Nokia translates Web apps to mobile widgets

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) today introduced three mobile development tools for those desktop designers and Internet content developers looking to migrate to mobile phones with simple, personalized applications. The tools allow developers to convert standard Web code and scripting language into mobile apps and services, tying widgets – an increasingly important focus for Nokia – to the mobile phone.

Nokia has been working hard to redefine itself as an Internet-services company but has had to tone down its services push in attempt to streamline its businesses and reduce costs. The handset maker announced in April that it would focus on third-party developers rather than its own internal developers for new apps. Part of the plans were aimed at increasing opportunities for third parties, which it hopes to make easier and more widespread with today's announcement.

Nokia's Web Runtime (WRT) plug-ins for Adobe Dreamweaver, Microsoft Visual Studio and an updated plug-in for Aptana Studio will let Web developers using standards-based codes, such as HTML and JavaScript, turn their existing Web content into mobile widgets in less than one week, according to Craig Cumberland, Nokia's director of Web tools and technologies. Widgets aren't a new focus for Nokia or its global developer program, Forum Nokia, but the company is starting to achieve volume in the number of handsets that can support new apps, he said.  

"With tens of millions of devices on the market that have this capability, we certainly have a lot of positive responses from developer communities and customers about the ability to have these light-weight applications that can be generated in a fraction of the time of a mobile application that they could then potentially customize," Cumberland said.

Any developer down to the average consumer or business with, for example, PhotoShop can create and customize a widget to port to one of 27 supported Nokia S60 phones, including the N97, which launched today in the US. It can be an app to share with friends or one designed solely for a particular user and device. Cumberland created a widget to automatically convert text-based phone numbers to numerals since he couldn't easily decipher them on his qwerty keyboard. It looks just like any other widget on the mobile phone, he said, but was designed particularly for his handset. According to Nokia, other popular widgets include breaking news headlines, stock-market tickers, social network status updates, flight arrival schedules and localized daily weather.

Nokia WRT plug-ins, available in eight languages, are built on the same open-source Webkit project environment used on Nokia's S60 platform-based phones. Webkit also forms the basis for Apple's Safari-based iPhone browser and Google's Android. Nokia's overall goal is to provide a framework for using this browser as a transport layer to allow access and integration through the Internet on a mobile device, Cumberland said. The widgets can be delivered to the handset through Nokia's app store portal Ovi or direct to the handset's home page, and Nokia's eventual goal is to target this widget-based Web environment across all its platforms moving forward, he added.

"They don't have to be incredibility complex," Cumberland said. "There is certainly a role for those apps, but there is also a big role for these light-weight phone apps and simple functionality things that allow you to personalize the functionality of the device. WRT was one of the key components from the developer perspective that allows that. Whereas it may take six to nine or 12 months to develop a highly detailed, complex Internet application, you can build and deliver a good functionality widget in just eight days."