`Fart attack` – showing as one of the main apps on Ovi Store – from a billions of £ company. Says it all, really. Ovi Store now deleted from my phone – why bother?

a) The whole point about salary levels is futile in the context of the text above because this was not what the post was about.
b) If you are an independent author, musician, etc, you do NOT draw a salary but you work as a waiter in order to fund your creative work. This is why you retain your IPR and can then negotiate a royalty IF you sell it; if you don't sell it, you earn nothing (a good example is Ms Rowling pre and post-Harry Potter). If you want to do this as a software developer, you are free to do so but it comes with the economic risk (and the royalty is your risk premium). And incidentally, this risk most developers do not seem to want to take. And that is fine. But then do not moan and whine! It is a choice you made.

I've wanted to write this for a while, because if they're not going Android, I don't know what their next move is going to be.

I really don't get Nokia these days. The hardware is good, as it always has been for the most part, but they've always been let down by OS. I think their biggest mistake was in not getting fully behind their very own PyS60 project (Python for S60). For those of you not familiar, a huge amount of work went into the PyS60 project at Nokia internally, almost as a grassroots project, to port the Python programming language to the Symbian platform.

The project was/is a great success, in that they succeeded in getting it working, and went the extra mile developing all sorts of simple hooks so that you could write Symbian apps, in Python, on any Symbian device.

The only thing it needed (or needs, as they could still pull it off) was for the company as a whole to get behind it, sort out the run-time distribution (install it on the device, include it in firmware upgrades, make it available OTA), signing process and (to allow deeper integration into the device) allow native modules to exist in private directories (or some other solution).

Instead it's now fallen to the open source community to sort out the mess that is PyS60 app distribution (distributing the run-time with your app, different versions, different forks, overlapping modules, everything in one directory, the signing process etc.), and it needed to remain in the hands of Nokia so that it could be a common de-facto run-time across all devices. At the end of the day, only Nokia can sort out the mess that is security signing on Symbian – it's never going to be solved by the community.

So, why should they have gotten behind this? Because Apple came out from nowhere with an incredibly productive development platform and people (developers) took notice. Apple had the IDE (Xcode and Interface Builder), the debugger, the profiler, the language (Obj-C… somewhere between C and C++, but a little better thought out) and an API and it all made sense and was easy to use from day #1.

Symbian C++ is still to this day (8 years since release) considered a black art, crafted in basements by men with pointy hats and long beards. The tools provided are archaic.. as if they came from another era (which is pretty much the case given its roots in EPOC and Psion) and make you feel that we've learned nothing in the near 20 years of software development since EPOC was born.

Python on S60 by comparison gives you a nice, safe, productive language that almost anyone can pick up – its clean and concise. The guys at Nokia (and the open source community) have covered most bases of Symbian development in terms of user interface design, networking, sound and integration into the device, and wrapped it all into nice, easy to understand, Python API functions.

On top of that, you can fairly easily (caveat to the above run-time distribution issues being sorted out) include native modules with your Python application – so you can access the phones innards and do all the wonderful low-level pointy beard stuff that you need to on the device for games and whatnot, but add a great consistent Symbian UI and your higher level logic with very little development effort on top.

That Nokia haven't entertained it at all, and I know people have tried to evanglise it from within and FAILED, strikes me as a company that really has no clue as to what they're doing in this market anymore.

The issue here is, the developers are in India. Limited if any experience coding for the mobile industry or any industry at all. Argh. What a prospect.

Add to this most efforts that have been sent to India have Major initial issues out of the gate and the learning curve is outrageous. The blow back from customers is unheard of and all because the people at the top are trying to have a huge return on investment because they can have five indies working for the price of one in any one of the five places that were mentioned. Yes FIVE. And the FIVE would be EXTREMELY Over Joyed to have the job. Never mind that they have a Masters Degree from somewhere India to Program Java, Cobol, or whatever language and have no real world experience. They might be making 15,000 USD a year but for them that is a kings ransom.

The Global Economy is at play here folks. Global means everywhere on the planet, not just where we traditionally believe that developers that have experience are trying to eek out an existence.

The Playing field is being devastated by the Soro's Neophytes leading the charge to India, Pakistan, Malayasia and South East Asia.

This is the same problem that leveled the USA. Outsourcing. I would not be surprised if Soro's is trying to make another in road to Europe via Nokia right now.

The question is about Publishing System. It’s custom made for Ovi Store, it’s confusing and difficult. The message they want to give is that Ovi Store does NOT want just any application. Only few selected are accepted. Their choice. Very clear.

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I am absolutely amazed that the majority of you have chosen to home in on the 3,500 a month stipend I suggested.

This was back-of-fag-packet.

Make it 10,000 a month.

Make it 50,000 a month.

My point — as Rafe accurately surmised — was relating to market forces. Look at you! If I use the responses here as an average representation of Symbian, no wonder the market has simply moved past you all.

I agree with Rafe's assertion that Nokia should fix the market from the front-end (easy, cheaper to develop) but I think it's a little bit too late. If you could wave a magic wand — if Nokia's CEO, OPK, suddenly said 'change this, this and this' … we're talking years before that change will impact the market.

Let's not forget the real problem. Right now, Nokia customers are picking up their shiny new N97s and finding next to nothing on the Ovi Store.

Having FIXED the ridiculous install procedures with Ovi Store — i.e. it's more or less one (or two) clicks to install an application, once you've found it — the real glaring problem now is the complete lack of stimulating, interesting applications for the end consumer.

They're currently making a value judgement on the Ovi Store. That judgement? It's rubbish. When they're down at the pub and their mate pulls out their iPhone to show off some stupid yet entertaining 'Moron Test' application, they'll wonder why there's nothing like that on the Nokia.

Demand for augmentation of the mobile experience — whether through the likes of the 'Moron Test' or a more useful 'where is my bus' application — is burgeoning. Normobs — your average normal mobile users — are beginning to demand this functionality in their handset, right now. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Now. Hence all the normob attention for the likes of the iPhone, Pre and an array of Android devices.

My argument is that you have to give them what they want, as soon as possible, via their Nokia devices.

And by that, I mean giving consumers access to ultra simple applications that — yes, shock horror, DO cost less than £7,000 to develop. Let's get an array of fun, exciting, useful applications on to the phones to show off the superior capabilities of the Nokia. (e.g. background apps)

For example, can't somebody please make a little application that updates your location on Twitter every 30 minutes? Something that sits in the background and does it job and makes the end user feel a bit better about themselves. That does not take 7k to create.

It's difficult, I'll grant you. You can't necessarily create a working demo in 20 minutes, like an experienced Android or iPhone developer might be able to. But in 30 days? Yes.

Right then. Let's continue the innovation. Let's get a ton more simple applications on to the Ovi Store as soon as possible. And while the legions of normobs are being sated by an array of exciting (yet limited) offerings, let's get working away to develop the bigger, better, stunning applications that will really blow the mind of the user.

If we want that level of activity on the Ovi Store, right now, Nokia — or somebody else — has to fund it.

Why?

Because the overwhelming majority of developers simply cannot be bothered — for all sorts of reasons. It's easier, quicker, more pleasing and potentially more rewarding for them to develop on other platforms.

So to everyone who responded with ridiculous outrage (“3,500 is offensive”), I assume we can get past that pathetic position because, as many have pointed out, the figure can be whatever you want it to be. It's just a *concept*. Let's have your ideas please. Let's see what you're made of. What does Nokia need to do to compete in the applications marketplace?

That said I think Nokia needs to do something, pronto, about the dire user experience. Make no mistake, I think Ovi Store is really, really smart. Finally we've got rid of the crazy install UI. It's a lot more consumer friendly. The real trouble is there's not enough interesting, stimulating things for normobs to play with.