Aptana Studio's Nokia WRT Plugin
A few months ago I was invited to view a webcast of the Nokia WRT plugin for Aptana Studio. At first I was skeptical. The last thing I needed was to learn another programming language for mobile devices. Upon getting involved in the webcast, however, I learned that the Nokia WRT is web standards-based and not based on some proprietary programming language.
While everybody is all "ga-ga" over the iPhone and iPhone SDK development, Nokia decided to base their development in a similar vein to Adobe AIR - HTML, CSS & JavaScript. That alone is extremely refreshing for any software development company. All these devices requiring their own special language to develop applications was getting quite tiring.
With Aptana Studio's plugin, not only do you get the robustness of the Aptana Studio environment, but you also get to test out your applications in emulators of all the various phones that support the WRT. That alone is worth the price of admission. Nokia goes one step further though by also offering some JavaScript API files that don't just let you interact with the phone's hardware, but also give you a library of widgets to work with - cutting your development time down even more.
Despite the love for the iPhone and the hype surrounding Android, Nokia is still one of the top cell phone companies in the business. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon. The Nokia WRT, in the meantime, might have ensured that developers remain committed to the cell phone company as well. The barrier to entry for application development is less than that of either the iPhone or Android, and the various handsets and market share of Nokia make for an enticing pitch to begin creating applications for it - because development is so easy, you almost have to develop for it.
