Symbian Signed

If you are a developer (and not just trying to get somebody else's app signed), then do as the Symbian Signed front page asks (send email with your contact info and what application or applications you are developing).

So long gone are the days when anyone could write their own apps for symbian then? I'm not a developer just playing really. I'm now beginning to think the N95 was a bad idea and I should have stuck to my old phone.

Thanks anyway.
8Ball

8Ball wrote:So long gone are the days when anyone could write their own apps for symbian then? I'm not a developer just playing really. I'm now beginning to think the N95 was a bad idea and I should have stuck to my old phone.

Thanks anyway.
8Ball

Whats the restrictions on SimbianSigned got to do with you regretting buying an N95?

The restrictions are a direct result of the piracy of apps like Rout 66 which a couple of people were self-signing for loads of users on this forum.

60% (says Symbian) of the APIs and 5 of the user-grantable capabilities (privileges) require no Symbian Signing (self-signing is enough).

13 additional capabilities require a Symbian developer certificate for the developer and Symbian Signing for general release.

A few additional capabilities require manufacturer permission before Symbian Signing.

The SDKs are fee and so is Carbice.c++ Express, if you want an IDE.

In addition, there's Java and for S60 there's also Python for S60 as programming languages.

There's also free freeware signing (put you need an Authenticated Content Signing ID, which costs a bit).

So, anyone can still write apps for Symbian phones, even if the Symbian Signing policy and processes would benefit from certain improvements.

dez_borders wrote:
The restrictions are a direct result of the piracy of apps like Rout 66 which a couple of people were self-signing for loads of users on this forum.

Can you provide evidence of that?

Everything I have heard says that Symbian Signed is simply for security - restriction of certain APIs which are deemed "risky" for "anyone" to be able to use.

Hmm, from the Forum Nokia Wiki, it looks like the internal GPS of the N95 requires an application to be SymbianSigned in order to use it, as it requires the Location capability. Is this correct? And that this kind of signing also costs money?

With a background in WindowsMobile development (where signing applications is not a requirement), this is a bit disappointing.

I was hoping to write a couple of simple Symbian applications using the internal GPS and perhaps release them for free, if they turned out to be useful.

I don't suppose there's a free way of signing applications just to run on one device?

Edit: Ah, I could get access to the internal GPS for my own device if I had a developer certificate locked to one IMEI, which I don't think I can get while Symbian Signed isn't accepting new registrations. *sigh*

dez_borders wrote:Whats the restrictions on SimbianSigned got to do with you regretting buying an N95?

The restrictions are a direct result of the piracy of apps like Rout 66 which a couple of people were self-signing for loads of users on this forum.

Indeed: thanks too several users on this forum !!!