I’ve sat silently for a while, mainly because I’m not really experienced in developing applications, so I can’t speak first-hand of how difficult it is or isn’t to get one signed. However, I do know a few things. The first thing I know is that Antony Pranata’s Screenshot is one of the greatest freeware apps out there for 3rd Edition devices. It’s the first thing that I install on any phone, and possibly one of my most used apps (given, I’m a blogger, so I use it for posts, but still). It’s incredibly useful, and already up to v2.60 (2.80 if you count unsigned versions).
The second thing I know is that Antony Pranata is pretty well-versed
when it comes to developing Symbian S60. He’s a two-time Forum Nokia
Champion, a recognition and reward program for top mobile developers
from around the world, and as officially given up on the Screenshot
freeware app. You can read the details here on his blog.
I find this terrible, and hope that someone at Symbian/Nokia/S60 reads
this and makes some changes. Developing software for these devices is
already a big enough feat. Having your application, which you’ve slaved
over and spent countless hours perfecting, stuck in the signing process
for over a month is unacceptable.
I sincerely hope that someone doesn’t just make a phone call to get his
application through the process. That’s not what this is about.
SOMETHING needs to change, obviously. When someone of Antony’s
experience actually dumps a project because of it, changes need to be
made to ensure that doesn’t happen again. Please pass this along so
that anyone in Symbian/Nokia/S60 can take notice and make some changes.
In my opinion, Symbian Signed should be bending over backwards to help people develop applications for S60 devices. 3rd Party applications are one of S60′s greatest strengths and anything that hinders others in creating them is a bad bad thing.
To Antony, that sucks you’ve had such issues, but on behalf of the S60
bloggers out there, and regular users, thank you so much for developing
Screenshot to begin with, and for maintaining it as much as you have.
