Remote Device Access service launched by Forum Nokia

Forum Nokia has just released its Remote Device Access service to all mass community, that is, all 2.5 million developers which are registered in Forum Nokia web site, free of charge.

Remote Device Access (RDA) technology enables remote access to mobile devices over the Internet. The system consists of a device pool connected to a server, and users connecting to the server in order to remotely use the devices. Once a user has connected to a device, the screen of the device is transfered to the user's desktop in real time. In addition, the user can install applications on the device, transfer files, and analyze log files in real time. This enables developers to test their mobile applications and services on various Nokia devices based on Symbian OS. RDA is an Internet-based solution, and the requirements for using the service are a standard Web browser and Java™ Web Start (typically comes with Java Runtime Environment, JRE).

Link to the service page:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/technical_services/testing/rda_introduction.html.
The instructions page is found here:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/technical_services/testing/rda_instructions.html.

The following devices are available at the launch time; Nokia 5500 Sport, Nokia E60, Nokia E61, Nokia E65, Nokia E70, Nokia N71, Nokia N73, Nokia N80, Nokia N95.

I have been a long-time enthusiast of this service, because it allows developers to test their applications and content in target devices, even if they don't own those devices. RDA has been a Forum Nokia PRO-exclusive service for quite some time, and now it was opened up to all developers, for free. Having not touched the service in a few months, though, I decided to go ahead and give it a try, with my own Forum Nokia account.

Logging in

Following the information given on the Instructions Page, I pointed my browser to http://apu.ndhub.net/webui/. If you are not logged in to the Forum Nokia web site, you'll be prompted for your username and password (which are the same as the FN web site's), otherwise you can just click the "Reservations" link and reserve a time slot on your preferred device; my choice was N95. Click the "Start RDA" link and you'll be prompted to install a Java application that will act as the client to your remote device.

Connecting

Once you install the application, you'll see a screen like this:

Figure 1. RDA client - click to enlarge

Here you can check the device specifications, by right-clicking some device and choosing "Device Properties", like in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Device properties

When your reserved time slot starts up, right click the device of your choice and click "Connect". You'll be connected to the remote device, and you're ready to use it remotely, over the Web.

Using the device

After you have connected successfully, you'll see the device screen along with a full-fleged keyboard, similar to the real device's, with which you can interact with the phone. Figure 3 shows what it looks like:

Figure 3. Device screen - click to enlarge

There's a lot of nice things you can do from now on: install and test your applications, manage device's files, upload content files and test them on the device, connect to the Internet (using Wi-Fi connection) and browse the Web using the fantastic S60 OSS browser, among others. Just click the "Tools" menu and you'll see all the funcionalities provided by the client. In Figure 4, I'm installing the S60 Internet Radio application, which can be found at Nokia's open source web site: http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/index.html.

Figure 4. Installing an application - click to enlarge

Next I will upload a video and watch it on the device. Clicking "Tools" will take me to the File Manager (shown in Figure 5), with which I can send files back and forth between my computer and the device. I send a .3gp file to "C:\My Data\Videos", then open the Gallery application and watch my video using Real Player (Figure 6). I had some problems in getting the video to play, I believe this due to the slow network transfer rate. The image is a little blurry because I set the color depth to 8-bit in order to speed up the transfer.

Figure 5. File manager - click to enlarge

Figure 6. Video player - click to enlarge

Last I will connect to the Web using S60 browser and a Wi-Fi connection, created following instructions found in the User Guide, and browse a web site in both portrait and landscape orientations, just like I would using a real device.

Figure 7. Web browsing in portrait orientation - click to enlarge

Figure 8. Web browsing in landscape orientation - click to enlarge

Conclusion

RDA (Remote Device Access) is a cool service provided by Forum Nokia to all developer community, free of charge. As you saw, you can do some interesting stuff with it, and I strongly recommend you trying it out, if you want to test your application or content in a real device before you purchase it. Be sure to check the User Guide in order to find out all things RDA can do for you.