Nokia has announced the beta release of its Notifications API, which is available as a plug-in for the Qt SDK. The company said that when multiple apps independently implement either polling or push processes to enable apps to remain constantly updated, the result is an inefficent use of the network and a significant drain on the device battery. By using a common Notification API, applications do not need to constantly poll or maintain multiple connections across the network, reducing bandwidth consumption and boosting battery life.

The documentation, libraries and emulator needed to implement the Notifications API are available from the Forum Nokia project site. The company said that “early reviews from the alpha testing have been quite positive.” According to a recent survey from Appcelerator, push notifications are the third most popular native app feature for developers, after a native UI and access to a local database.