While Rich Green, Nokia's new CTO, dodged any question at the recent Qt Developer Days event related to the availability of the first MeeGo device from Nokia, he did announce a new focus for the company's Qt framework software.
According to Rich, the most important platforms for Nokia--Symbian and MeeGo--will see an increase in the company's investment. This would see Qt's more traditional OS platforms--Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and embedded Linux--remain as important, while other Unix systems would see a reduced level of financial support.
Other Nokia execs outlined efforts to boost the performance of smartphones, said to be the most frequently improvement requested by handset users. Lars Knol, Qt's R&D director, said that better performance was now the primary focus of development and one aim was to reduce the complexity of the graphics rendering pipeline from three stages to one, making full use of GPU acceleration where it was available. Lars added that another project, codenamed Lighthouse, aimed to offer similar hardware acceleration for developers who were creating embedded devices.
Other improvements planned for Qt are better modularisation and the full integration of gestures and tactile feedback into the Qt framework.
Qt, Nokia's open source GUI framework software, is being increasingly positioned by company executives as key to many aspects of the company's future.
For more on this story:
- read The H
Related stories:
Nokia touts simplified development via enhanced Qt SDK
Nokia Makes it Easier, More Lucrative for Developers to Reach the World's Largest Smartphone Family
Checking out Symbian^4: Nokia's response to the iPhone