[Nokia Ron]

This weeks Ask the Expert is Wai Seto (wmseto); Forum Nokia’s expert on S60 Widgets. Please take advantage of being able to get quick answers and tapping into a real expert regarding this exciting new mobile web technology.

Please keep the answers on topic and include as much information as you can to make the questions clear.

Ron

[Jack Torrance]

Hi,
To make this interesting I'd like to know:
1) what kind of business models is Nokia thinking about concerning widgets
2) Opening more features to widgets, what are the plans here (that can be publicly discussed)
3) about porting widgets, is there any porting needed or can one say "a widget is widget"
4) widget tools, I've heard there will be awesome tools to support widget development, is this true?

Cheers,
Jack

PS. Sorry Wai

[wmseto]

I am glad to see the questions.

1) Widgets are part of Web Run-time on S60. It is one of the many run-times we have on S60. The key is to open our S60 mobile platform to the maximum number of developers. The platform has invested a lot of money to enable our developers (C, C++, Flash Lite, Java, Python, Web). More applications and innovations attract more users to use S60 devices. Widget business models is not really a technical discussion, but just look at the Internet. From advertising, branding, user retentions, the models are endless. Though usually, because of the technologies behind Widgets, generally they are best used with services on the net.

2) At the moment, we will not promise anything that is not part of our 3rd FP2 SDK. We do hear from developers on different feature requests, and we will be happy to receive comments. The platform team is working hard to provide the best and safe environment for both developers and consumers. Please monitor or Forum Nokia website, when we have new features available we will announce them there.

3) Porting widget is general needed because different widget platform providers (Google, Yahoo, Apple, etc) provide slightly different features and define different widget format. Plus, widgets on mobile devices will generally need to work on smaller screens, slower connections, different input methods then the PC counterparts. To achieve the best user experience, therefore porting is generally needed.

4) As with other runtimes, S60 platform and Fourm Nokia work really hard to give the best tools to our developers. Therefore to answer your questions, yes. (Awesome) Examples, Documentation, and Tools will be available via Forum Nokia website.