Antony’s Mobile Blog

Symbian has just announced a new project to improve the current Symbian Signed process, which is very painful for developers. You can read the announcement on Symbian Developer Network Forums. It’s good to know that Symbian listens to developer’s voice.

What’s new in the next Symbian Signed? I’ll try to highlight the new changes below.

1) Developer’s Certificate

There are basically two types of developers, i.e.:

• developers with Publisher ID;
• developers without Publisher ID.

Symbian has now started to use Publisher ID from TrustCenter, which costs $200 / year. It is much cheaper compared to ACS Publisher ID from Verisign, which costs $350 / year.

Developers with Publisher ID

Developers without Publisher ID

2) Certified Signing

The process of certified signing is similar to the current Symbian Signed process. It costs a couple of hundred dollars depending on the test house.

3) Express Signing

This is a new process that allows developers to sign their application with a very low cost, most probably around $20 per signing. The application will be signed online. The application is still required to comply with Symbian Signed test criteria; but the test will be done after signing and the result will be published later.

If you have comments, please send them to Symbian Developer Network Forum directly.

How about freeware and open source software? There is no real plan yet. Symbian is collecting inputs, ideas and suggestions on how to improve the signing process of freeware and open source software.