Forum Nokia and DeviceAnywhere launch Forum Nokia Virtual Developer Lab

by: admin Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Rating: Application Testing gets machine on

Forum Nokia, the largest mobile development community in the world has teamed up with DeviceAnywhere to create an online real time remote testing service.

From the Press Release:

DeviceAnywhere™ today unveiled the new Forum Nokia Virtual Developer Lab (VDL) – a remote testing service designed to dramatically reduce the time and resources required to develop, test, monitor, and deploy applications and content for Nokia handsets. The on-line service supports the most popular Nokia devices running on the Series 40 and S60 platforms and is available globally to all members of the Forum Nokia developer community.

DeviceAnywhere employs real, physical handsets – therefore, anything that a user can do with a device in his/her hand, he/she can do with the handsets in DeviceAnywhere – in real-time. This includes tasks such as pressing device buttons, tapping on touch screens, connecting/disconnecting the battery, viewing the LCD, listening to ringers and speakers, and opening/closing a handset.

Community members can share devices among developers in different regions of the world, as well as save test results to share at a later time. This synergy empowers developers to create better, higher-quality content, as well as enables faster time-to-market.

“Forum Nokia is committed to providing developers with the latest innovations in tools and testing services to enable them to produce rich, viable content to deliver to end-users worldwide,” said Tom Libretto, VP of Forum Nokia. “Our collaboration with a best-of-breed technology like DeviceAnywhere to establish the Forum Nokia VDL not only provides our developer community with remote access to devices, but it also enables them to collaborate and work together to ensure that Nokia customers are receiving high-quality content and benefiting from the best mobile experience possible.”

Through the Forum Nokia Virtual Developer Lab, developers currently have access to more than 40 of Nokia’s most popular devices available both in Europe and the United States – with new devices continuously added. Some of Nokia’s most popular in-market devices that are currently available through the VDL include the Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism, the Nokia N81 and the new, slim-formed Nokia 5310 XpressMusic.

To access the Forum Nokia Virtual Developer Lab, community members simply register by selecting the Forum Nokia VDL option through DeviceAnywhere’s Web site

Costs?

For an actual breakdown of costs check here but as a guideline access to handsets is at an hourly rate and the more hours you sign up for the cheaper it gets. You can also buy a Package. A Package is “a set of handsets grouped together, based on a common network, manufacturer, or other characteristic. For example, devices on the Verizon network are grouped into the ‘Verizon’ package; Sony Ericsson handsets are grouped into the Sony Ericsson package. Customers can choose which packages to subscribe to, based on which networks or manufacturers you want to deploy your mobile applications to.” Yes that’s right, from the look of things you can include other handset manufactures in the packages as well!

Package Access

Packages Monthly Fee

Individual Device Packages $100 each

Device Hours

Minimum Monthly Hours        Monthly Fee         Hourly Rate
10                                             $160                  $16.00
30                                             $450            $15.00
50                                             $700                  $14.00
100                                           $1300                $13.00

We Say:

One of the biggest hurdles in application development is testing. Theoretically at least, you shouldn’t have to test an application on every target handset. The reality is that due to OS considerations, which JSR’s (Java Specification Requests) actually made it to the final handset, how much free memory is available once core aspects of the OS are running and a multitude of other factors all affect the ability for a mobile device to run an application and this is the same for every handset manufacturer. It is therefore refreshing to see Nokia, through Forum Nokia and DeviceAnywhere work towards making this testing process simpler, cheaper and quicker.