Nokia Smart Installer?????
“Nokia Smart Installer”…. You read about it, see it or heard about it when you install qt app from nokia store. But each time you install qt app,you will wonder why it always so slow and take a long time to install qt app with smart installer. Well maybe you can get some idea from this post.
So what is smart installer. Well…smart installer itself is an app and inside the smart installer containing the app that you want to install. You may wonder why would developer want to put app inside an app. That because nokia compel developer to and there is a reason for that. Each qt app need certain qt libraries like qt 4.x.x( depend on your phone model),qt quick component, qtwebkit, qtmobility, gstreamer and few more libraries that the app require to run. Example if the app need qt component and your phone is not installed with one then when you open the app, it will show black screen only.Although most newer nokia phone that already updated or preinstalled with nokia belle os like nokia n8, c7, 603, 700, 701 and the monster phone..808 pureview already have this libraries preinstalled, some older phones model that use s60v5 os like 5800, n97, x6 (there are just too many device) and some phone that still stuck with symbian^3 or anna don’t have this libraries or it is outdated so this is where smart installer do it’s job.
Step 1
Step 1
This is the first step where you download your app. When the download is completed ,the smart installer installation begin. This only install the smart installer app that contain the real app. Usually this only takes a few second as only one process is involve. So next step begin soon.
Step 2
Step 2
This is where the smart installer finish installation and begin checking your phone for any missing libraries or outdated libraries that is required by the apps. This is the slowest process and could take longer if your phone is missing or have outdated libraries since smart installer will need to do additional download and installing the libraries. Don’t be worry about smart installer download all libraries as smart installer will only download the libraries require by the app. The second steps is faster if you already have the libraries because there is no need for additional downloads and installation to do. Do note some libraries size is in Mb so older s60v5 could have memory issues due to small phone memory space. Newer phone have plenty of phone memory space so no need to worry about memory as some libraries will also be updated only. This step is quite slow compare with first step and it could be longer if any additional downloads is needed.
Step 3
Step 3
This last steps is where the real app begin to install. All the require libraries is already downloaded and installed if needed. The phone will now begin the real app installation process. You though that this should be over quickly because now the phone only install the app and nothing more then you are wrong. When the the app installation is completed there is additional process. That is uninstall. What to uninstall you think. Well..you remember the first step where phone install the smart installer. Now the phone need to uninstall the smart installer that wrap the app after the real app installation completed. In this step the phone need to to install the real app and uninstall smart installer.
Now this should give you a rough idea why installing qt app from app from nokia store always so slow. Maybe you could do the counting for me the total process from start to end for me cause too lazy to ?. Looks like nokia smart installer is no so smart after all and should be called qt installer. Do note that this not nokia fault because qt/qml is still new and not fully mature so nokia smart installer is always needed in case there is any update in libraries so it could be push to you as an update. So that’s it,nokia smart installer always be part of qt app. Maybe next time you could make some coffee or tea while installing qt apps.