year. Nothing screams failure like a CEO that roams through 3 companies in 2 years. And he got to Nokia from Microsoft. Really Nokia, just WTF.

    Regardless, it doesn't seem to be the only company that doesn't get it. Most technology companies nowdays just plain don't get it. This morning I broke my samsung phone (android 1.6), so I bought a new one (Galaxy, 2.1 Eclair). It came with a shitload of crappy samsung apps, an awful theme, gmail replaced for some stupid mail app, and Yahoo as the search engine (can't be changed). I just rooted it, and installed Froyo. Looks awesome now. Why are technology companies boycotting themselves so badly lately? I just don't get it. /rant

    • by kervin ( 64171 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @01:43AM (#35275846)

      Sigh...


      - You own one of the best development frameworks in the world, a framework that is 100% cross platform, and totally Unix friendly

      A lot of people would argue .Net is a much better development environment than Qt. I can't understand why someone would willingly use C++ to develop user applications ( not systems dev ) in 2011. Even Android promotes Java for this.


      - The world is changing. Windows is decaying on desktops. Unix runs most servers, many desktops (combining Apple + GNU/Linux + other free Unix-like systems), and is the biggest mobile player (33% Android + 16% Apple)

      How is windows 'decaying'? Is that your emotional way of saying that it's losing marketshare? If so, why should Nokia care?


      - You have an awesome linux-based mobile platform (meego).

      Yes, unfortunately, only nerds care about that. And in case you missed Elop's many interviews, the board was focused on delivering more than just an operating system. Microsoft brings, XBox, office productivity, Bing and many other very large franchises.


      - Microsoft has consistently failed on the mobile market, and is irrelevant

      Many of the innovative features found on Android and IPhone today came from Microsoft and RIM. They ran the market for at least a decade before they faltered. WP7 has been out for only 3 months and has already gained 1-3% ( depends on who you ask ). That's without Nokia.


      - Every organization that has ever partnered with microsoft has lost, big time

      HTC made all its money before a year or two ago from Microsoft. That tiny company would never have been able to produce its own OS. Sony did the same. Dell and HP have both grown for decades using Microsoft software.

      • by kikito ( 971480 )

        Nah, it's the money.

      • by |DeN|niS ( 58325 )
        A lot of people would argue .Net is a much better development environment than Qt. I can't understand why someone would willingly use C++ to develop user applications ( not systems dev ) in 2011. Even Android promotes Java for this.

        Good for you, but I am one of those people who prefer the power of C++, and more importantly to target other platforms than Windows. Besides, with Qt, C++ isn't any harder than Java (which sucks in its verbosity, I can't stand it, see how that works with opinions?). Android is

      • Re:Long live Nokia! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by the_womble ( 580291 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @06:12AM (#35277306) Homepage Journal

        A lot of people would argue .Net is a much better development environment than Qt. I can't understand why someone would willingly use C++ to develop user applications ( not systems dev ) in 2011. Even Android promotes Java for this.

        He said one of the best, not the best. The fact is that most user applications are developed in C or C++.
        The world is changing. Windows is decaying on desktops. Unix runs most servers, many desktops (combining Apple + GNU/Linux + other free Unix-like systems), and is the biggest mobile player (33% Android + 16% Apple)

        How is windows 'decaying'? Is that your emotional way of saying that it's losing marketshare? If so, why should Nokia care?

        Nokia should care because the argument for using MS is that the customers want Windows.

        Yes, unfortunately, only nerds care about that.

        That is a failure of Nokia's development or marketing. Meego could have offered customers a lot.

        And in case you missed Elop's many interviews, the board was focused on delivering more than just an operating system. Microsoft brings, XBox, office productivity, Bing and many other very large franchises.

        SO your suggesting that we will see XBox compatible phones? Or full versions of MS Office on phones? Otherwise MS is not bringing those to Nokia.

        Many of the innovative features found on Android and IPhone today came from Microsoft and RIM.

        Name five that came from MS. RIM is not relevant to a deal with MS.

        They ran the market for at least a decade before they faltered. WP7 has been out for only 3 months and has already gained 1-3% ( depends on who you ask ). That's without Nokia.

        How much is MS's total share of the phone OS market?

        HTC made all its money before a year or two ago from Microsoft. That tiny company would never have been able to produce its own OS. Sony did the same. Dell and HP have both grown for decades using Microsoft software

        HTC benefited because they were tiny and no one else was willing to do the same deal with MS. Dell and HP in the PC market are just box builders. As for Sony, which bit of Sony are you talking about? PCs? Consoles? Something else?

        • by tepples ( 727027 )

          The fact is that most user applications are developed in C or C++.

          A growing number of applications available to end users are written in a mix of PHP and JavaScript, or Java and JavaScript, or Python and JavaScript, or Perl and JavaScript. The offline portions of web applications, using CACHE MANIFEST and localStorage, are written entirely in JavaScript or a language that compiles to JavaScript.

          Nokia should care because the argument for using MS is that the customers want Windows.

          And Windows Phone 7 doesn't support standard C++. (C++/CLI doesn't count because the syntax of its verifiably type-safe subset is incompatible with standard C++.)

          SO your suggesting that we will see XBox compatible phones?

          That's exactly wha

      • A lot of people would argue .Net is a much better development environment than Qt. I can't understand why someone would willingly use C++ to develop user applications ( not systems dev ) in 2011. Even Android promotes Java for this.

        Android doesn't promote Java because it's a better language than C++ for developing apps, but rather because of the benefits of using a virtual machine (just as ,.NET targets the CLR VM). Anyways, I'd say that C# (since you're implicitly comparing .NET to C++) has as much in common with C++ as it does with Java.

        If you think that .NET provides more productive libraries/etc to build graphical apps than Qt, then I can only assume you've never actually used Qt (esp. the components like QML & Qt Quick intend

      • A lot of people would argue .Net is a much better development environment than Qt. I can't understand why someone would willingly use C++ to develop user applications ( not systems dev ) in 2011. Even Android promotes Java for this.

        I've used all three. I prefer Qt, though .Net does win in some areas. Qt comes with Boost (or vice-versa, please, I know that is not technically correct, but work with me here) but Boost is a C++ library that brings C++ into modern times, adding parenting, introspection and even

      • by Rufty ( 37223 )
        What "innovative features found on Android and IPhone" from Microsoft and RIM did not come first from Palm or the Newton?
      • A lot of people would argue .Net is a much better development environment than Qt.

        Those people can argue whatever they want if they are willing to be wrong. For one thing, .Net is not a development environment, it is a managed code execution environment. For another, QT is not a development environment, it is a GUI support library. And most importantly, even if they were both development environments, which they are not, nobody except Microsoft needs a development environment or a library full of patent traps waiting to be sprung.

    • Every organization that has ever partnered with microsoft has lost, big time

      I don't know, Intel, AMD, Dell, HP, Lenovo and a large number of other companies have done quite well over the last 30 years selling hardware for MS software.

      (standard disclaimer: as my profile states, I work for MS, but not on anything related to phones)

      • Even Intel has had unpleasant dealings with MS. *cough*xbox1*cough*

        But they are big enough that MS can't do much about them.

        Even they know going along with MS is a bad idea in the long haul, you never know when they will backstab you once you have outlived your usefulness / when it's to their advantage.

        Hence their investment in Linux.

      • They have distributors.

         

    • by Magnus Pym ( 237274 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @02:28AM (#35276032)

      Nokia is one of the few companies that has really good wireless baseband technology. In fact, their baseband phone chipsets are second only to Qualcomm's. They have lots of very good and probably very well-paid wireless engineers who do all this stuff. Mr. Steven Elop probably doesn't give a damn about baseband, if he even knows what it is. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that he will sack the entire wireless engineering division and start using chips from Qualcomm or someone else. Actually, he'll probably go for a 2nd or 3rd tier vendor for the baseband. After all, it is all about the OS and apps, right? That is all he knows.

      Within a couple of years, Nokia will be another pure OEM that simply assembles phones in China based on 100% sourced components. Mr. Elop and his Wall Street buddies will enjoy a couple of years of profit because of all the cost savings due to the sacked engineers, during which his bonus will be large enough to let a couple of generations of his family live in luxury. After that, Nokia will slide down to be part with the Chinese OEMs, and Elop will go on to rape the next company.

      • by YoopDaDum ( 1998474 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @05:12AM (#35276938)
        Hey, you missed part of the action it seems... A few months ago, before Elop arrived, Nokia sold its baseband division. It's now called Renesas and is an independent business. Just like every baseband vendor, they're also moving in the application processor space to provide in addition to baseband chips integrated AP+BB solutions (as Qualcomm, as ST-Ericcson, etc.).
        • I've been out of the wireless space for a while and haven't been paying attention, thanks for sharing. That is quite a major move, I hope it works out for the guys, I know quite a few of them.

    • by jonwil ( 467024 )

      Blame the carriers for all the crap on your Galaxy phone.
      They are usually the ones that want all this crap.

    • by renoX ( 11677 )

      Counting Android as Linux is a bit weird: its programming API is very different from the classic Linux distribution..

      I wonder what Google view are of the use of Qt on Android, I doubt that they're thrilled about it..

      As for Nokia, they didn't even port Qt on Microsoft mobile phones! So I doubt that they like Qt much (probably blaming the tool for their own problems).

    • Re:Nokia is dead (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Xest ( 935314 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @06:56AM (#35277526)

      "Why are technology companies boycotting themselves so badly lately?"

      Same reason companies in any mature market do, it takes enthusiasts to build a new industry, but when they've got it established the business world takes it over.

      The first commercial entities in any industry sector are almost by necessity built by the engineers and scientists that create the underlying product that allows that industry to arise, but after some time when the industry is mature, the scientists and engineers become treated like a commodity and the business folk move in and run the show.

      It's really just a sign that the market is maturing, it's not about the technology anymore, it's about acquiring other companies, shifting assets around, and other tasks that maximise money generation but don't really provide anything to society.

      I really really hate Apple, but to their credit, the reason they're succeding financially is because they're focussing on products, rather than churning out mediocre crap and just relying on their $60bn cash pool to play the trading and investment game to make money. You can see the business ideology at work with Oracle, they bought Sun and are just destroying some excellent assets purely because they don't know how to monetise them whilst trying to monetise other assets to the extreme to the detriment of innovation in society (i.e. Java). You can see it with Microsoft, under Ballmer innovation and hence growth has vastly decreased than under Bill, who was a technologist. You can see it with Dell- whilst the CEO hasn't changed, his mindset has, gone from being focussed on building really good systems, to racing to the bottom by gimping their support and quality through outsourcing to maximise profits at the expense of customer confidence. You can see it with Activision, Kotick took over some really top notch innovative franchises, burns them out with multiple releases a year then cancels the franchise because he doesn't care about the games, he only cares about the money.

      Technology firm shareholders need to realise this more- that there's far more money in bringing in bosses that innovate, than there is bringing in a business minded boss who can buy and sell, and strip and and build other companies and just rearrange assets to make money. I suspect this is why Schmidt has been forced to step down - because they realise Schmidt is a businessman, whereas Google needs a technologist if it wants to keep up pace of growth and profits to more than a mediocre degree.

      When a company switches to a business oriented leadership over a leadership enthusiastic in the industry, that's when it all goes wrong.

    • Re:Nokia is dead (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dhavleak ( 912889 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @07:22AM (#35277642)

      BS Rant! You're complaining about the fact that your brand-spanking-new android device has tons of shitware on it, and didn't come with the latest OS version. Well, that's possibly because of a race to the bottom that's eroding margins for android OEMs, which should have factored in to Nokia's decision.

      You also seem to have no regard for Nokia themselves or Nokia's customers, so why should Nokia care about your opinion (or opinions like yours). Your entire post was about Nokia doing what's good for FOSS/Linux/Qt. Nokia needs to be concerned about themselves, and about thier customers. Use the right tool for the job, and avoid re-inventing the wheel. If FOSS/Linux/Qt wins based on the needs of the hour, budget at hand, etc., so be it. You made zero (absolutely mother-fucking zero) arguments for how FOSS/Linux/Qt could help Nokia -- you just assumed FOSS/Linux/Qt superiority to be a truism and started spewing nonsense.

    • Please understand that Elop Is an X- Microsoft Executive. [theinquirer.net] So Logic does not apply. Expecially when one of his jobs over at Microsoft was to convice Manufacturers to switch to Window Mobile.
  • by devent ( 1627873 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @07:51AM (#35277800) Homepage

    OMG 5 seconds of naked breasts. This monster who ever posted the video should be stoned to death. What if a child sees it? It will be scared for live and probably became a sexist rapist and a murderer.

    What ever is wrong with American people? Why you are so scared of nudity, shouldn't you be so proud living in "the most free country in the world" with the first amendment and so?

    • What ever is wrong with American people?

      I like staying employed. Naked breasts fall pretty squarely in the NSFW realm these days.

      • I like staying employed. Naked breasts fall pretty squarely in the NSFW realm these days.

        That sounds scary... Thank heavens I live in Europe. :)

  • What happened to the demo video?
  • Is anybody buying Windows phones anymore anyway? It looks like it's all iPhone and Android from here served with a side of BlackBerry. I bet they don't port QT to FreeDOS, Haiku or Syllable either!
  • ...that one day, all God's androids will join hands and sing, in the words of the old Nokia spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, we're free at last!"
  • "'I had a dream that one day, I'll be able to deploy existing Qt software on any Android platform. I had a dream that one day, all Qt applications will use system wide shared Qt libraries. I had a dream that one day, all Qt applications once compiled and deployed to one android platform, will run on any other newer android platform and will last for years without any recompilation. I had a dream that one day, I'll be able to create, manage, compile debug and deploy Qt apps using a first class citizen IDE.'
    • by Urkki ( 668283 )

      Wow. He just described Java and its ecosystem... and wasn't Qt and it's C++ followers 100% against Java back in the day (before JambaQt). Wouldn't it be easier to just fix AWT/Swing/SWT?

      Maybe he doesn't like Java, but Likes Qt C++? I know I do.

      Anyway, with Oracle thing, there's more reason to be suspicious about Java than just not liking it personally. Also, he's not "fixing" anything, he's adding support for something which he already considers sufficiently unbroken. Quite understandable really, because he has power to do that, it's doable by one person (as demonstrated here), while chaning existing toolkits owned and maintained by various organizations... probably not realistic without a

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