Mobile application technologies

Qt Mobility 1.1 and the Symbian platform provide a choice of APIs for creating mobile applications. This section describes the APIs and provides links to more information about the Symbian platform.

It is recommended to use the Qt APIs or the Qt Mobility APIs instead of the Symbian C++ APIs to create mobile applications, see the following table for more details. In cases where the Symbian features are not supported by Qt or Qt Mobility, you have to access the underlying platform services using the Symbian C++ APIs.

Technology

Modules and APIs

Address book

Contacts API enables a client to request contact data from local or remote database.

Versit API converts QContacts to and from vCard files, and converts QOrganizerItems to and from iCalendar files.

Audio, Video and Camera

Multimedia module for playing and recording of video and audio, and accessing the radio tuner on the device. It also supports capturing still images.

QtMultimedia module for low-level audio and video functionality, such as provides interface to query audio devices and their functionality and to receive an audio data from an audio input device.

Data management

QFile API for accessing the file system.

QtSql module for working with SQL databases.

Document Gallery

Document Gallery module for navigating and querying documents using their meta-data. The common use case would be populating the media selection views of a music player, or image viewer. It also provides API's for querying and editing the meta-data of individual documents.

Feedback

Feedback API enables a client to provide feedback (both tactile and audio) to the user in response to their actions (for example, touching an onscreen button) and to control the vibration of the device (when a vibrator is used), or the piezo feedback from the screen.

In-application purchasing

In-application purchasing module allows customers of an application to purchase additional features directly from the application, without having to leave the application.

Inter-application communication

Qt Service frameworks module for a unified way of finding and accessing services provided by other applications as well as implementing services in your own application.

Publish and Subscribe module for storing information, such as application settings and being notified of changes in the settings of other applications.

QProcess class for starting external programs and communicating with them.

Location and presence

Location module for location positioning, landmark management and mapping and navigation.

Messaging

Messaging module to access messaging services, such as searching and sorting messages, sending messages and retrieving the message data. You can also launch a messaging client to display an existing message, compose a new message or respond to an existing message.

Networking and Internet

Bearer management module to control the connectivity state of a device, so that the user can start or stop interfaces, or roam transparently between access points.

QtNetwork module provides access to the internet and other networks.

Sensors

Sensors API provides both high-level sensors, such as screen orientation (portrait, landscape), low-level and real-time sensors, such as accelerometer data.

System information

System Information module for discovering system related information and capabilities.