Nokia's Maemo 5 Has an Official Qt Port

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has announced today that it has created the official Qt port to Maemo 5 and that it has also published an initial Technology Preview release. According to the company, the new port is aimed at enabling developers to use Qt to build apps for the upcoming Nokia N900 device, while also ensuring that the software solutions can be easily ported to all platforms supported by Qt, including the next Maemo 6 release, Symbian and Windows Mobile.

The new Qt port on Maemo 5, the handset vendor states, has been designed specifically to fit the Maemo 5 environment, the operating system that will power the soon-to-be-launched Nokia N900 Internet Tablet. The port is based on the upcoming 4.6 version of Qt, which is expected to be released in final form in the first quarter of next year.

“With this announcement and our upcoming port of Qt to the Symbian platform, we will quickly see Qt established as a leading framework for mobile application development. Developers will be able to use Qt as a framework to create powerful native applications and with Qt's Webkit integration, it also provides them with a platform for creating web applications and services,” said Sebastian Nyström, vice president of Application Services and Frameworks at Nokia. “Qt's support for Maemo 5, Maemo 6, Symbian, as well as Windows Mobile makes Qt the most sensible choice for developers looking to target multiple devices and achieve the broadest reach with their innovations.”

Nokia has also announced that the port will incorporate 'Qt for Maemo', a community-driven project that already delivered great aid on the development of the port. Due to the fact that the project has an open nature, the Finnish phone maker was able to base the official port on the code from the community project. The release of an official port was necessary, Nokia notes, so it can ensure this way that applications developed with Qt will offer compatibility both with future versions of Maemo as well as with other platforms supported by Qt.

A beta version of Qt 4.6 is expected to be released next week at the Qt Developer Days conference in Munich. More details on Qt can be found here. Take a look at the video below to learn a few more details on Qt on the Maemo 5 Platform.