In the midst of all this Windows Phone hype, we have good Qt news – Qt 5 beta is here. The eventual release is target for November and in the meantime they will be testing the new features, app compatibility between Qt 4 and Qt5 and making sure it is good and stable on Windows and Mac OS.
One of the most important changes is that QML and JavaScript are now first class citizens of Qt 5 which means they are now essential modules and mandatory on all platforms. In addition, the differentiation between Qt and Qt Mobility has been removed. All this reflects a change to a more modular setup in which modules are either part of Qt Essentials or an add-on.
You can read more about it all on the Qt Blog here, see a list of new features here and (most importantly) download the beta here.
As far as Mobile goes, we know of course, that Nokia is selling Qt to Digia and so there isn’t mention of Symbian or Harmattan in the announcement, though the Qt Media Hub example uses an N9 to control a XBMC media server. Instead, it’s the following has been stated:
With Qt 5, support for multiple operating systems continues. The QPA abstraction layer makes the task of porting to new platforms easier and more seamless then ever before. We are already seeing a lot of work going into Qt 5 to implement a full port to QNX and Blackberry 10. Digia has already announced their plans to port Qt 5 to Android and iOS.
Of course, this is a reference to new platforms and so that doesn’t mean existing platform won’t see Qt 5 apps in the future (though we know that very few, if any, new Nokia devices will be released now with Symbian or MeeGo and that Windows Phone 8 doesn’t support Qt). MeeGo, Jolla and Tizen are all likely to support the platforms on their phone too, with Jolla having stated that they expect to release their first device this year, there will continue to be a good range of devices for Qt developers to create mobile apps for.
