Nokia will be conducting a training course for Qt and Java development here in Lagos from 13 – 15 April 2011. The objective is to get developers up to speed with creating, developing and publishing Qt and Java applications for Nokia devices.

This three day training workshop will provide an overview of Java ME, review the exciting opportunities offered by Nokia’s Ovi Store, and cover Mobile Java programming essentials as well as mobile application development with Qt Quick.

Venue:
Nokia
21 Ahmadu Bello Way
(3rd Floor, Ecobank Building)
Victoria Island
Lagos

Event registration and other details

I am just back from a meeting at Nokia West Africa (Nigeria) Limited where I met with Praveen Shetty (Head of Solutions: Nigeria) and Teemu Kiijarvi (Forum Nokia Developer Relations Manager, MEA). We had very fruitful discussions about Nokia’s new drive for supporting Nigerian developers.

For example, the manufacturing giant has plans for developer workshops and other meetings through which they can support developers with information, skills development and tools that will make it easier for them to create great applications. Developing platforms that Nokia are pushing including QT (for both Symbian and MeeGo) and J2ME (java). If you want to learn to develop apps in these platforms, please head over to Forum Nokia for tutorials and tools to help you design, create and publish your apps.

For those with no programming skils but who would like to create simple widget-type apps for their web content, the Ovi App Wizard lets you do this in minutes. The MobiNigeria app for Symbian is an example of this.

Our statistics for the MobiNigeria app for Symbian shows that there have been 84 active users and 659 pageviews in the last 30 days. Not bad. With support from Nokia, I am sure that we can push some more.

We will certainly be bringing you more information about this subject here on Mobility Nigeria, so if you are a developer or a mobile startup looking for opportunities, Nokia say they have your back. This is a good time to get on the mobile apps train in Nigeria, as the opportunities and possibilities abound.

One thing is certain, the mobile apps landscape in Nigeria is set to change for good with this move by Nokia. One certainly can only hope that other manufacturers follow in their steps.

Opera has released final verions of Opera Mini 5 and Opera Mobile 10. These guys have been busy, and apparently are keen on dominating the mobile web browser scene.

Now, there is an Opera for everyone (almost):

1. Opera Mini 5 for all java-enabled and Blackberry phones

2. Opera Mobile 10 beta for Android

3. Opera Mobile 10 for Windows Mobile

4. Opera Mini 5 beta for Windows Mobile

Opera gives you Top 5 reasons why you cannot live without Opera on your phone:

1. Get the best Internet experience on your phone
Opera delivers the full Web experience on nearly any mobile phone, and it is easy and free to download.

2. No more slow surfing
Opera mobile browsers are designed to boost your browsing speed significantly. Opera brings the best and fastest browsing experience on any mobile phone.

3. Get your mobile phone bills under control
Opera Mini’s compression technology reduces the amount of data sent to your phone by up to 90 percent, resulting in lower costs on pay-per-MB data plans or when roaming.

4. Web made easy, even on your phone
Opera keeps it simple with a sleekly designed user interface, regardless of the phone you are using, and with the same great feature set, such as Speed Dial, tabs, and the password manager.

5. Never leave your personal information behind
Opera Link lets you synchronize your bookmarks, notes and Speed Dial between your computer and your mobile phone. Make your information available wherever you are – at work, at home or on the road.

Download
Download Opera Mini 5 or Opera Mobile 10 directly to your phone from m.opera.com/.

Source

Bitstream, developers of the BOLT mobile browser have announced that they are set to unveil mobile Web apps, also known as widgets, and a host of new features for the acclaimed Mobile Browser at Mobile World Congress coming up this month. This will be part of the features on the upcoming version 1.7 of BOLT.

Here is the full press release from Bitstream:

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. – February 3, 2010 – Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) today announced that the forthcoming version of its BOLT™ mobile browser will include the ability to run Web applications, commonly referred to as “widgets.” Since BOLT is a Web browser that works on mobile phones of all types, the addition of Web apps will give BOLT users increased functionality on their mobile phones. The new BOLT Widgets capability will be introduced in beta as part of the forthcoming 1.7 version of BOLT, to be released to the public at Mobile World Congress on February 15, 2010.

Although BOLT already runs website-based applications written in Ajax, Javascript and other Web programming languages, such as the popular Facebook game Mafia Wars and Google Docs, the new Web apps will be installed directly within BOLT and thus will load and execute even faster. BOLT users will be able to discover, select and install specific applications through the BOLT Widget Gallery. BOLT will display an iconic list of all installed apps, allowing users to quickly find and use them directly within BOLT.

“As many of the recent mobile and wireless trade shows have demonstrated, mobile applications are part of the mainstream mobile experience,” said Sampo Kaasila, vice president of research and development at Bitstream. “However, the vast majority of phones in use today are ‘feature phones’ not smartphones. Unfortunately for the users of these billions of feature phones, it isn’t easy to find, install and run mobile applications. By adding Web apps to BOLT, Bitstream is not only improving the usability of our mobile browser, we are also making it possible for literally billions of people to partake in the mobile apps revolution.”

BOLT is a server-assisted browser that has been shown to have the most accurate page rendering of any mobile browser in its class, receiving a perfect 100 percent in the Acid3 page rendering test. Using this same cloud computing technology to support Web applications allows BOLT to offer increased functionality to the broad spectrum of devices BOLT already runs on, even the most basic mobile phones.

At its launch, Bitstream will have an initial set of sample applications available in its Beta Widget Gallery. BOLT Web applications are written as standard W3C widgets (www.w3.org/TR/widgets/), a standard with broad industry support.

Bitstream will be showcasing its new version of BOLT to OEMs and Carriers at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 15 to February 18 in booth number 1A70.

About BOLT
The acclaimed BOLT mobile browser has the most faithful rendering of Web pages of any browser in its class. This fast mobile browser quickly and accurately displays Web pages on mobile phones just as they would appear on desktop computers. BOLT is the only browser for mobile phones of all types to support streaming video from popular media sharing sites such as YouTube and MySpace. Based on the same WebKit rendering engine used by the iPhone’s Safari and Android’s Chrome browsers, BOLT is compatible with the majority of the world’s 4 billion mobile phones. BOLT features a patented split-screen viewing mode, intuitive keystroke shortcuts and copy/paste functionality, and offers a user-friendly, feature-rich mobile browsing experience for even entry-level mobile phones. Download BOLT for free at http://boltbrowser.com – the mobile Internet has never looked this good on your phone.

About Bitstream
Bitstream Inc. develops software technologies and applications for the graphic art and mobile communications industries. Bitstream’s award-winning fonts and font technologies enable device manufacturers and application developers to render the highest quality text in any language, on any device, at any resolution. The company’s MyFonts brand is the world’s leading provider of fonts to consumers. Bitstream’s Pageflex brand enables marketers to easily produce customized communications in print, email, and online. The company’s latest offering is the BOLT mobile browser, which has been installed by millions of users worldwide since its release in February 2009. For more information visit www.bitstream.com.

BOLT mobile web browser just got better. And you heard it first from MobilityNigeria.

Thanks to a news item by Wap Review, we can let you know that the official English version of UCWEB 7.0 is now available. UCWEB is a popular mobile browser that is available for Symbian, Windows Mobile and Java-enabled devices.

Dennis Bournique of Wap Review has provided some info on what to expect from the S60 and Java versions of UCWEB 7. We took UCWEB for a spin on Windows Mobile Standard, and came out frustrated.

We tried out Download via PC first, and using the phone selection wizard, we found the version for Samsung B7320 and downloaded, then transferred it to phone. When we initiated installation, we got an unsuccessful installation error.

So, we tried the phone download route. Again, download worked fine. Installation went well too. However, each time we launched the browser, we got an error message that there was a problem with UCWEB.exe.

We never got it to run even once. It looks like UCWEB 7.0 still needs some tweaking. We recall that we had some initial problems with using version 6.3 earlier on, but it works fine now – and we dare say we are loving it here at Mobility Nigeria.

Download:
Download UCWEB 7.0 via PC.

Traditionally, smartphones have always had an edge over and above feature phones (non-smartphones). Smartphone users were the cream-of-the-crop, so to speak.

You see, on smartphones, you had the best of features. You had multi-tasking – that rare ability to run several appliccations at the same time and simply switch from one to another. And of course, with smartphones, you had the ability to install 3rd party applications. All these literally set smartphones aside from other phones and made them mini PCs.

But over the last 2 to 3 years, the line between smartphones and feature phones have continually been erased, so much so that what is left in some cases is a very thin – almost indiscernable – line.

There are a number of feature phones from various manufacturers that now come with multi-tasking and high-end features. All that separates some of these outstanding feature phones from smartphones is their inability to install 3rd party applications. Of course, there’s java (J2ME) to bridge even this last gap a little.

Look at the iPhone, for example. Though marketed as a smartphone, this beautiful device did not qualify on at least two fronts when first introduced:

1. it lacked multi-tasking
2. it lacked an openeness to 3rd party applications

Yet, it was successfully passed off as a smartphone.

Several feature phones from Nokia, LG, Samsung and others already pack the same features and capabilities as smartphones, bar installation of 3rd party apps and multi-tasking. LG in particular is breaking down the barrier even better than Nokia and Samsung by introducing multi-tasking into a good range of their feature phones.

Is there really any serious difference between the overall capabilities of feature phones and smartphones anymore?

I purchased a top-of-the-range smartphone late last year, the Nokia E90 communicator, but found that there was very little 3rd party applications that I needed to run on it. The device came with most of those features I needed built-in.

Now compare that with several high-specified feature phones. Those too come with many of my requirements built-in, and where necesarry there are often a number of java applications available to fill in the gap.

Would I be wrong to argue that a non-smartphone with a similar feature-set as my E90 would have been able to meet my needs just as well?

What do you think? Is this the beginning of the war between smartphones and feature phones? Do you absolutely need a smartphone now, looking back at growing similarities between smartphones and non-smartphones?

Mobile banking is big news in Africa – and more especially in Nigeria. The advent of GSM threw up a slew of mobile banking services, most of which ran basically on simple SMS. Send this code to a certain number to check your account balance. Send another to check last 5 transactions, and so on and so forth.

As a matter of fact, when First Atlantic Bank (now First Inland) introduced the SMS banking service years ago, I hopped on immediately, using it to power former DomainStandard hosting services (now Alireta).

First Atlantic was also revolutionary with its FlashMe Cash product, a purely SMS/mobile banking application that was a step above the regular SMS banking service. Funds transfer had never been so easy, and both account holders and non-account holders with First Atlantic could use it. All a user needed was a GSM line.

FlashMe Cash also served as a beautiful and effective payment system. DomainStandard Networks used it to full effect back then to receive payments from customers. I also remember that a java-based FlashMe Cash application was also introduced at one point in time.

A number of years down the road, Interswitch deployed its java-based mobile banking application that allows users check balance, transfer funds, purchase GSM airtime, issue instructions, etc over GPRS or SMS.

What more, Interswitch took this a step further, allowing each individual bank on its platform to brand the application. Thus, today we have the same java-based mobile application branded as SkyeMobile, Umobile, et al.

eTranzact, another payment processor has a similar application with similar functions.

Besides the above-listed mobile banking applications, are you aware of any other? For example, none of the banks with internet banking facilities that I have used have a mobile version of their online banking service. Do you know of any?

Thanks to Yomi for introducing me to Bolt. No; not Usain Bolt, the 100m & 200m World record holder. Neither is it Bolt the dog from the animated movie of the same title. It’s Bolt the mobile browser. I was quite impressed by its features and quickly decided to download, give it a test run and see how it compares to Opera Mini.

The Startpage is quite eye-catching. It is much better looking than the Opera Mini with its 3 tabs (History, Favourites & Feeds) allowing quick access. The arrow pointer feature, which is missing in Opera mini, is quite useful when clicking away. I however found out that you cannot edit the Favourites but can only add to them.

The Full PC style browsing is unique and one can appreciate web pages in all their glory when browsing on a mobile phone. I found the text quite small when reading but there is an option in Settings where you can adjust the font size to suit your viewing. One thing I found disappointing was the absence o the ability to prevent the browser from loading images. Images are loaded as a default. I guess this may be due to the Full PC style browsing.

As regards speed, I cannot quantitatively assess the speed but I must say its comparable to Opera Mini, though I think the Mini is faster. I won’t contest the data compression technology that Bolt claims to use to deliver web pages but another missing feature is the ability to determine how many kb each page you loaded was. On Opera Mini, one was able to see that detail at the bottom of the screen and there is also a Page Information feature under Tools in Opera Mini.

Lastly, there is a bar at the top of the screen in the Bolt Browser that displays progress by percentage when loading web pages. However, I noticed occasionally that it got stuck at 20% before then rapidly completing. I don’t know if it’s due to the network connection or related to the browser itself.

All in all, for a browser in Beta phase it has shown it can provide competition. I give it a thumbs-up!

Bolt is the name of a new java-based browser for mobile phones. The browser uses the WebKit rendering engine (s60 and iPhone built-in browsers come to mind, anyone?) and a proprietary font engine.

Bolt is developed by Bitstream, the guys behind the niche ThunderHawk Browser.
The developers of Bolt have made the following claims about Bolt:

* Full PC-style browsing on all types of mobile phones
* Web content is never reformatted, repurposed or removed
* Loads pages faster than competing mobile browsers
* Patented navigation and display technologies get you where you’re going faster
* 23:1 over the air data reduction speeds delivery of pages to your phone
* Consumes 1/3 of the battery power of other mobile browsers

Furthermore, the developers say:

Rather than offering a simplified, mini version of the Internet, BOLT provides users with a fast, efficient, feature-rich way to enjoy full PC-style web pages and rich media applications on all levels of mobile devices.

Built on Bitstream’s ThunderHawk browsing technology, BOLT is the result of 5+ years experience developing mobile browsers that optimize usability, speed and performance on resource-constrained systems with limited memory, processing power and screen space. (Source: Bolt Browser – About)

But does Bolt live up to these claims? I have taken the browser for a spin over the last few days, and here I present my findings in this review.

Interface

The Bolt interface is beautiful. Opera Mini looks bland in comparison. With Bolt, you get the feeling that you are actually browsing on PC. The startpage is especially well-organised and laid out, with three main tabs, History, Favourites (bookmarks), and Feeds. There’s also an address bar (with word auto-complete function) at the top of the page. Loading the startpage presents you with yourlist of bookmarks right away.

Bolt sports an arrow pointer similar to navigation with a mouse on a PC. The arrow pointer changes to an active pointer (hand-icon) when it moves over a clickable item.

Full PC-style Browsing

Bolt pulls this off well. In other words, what you get is what you would see if you were browsing on PC. I found the text still quite readable in this format, though I had contrary expectations.

But, beautifully, there’s a “Mobile View” option under “Settings” allowing you switch to accessing the mobile formats of mobile-friendly websites. If the website does not have a mobile version, Bolt simply displays the desktop version of web page – without reformatting anything – even if Mobile view has been selected.

Excellent job!

Speed

Bolt is fast. Very fast. I didn’t do any scientific comparisons, so I am very sure that I cannot give figures. Still my experience is that Bolt matches Opera Mini in speed. I leave it to others to give us the specific statistics that will proclaim one as the faster.

Data Compression

Bolt uses compression technology to deliver web pages to the user. Bolt claims that content is compressed 23:1 before being sent to the handset, reducing data traffic and page load times.

Video and Flash

Bolt has limited flash support. You cannot watch Youtube clips directly on the browser, but it allows you to watch them via RealPlayer. For those on an expensive data plan, here’s the good news: Bolt compresses the video into very manageable sizes (most I tried ended up between 300kb and 600kb – I think the 23:1 compression ratio is believable). Of course, viewing quality suffers.

Other Features

- Find text on page
- Back/Forward
- Pop-up blocking
- Magnification (zooming)
- Image download (download is transferred to the built-in browser)
- Navigation shortcuts
- FTP (I haven’t been able to get it to work yet)

In all I have found Bolt a very refreshing application to use. It has replaced Opera Mini as my backup mobile browser. Now, if only I can get that FTP feature to work…

If your mouth is watering a bit by now, please go ahead and download your copy of Bolt.