Nokia N950 Developer Kit for the developer

    Not so long ago, we introduced the Nokia N9 smartphone with the MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan operating system. In this post, we mentioned the Nokia N950 smartphone with a physical retractable qwerty keyboard.



    You can find a lot of enthusiastic reviews about the N950 on the Web, and yet the device will not appear on sale, since it is intended only for developers and is released in a limited edition. Under the cut, you can find out what is remarkable about this smartphone, about the useful tools of its OS, as well as how Russian developers can get the N950.


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    Nokia N950 is a device based on the MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan, designed specifically for developers. With it, they can begin work on applications for this OS right now, before the start of sales of Nokia N9. Software and hardware Nokia N950 is as close as possible to N9, but still has a number of significant differences. Of the advantages, it is worth noting the presence of a full qwerty-keyboard, allowing the developer to conveniently work with the terminal. On the other hand, unlike the N9, the N950 lacks an NFC module, and the AMOLED matrix is ​​replaced by a TFT with the same resolution.



    MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan: Developer Edition


    MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan is a full-fledged * nix-system that provides the programmer and user with maximum freedom of action. The N950 comes preinstalled with a special developer edition of this OS. The latest official firmware (v22) for the N950 can be downloaded here .

    The N950 includes Developer Mode by default and includes tools for analyzing memory status, energy profiler, tracers, tcpdump, x11-utilities, and many other tools. The device has an available “out of the box” terminal for working with the system with the ability to obtain root privileges . Convenient qwerty-keyboard only adds convenience when working with the terminal. However, you can always connect to a smartphone via SSHusing a USB cable or WiFi connection to debug applications from the computer. Exactly the same developer mode can be enabled on N9 - in this case, all the missing system components will be downloaded from the repository.

    In addition, Boosted WG utility is preinstalled on the smartphone. It allows you to enable the display of various technical information: fps, object names, their sizes and coordinates, style names and much more. Also, with its help, you can test the appearance of various Qt widgets, change the screen orientation and take screenshots.


    System window before and after enabling display of information in Boosted WG

    Application Development for N950 / N9

    Qt version 4.7.4 libraries are preinstalled on the device (if yours turned out to be 4.7.3, then you need to update the device to the 22nd firmware), Qt Mobility 1.2.0 and Qt Quick Components 1.0. Thanks to this, many Qt applications with Symbian and Maemo 5 are already ported to Harmattan. The main technology for developing GUI applications for Harmattan is QtQuick. GUIs based on QWidgets and QGraphicsView are poorly supported (there are no native styles for widgets, problems with displaying in portrait orientation of the screen), therefore, when creating applications for Harmattan from scratch, QML and Qt Components are recommended. In most cases, this can significantly reduce the use of C ++ code, and in some cases, completely abandon it. Learn more about using QML here .

    Application development support for the MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan was added in the Qt SDK 1.1.3 . The SDK can be installed on Windows, Mac OS and Linux, contains Qt Creator 2.3 with improved support for Qt Quick, the QUEMU emulator with Harmattan, and supports debugging applications directly on the N950 via USB or WLAN (the SDK Connectivity tool must be running on the device). In addition, several N950 and N9 are available remotely using the Remote Device Access program .

    Who and how can get the N950?


    Nokia N950 is part of the so-called Developer Kit and, as already noted, is not intended for sale. DevKit was released in a limited edition and was provided free of charge to selected enthusiasts of the MeeGo community , Qt fans from Qt Ambassadors, and developers participating in Nokia Developer Launchpad and Nokia Developer PRO . Through these channels, developers have already received several hundred N950 smartphones, with about 40 devices received by Qt-programmers from Russia and Ukraine.

    Fortunately, a small supply of DevKit appeared in our Moscow office. And we are also ready to provide these devices to the most active Russian developers.

    To do this, you need to offer a draft application that you undertake to write or port for Nokia N9. If we like the idea of ​​your project, you will receive your Nokia N950 Developer Kit for development.

    If you are an experienced Qt developer, but you don’t have any suitable ideas for your mobile application, write to us and we will think about it together. In case of difficulties in the process of writing the application, our programmers will certainly help and advise you.

    To replenish the number of happy owners of the N950, send us an email at forumnokia.russia {a_t} nokia.com
    with a description of your plans to write or port your Qt application to MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan.

    A small bonus: bringing your project to the end and starting to sell it in the “Ovi Store”, you will receive additional income, which is also very good. :) All rights to applications, of course, are assigned to its authors.

    Nokia Developer Badge


    And since we are talking about bonuses, here's another one for you: we introduced Nokia Developer badge on Habrahabr. To get it, you need to write three posts with one or more of the following tags:
    • Qt and Nokia (both tags should be used)
    • Qt quick,
    • QML
    • WRT,
    • Symbian C ++,
    • Qt Mobility,
    • Qt Creator.

    Each of the posts must score at least thirty points. You can post to any blog.

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