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Looks like Nokia are back to what they do best – innovating to make great hardware. Check out the videos of their prototype demo of a flexible user interface … yes, really! They’re introducing some neat gestures which might just be the future. What do you think?

Click here to read the article and see the videos on Mashable.

Nokia is hosting a free 2-days intensive workshop to explore user-experience on the new Nokia N9 smartphone. This workshop will be hosted at GITEX Technology week in Dubai on October 11th and 12th.

With Qt Quick and QML, you can create beautiful mobile applications where touch input, fluid animations and UX are crucial. Qt offers you a robust, tried and tested application and UI framework for the development of rich compelling apps for the new Nokia N9 smartphone and Nokia Symbian smartphones.

This will be a hands-on, classroom-style, setting where developers will be taught how to create mobile applications using Qt Quick for Nokia N9 smartphone, focusing on UI, Mobility APIs and the use of the new NFC technology APIs.

If you are curious to learn more about Qt Quick then this workshop will allow you to ask experts about its technical capabilities, exchange ideas with your peers, and see for yourself how Qt Quick will provide increased flexibility while reducing long term support costs.

Click here to find out more.

Microsoft and Nokia have just released a suite of tools to help mobile app developers port from Symbian to Windows Phone 7.

Read more here.

This is great news. And I just hope that Microsoft stop penalising app developers & publishers by forcing them to cover the 20% slice required by Yalla Apps. For the record, I appreciate that Yalla Apps provide a service and should be paid; I just think they should be paid out of the Microsoft slice as opposed to the publisher slice.

Whether you are a pro app developer or whether you are just starting out and fancy a career building apps, we can help you. We’re investing in app projects all the time and often the person with the killer app idea doesn’t have the full range of skills to actually create the app. That’s when we invite the AppsArabia members – who do have the skills – to submit a proposal to do the work for us on a fixed cost project basis.

Remember, as well as funding projects, we are also trying to help the developer community to …

• grow their businesses
• get better at what they do
• find the fair market rate to charge for their services

So, here’s what you need to do …

1. make sure you are a registered member of AppsArabia
2. set your mobile platform/SDK preferences correctly in your AppsArabia account
3. include your skills & experience (including app creds) in your AppsArabia profile description
4. be active on this site – engage in the forum, post comments, etc.
5. follow @AppsArabia on Twitter so you receive notifications

Then we will consider you when we are looking for developers to give work to!

As you know, AppsArabia works closely with all the platforms and telcos, and we can now share with you that Nokia’s Ovi Store is about to launch operator billing in UAE with Etisalat. (They are already live with operator billing in KSA with STC).

This is massive news! Many smartphone users in MENA do not have credit/debit cards or else they do not want to use them to buy apps from the app stores, either online or via their devices.

Operator billing means that app entrepreneurs can collect payments from consumers easily and efficiently for things like app sales and in-app purchases. The payments get charged directly to the consumer’s Etisalat account – post paid customers will see the charges on their monthly bill and pre-paid customers will have the charges deducted from their credit.

AppsArabia believes that operator billing is an effective solution to the biggest challenge in this region … how to collect money from consumers. Congratulations to Nokia and Etisalat for leading the way here in the UAE and we hope that operator billing will be rolled out across the whole region with all platforms and all telcos soon.

I simply had to publish this great article by Natasha Stokes at Mobile Choice because it perfectly summarises the new iOS from Apple – it isn’t ground breaking but it will be a huge success because of its simplicity.

In my view, Apple now need to look at consumer payment mechanisms – their competitors are busy rolling out operator billing … but will Apple every do this?

Click here to read the full article at Mobile Choice.

I thought I would share this recent article I read in The National because it addresses the big challenge we have in the region for monetizing apps: people with smartphones in this region do not necessarily have credit/debit cards or else they don’t want to use them. Premium SMS is not attractive because the telcos charge too much and we’re all still waiting for operator billing across all platforms and all telcos.

But the next big opportunity is Near Field Communication and this article provides a nice intro …

Arab Business Machine (ABM), the Apple Authorised Distributor, are running an iOS app development course from 29th May to 2nd June at Zayed University’s Media City Campus in Dubai. This is a special, invitation only, event and ABM have offered 2 places for free to AppsArabia.

I think it is only right that I offer these places to local iOS app developers who are active AppsArabia members … and the fairest way to do this is via a mini competition

To enter the contest and win a place on the training course, please email us a short paragraph (no more than 100 words) telling us what your favourite iOS app is and why.

The requirements are as follows …

1. you must have an Apple MacBook (with all the latest updates and Xcode 4 installed)
2. you must have an iPhone iPod Touch or iPad (NOT jailbroken with the latest iOS update installed)
3. you must have programming skills – Objective C (preferred), C or C++
4. you must have an Apple developer account (if you don’t have one yet, click here to enroll in the program of your choice)
5. we must receive your email no later than midnight on Monday 23rd May

Obviously, we’re keen for you to use your app development skills to actually build apps, perhaps funded by AppsArabia?

The trainer will be coming from Atlanta’s Big Nerd Ranch Co., a company that works closely with Apple (and previously NEXT).

You will learn how to …

• create iPhone applications that use Core Location (GPS, Cell Tower Triangulation, Wifi Access Point Location) to pinpoint a user’s location
• localize applications for international use
• swap out different interfaces (windows) with animation
• display data in tables
• create applications that can record audio and play short sounds and full audio files
• store data as files or SQLite databases
• handle warnings from the phone so applications don’t get shut down
• handle touch and complex multi-touch sequences
• draw with Core Graphics
• animate user interfaces with Core Animation
• create an application that can access the user’s photos or use the camera to take new photos for use within the application
• use the accelerometer to detect changes in the device’s orientation
• pull data from a web service for use in an application
• create applications that access and modify the user’s Address Book through a standard or customized interface
• maintain a preference file for an application
• use Instruments to profile an application

ABM is the Apple Authorised Distributor in the region and one of the very few companies that are able to provide such courses. This is a wonderful opportunity – you’ll learn new skills and how to improve your existing development talents.

Many thanks to our friends at ABM and Apple for providing us with this opportunity!

Forum Nokia are running a series of webinars on game development that I highly recommend to any AppsArabia members interested in producing game apps or who are developing for Symbian in general.

Click here for a full list of the Forum Nokia upcoming game development related webinars.

The world’s most widely used smartphone platform lives on so there’s every reason to develop for this platform.

Nokia has recently decided to focus on Qt as their sole application development framework to simplify things for developers.

Read the statement from Nokia’s CTO, Rich Green.

This is a useful article from iPhoneDeveloperTips.com for all you iPhone app developers that are struggling with the latest version Xcode not enabling compatibility with older iPhone OS versions.

Click here to read the full article.

This article by Geoffrey Goetz @ The Apple Blog explains how to create a map within your iPhone app using MapKit.

Read the full article here.

This is a great article by roving reporter Liz Gannes from the WWDC 2010 event in California, USA. It includes a video of her playing with the new iPhone and then interviewing some of the world’s leading iPhone app developers to get their reactions.

Click here to read her full article & watch the video.

Wired magazine recently launched their iPad app and it has created quite a storm – both good and bad. It’s a beautiful app which demonstrates the likely future of publishing and how people will be consuming content. But is has a HUGE download size (527MB!!!) for just one edition!

Technical reviewers are saying that the app could have been structured differently and used different techniques (HTML5?) to make a slimmer download with the same user experience.

Wired will probably provide some rationale to their choices but one thing is for sure … it is very important to consider download size when planning your app. Information architecture is important, but don’t forget about technical architecture.

Does it matter? Do consumers care about the download size as long as their experience remains a good one? After all, most people download via their computers or are on some sort of data plan anyway (or connecting via wifi). What do you think?

Bob Koon has written a great article on the matter. Click here to read it.

And I just found this article from Layton Duncan which is also good.

It’s easy if you know how! Thanks to Brandon Treb @ iCodeBlog for the guide

Click here to read the full details.

Jason Ankeny @ Fierce Developer reports that Apple has released its iPhone OS 4.0 beta 3 update to registered developers.

Read the article here.

So the iPad requires a new micro-SIM card for the device to use 3G networks ;-(

The National’s “beep beep” blog broke the news that Etisalat’s SIM card engineers have fashioned a solution to the micro-SIM problem

Click here to read the full article at The National’s beep beep blog.

On April 8, Apple unveiled plans for the biggest and most exciting iPhone software update yet. iPhone OS 4 will include over 100 new user features for iPhone and iPod touch owners to enjoy. And for developers, a new software development kit (SDK) offers over 1500 new APIs to create apps that are even more powerful, innovative, and amazing.

iPhone OS 4 will ship this summer for iPhone and iPod touch, and for iPad in the fall. A developer beta is available now.

Read more on Apple’s site.