Qt Blog

I fully agree, but I also think Apple is moving in that direction with Dashcode, although it doesn't really provide the full functionality of Xcode+Interface builder.

I think, the time when HTML5+JS+CSS will become everyday for small apps is the day when there are some robust UI frameworks. We are moving in that direction with the different frameworks, e.g. Cappucino [http://cappuccino.org/].

In the meantime you can take a look at Qt Quick [http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2010/02/15/meet-qt-quick/]. It uses a declarative language, called QML, for defining UI and the app logic can be either JS or hooked into Qt objects written in C++. I've only played with it a couple of days, and already I am sold on the possibilities for rich animated fast UIs.

Unfortunately I'm rather disappointed with regard to the Raspberry Foundation living up to its obligations. They had made a deal with Nokia for a "Qt on Pi" device program that would get 400 units into the hands of Qt developers, and these were supposed to be among the first to go out:

http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/11/24/qt-5-with-rasberry-pi-a-delicious-mix-with-home-delivery/

However, they never managed to get the expected page up where one would redeem the coupon code. Eventually an email-based way was put in place, but to this day, nobody in the programme has received their Pi.

Yes, this is a "didn't get free stuff" whine, but still, they promised and never delivered.

According to this comment [1], Qt has around 4000 licensees. A license is around $3,000, so that's roughly a 12 million dollar business, if we can trust those numbers.

Edit: actually, it's on the Qt press release itself. They state there [2] that:
> The Qt Commercial licensing business is growing and has around 3500 companies

[1] http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/02/16/nokia-cto-rich-green-speaks-about-qt/#comment-3048

[2] http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/03/07/nokia-and-digia-working-together/