Python for S60 Platform - Case Study Example

College Python for S60 Platform Python is one of the simple programming languages with a rich library of tools and functionalities to support programming. The use of these libraries ensures that a programming language is reliable, simple and provides captivating features for different sets through a variety of extensions. Python involves an easy-to-use and learn syntax and is based on the need for a programmer to write the program, read what is supposed to be typed and offers the required program documentation. Python improves rapid compilation and has the ability to code a program and use the same program. Python is based on C and will heavily rely on the C libraries that can be imported, though it has a perfect fit with UNIX, POSIX and Linux languages. The program was developed in 1991 by Rossums van Guido based on lessons that he had leant in the course of operating system support and language processes (Scheibe and Tuulos, 2). The main advantage of the language is that it is an open system that offers access to Operating System (OS) services making it possible to create and develop high level solutions based on other already built programs. As such, the program allows a perfect integration with existing applications or programs and perfect processing all together. Some of the features that make the program the choice for many include its security, dynamism, portability, ease of interpretation, multithread, robustness among others. This explains the high performance of mobile phones that use Python, such as the Nokia N97 in image stabilization and improved processor performance to handle AR applications with at a high degree of fineness. Python uses in mobile devices Today, as development of the digital gadgets increases, mobile phone penetration has increased tremendously in the last one decade. Currently, there is over 50% penetration around the globe, a figure estimated to hit 70% mark by 2010 (Kerr, Thinyane & Foster, 80). As a result, the power of mobile phone hardware has improved in power and usability, which calls for the robust interfaces to complement mobile phone hardware. The mobile phone usability and speeds depend on its processor with faster processors allowing high speed image processing, which is closely related to a variety of other services. These services include the ability to detect motions, high speed processing during mobile games and improvement of processor speeds when handling demanding applications. Consequently, most phones built on Symbian OS series 60 have the ability to clock a speed of 434MHz, a good example being Nokia N97 and some PC’s that can clock a 1GHz speed (Kerr, Thinyane & Foster, 80). The major advantage of Python use in mobile phone platforms is its ability to ensure powerful Augmented Reality (AR) applications. Development of applications is usually a complex task. However, the use of Python as the main language has proved to make the process much easier. Smartphones are today powerful enough to run AR applications and have the ability to undertake threaded processing and have the needed hardware resources, which include connectivity capability and inbuilt cameras. As a result, Python is the best programming language to addresses the development issues that are usually complex in mobile programming when integrated with the mobile software platform (Kerr, Thinyane & Foster, 80). In other words, in mobile phones, Python readily supports object-oriented programming, multiple inheritances, name spaces among other flexible language properties and offers a high level integrated language despite its simple structure (Soares, 3). Python use in mobile platforms has improved due to the ability to speed up and make simple Virtual Reality (VR) and AR processes in all desktop applications. For instance in the recent development, Nokia Company imported Python to their Symbian OS for the S60 platform (PyS60), an approach that made it possible to extend by C++ and offer the right of access to the S60 native features. The main advantage of the importation to the Symbian platform is making the development much easier and versatile based on any AR applications (Soares, 3). Moreover, Python ensures that AR applications are characterized by interaction with digital data that they are based on the real world and in real time (Soares, 4). Therefore, Python simplifies the augmentation processes that are usually quite complex for the mobile platform developers. Python is an open source programming platform, with a high level of integration ability and simple structures linking Python to other mobile phone platforms such as the Symbian platform based on C++. As a result, Python makes it possible to achieve extended utilities that may not be covered in the Symbian standard libraries while at the same time allowing the same access to utilities similar to Symbian C++ applications. In other words, the use of Python in Symbian or any other mobile platform improves mobile processing ability by extending performance of the mobile phone beyond what could have been achieved by using the mobile platform alone. Productivity of the mobile platform would be extended in Python development by allowing the developer to concentrate more on applications and user interfaces, preventing overloading of the mobile platform with low level types of computing details (Soares, 4). The use of Python allows the Python API to define a set of constructs that grant access to Python run-time system making it possible to import the language into C++ applications by using the “h reader file.” Therefore, it possible for Python to facilitate seamless integration with other programming languages due to its ease of programming and improvement on mobile phone processes. Python for S60 in Nokia Python for S60 (PyS60) offering the python programming language the S60 Symbian platform only, a Nokia based smartphone platform based on the Symbian OS (Scheible and Tuulos,, 13). This is facilitated by installation of Python interpreter to the Nokia phone to execute python scripts, which offers access to multiple API’s of the smartphone. The advantage of the PyS60 is in its ease of learning and facilitating rapid development of mobile phone applications. Moreover, PyS60 and open access platform with open tools and makes use of multiple extensions making development of applications versatile. PyS60 ensures prototyping is efficient through “wrapping of complex low-level technical details behind simple interfaces” (Scheible and Tuulos, 13). Programming through the platform is also fun to application developers and motivates them to come up with a wide range of applications for Nokia mobile phones. PyS60 offered a critical turning point at a time when development of applications for mobile phones was both time consuming and complex, and opened the previously restricted access to mobile phone platforms. PyS60 offers Nokia phones a critical execution environment and is developed for Nokia based on the Open Source Project (Scheible and Tuulos,12). In Nokia smartphones, PyS60 revolutionized innovation and was a toolkit to ensure rapid prototyping among application developers. Nokia phone models such as the N97, which uses the PyS60 platform, have high resolution screens which facilitate high quality camera, clarity of the screen displays and allows rapid image manipulation, in addition to multiple visual interactions (Kerr, Thinyane and Foster, 80). Moreover, the development of visions based technologies in such phones is credited to the use of the PyS60 platform, considering that the new models of Nokia smartphone using this platform have major improvements on the above areas compared to the earlier models. Any application that is run on Python will require an updated version of Python S60 in the mobile phone. However, python does not limit the application to the updated version but also runs in previous versions of the OS. All the same, the application can only be run on smartphones running the Symbian OS, with Nokia phones being the majority of phone using this platform. PyS60 allows developers to come up with customized applications, which include games, application to edit and improve images improvement on screen resolutions, and other types of applications that require heavy use of the processor and high processor speeds in execution. These applications proved difficult to design before development of the Pys60 platform with Nokia smartphones based on the Symbian platform showing major improvements with Python integration. However, Nokia phones are not pre-installed with the Python for series 60 package and one is required to download the package from the Nokia website under the series 60 platform (Scheibe and Tuulos, 3). Through python for S60 mobile platform, developers have found it easy to develop a wide range of functionalities that include camera, Bluetooth, sound graphics SMS messaging internet positioning among other functionalities (Scheible and Tuulos, 3). Its ease of development acts as a shortcut from inspiration of an idea to implementation, which makes it possible to have millions of applications based on the Symbian platform that are developed through the Python for S60 platform. Sydwynder Example Sydewynder is an application that facilitates automatic open source SMS receiving and sending in Python for S60 series of Nokia smartphones. The application is versatile in that it can accurately automate the required responses of messages and sometimes act as a mobile application server in areas where it is impossible to set up a traditional server, or where one is not allowed to do so. The application is a versatile for prototyping applications on mobile platforms, which includes games and other applications with the need to ensure expensive hosting. As such the application works perfectly in educational settings and will come along with an emulator used to develop scripts off the phone. The application was developed in 2007 by Mike Edwards and Notzold Paul and targeted the S60 Nokia phones with an emphasis on Nokia N80. Running the application requires the latest version of Python S60. Considering the application was developed in an open source code to send and receive SMS in Nokia S60 phones, in an automated process, PyS60 was a great success in creating the application with SMS ability, in addition to performing other prototyping functions. However, there are no foreseen possible developments on this application in the near future. Conclusion PyS60 has proved to be one of the most versatile and useful platform for developers to base their applications. Moreover, its ease of use ensures that even beginners have an easy time using the platform, and the open source application allows access to any developer to work his/her applications on the platform. Considering the major benefits in improving applications development in mobile platforms, pyS60 still has some future as more developers will take advantage of this system and its seamless integration with other languages to create applications. For instance, the Nokia python team releases the PyS60 2.0 in 2010, a major improvement in the earlier versions, which made making of applications based on the platform more versatile. Therefore, there is still a bright future for Python use in mobile platform development into the future. Work Cited Kerr, Simon, Thinyane, Hannah and Foster, Grey. Mobile Phone Performance Analysis for Camera Based Visual Interactions.,SAICSIT, 2009, Riverside, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa Scheible, Jurgen. Mobile Phone Programming for Multimedia. MM’07, September 23–28, 2007, Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany Soares, L. Cristiano. Easy Mobile Augmented Reality using Python. Python Papers, 1(2009), ojs.pythonpapers.org/index.php/tppm/article/download/95/95?. Tuulos, Ville and Scheible, Jugen. Mobile Python: Rapid prototyping of applications on the mobile platform. Chichester: Wiley & Sons, 2007. Read More