Nokia is ramping up development of its Qt open source user interface and application framework with a new release this week.

Among the big new additions to Qt 4.6 is support for the widespread Symbian mobile phone operating system.

The move comes at a critical time for both Nokia and Symbian as each faces increasing pressure from developers building apps for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), whose iPhone continues to gain traction among developers and end users. They're also facing competition from rivals like the Google-backed open source mobile OS, Android.

As a result, for Nokia, Qt is a key way to keep its hand in the development game. The C++ application development framework for GUIs enables developers to write applications for deployment across multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X -- and now Symbian -- along with preview support for Nokia's Maemo mobile operating system. Qt also is well-known as the framework behind the open source KDE Linux desktop.

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