Symbian looks to Horizon to tackle Apple

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 17 Jul 2009 at 09:15

The Symbian Foundation is to create an apps warehouse called Horizon for developers looking to quickly spread their creations across multiple stores.

The scheme will see developers submit their apps to Horizon, where they will be tested, standardised and distributed to all apps stores offering Symbian applications.

Horizon is intended to address the difficulty developers have in making their applications compliant with the huge range of different smartphones running Symbian. As is stands there are thought to be around 70 different handsets in the marketplace.

The Symbian Foundation claims the service will launch in November and be free. The catch, at least initially, is that Horizon will only accept the best apps for inclusion.

"We're starting small and can only work with a limited number of apps initially," Symbian claims. This is set to change in the future though, with the group claiming it will "develop a system that will automate this work allowing us to scale the program to include as many apps as possible."

The move is intended to arrest the momentum of Apple's iTune's Apps store which has recorded over 1.5 billion downloads since it launched last summer.