Symbian, the Biggest Mobile OS No One Talks About 423
blackbearnh writes "The iPhone vs. Android wars are in full swing, but no one talks about the mobile operating system that most of the world uses: Symbian. Part of the reason, perhaps, is that the Symbian developer infrastructure is so different from the Wild West approach that Apple and Google take. Over at O'Reilly Answers, Paul Beusterien, who is the Head of Developer Tools for the Symbian Foundation, talks about why Symbian gets ignored as a platform despite the huge number of handsets it runs on. Quoting: 'Another dimension is the type of developer community. [Historically, Symbian's type of developers] were working for consulting houses or working at phone operator places or specifically doing consulting jobs for enterprise customers who wanted mobile apps. So there's a set of consulting companies around the world that have specialized in creating apps for Symbian devices. It's a different kind of dynamic than where iPhone has really been successful at attracting just the hobbyist, or the one- or two-person company, or the person who just wants to go onto the web and start developing.'"
They may not talk about it (Score:2, Funny)
But there always seems to be quite the buzz around this product.
Re: (Score:2)
How about the FP article you're commenting in?
Just kidding. Slashdot is pants.
Re: (Score:2)
Both are dead ends.
Why develop serious applications for something that's only supported by a single manufacturer these days.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
iPhone/iOS is supported by a single manufacturer; and the one that behaves like Nazi SS guards at that...
Re:They may not talk about it (Score:5, Interesting)
Sort of. It's clear (Apple said so themselves!) that iPhone targets only "premium" people living in "premium" places.
Meanwhile Nokia sells annually an order of magnitude more mobile phones than Apple has ever produced; Nokia contributes greatly to the world having close to 5 billion mobile subsribers by now (for many of them, first practical means of communication) - that's a monumental shift for humanity. Apple isn't interested in contributing to it much (what, with ~1%?), perhaps is even freeriding (we'll see how that dispute ends up)
Re:They may not talk about it (Score:5, Informative)
Both are dead ends.
Why develop serious applications for something that's only supported by a single manufacturer these days.
Right. Go see Symbian Foundation [symbian.org] and click devices, then select year 2010 and apply. Which one of them is the single manufacturer that supports this open source platform?
Re: (Score:2)
Informative. I didn't realize that Symbian was either so widespread, or that so many manufacturers were in on it. Maybe it's time I actually looked at them. I kinda sorta need a phone . . . . maybe.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're interested in developing for it I would probably wait for phones that support QT. I have understood (or misunderstood) that some should be released fairly soon. (Or are there Symbian QT-phones out yet?)
At the moment, I'm using a cheap non touch S40 phone and I'm quite happy with it. (I mean, it's a phone and it works :D Surprisingly this includes tethering through bluetooth and basic email. Not much point in developing anything for it though.) With QT it should be possible to target both Symbian a
Re: (Score:2)
Re:They may not talk about it (Score:4, Insightful)
Typical american self centered point of view.
Slashdot is a U.S. centric [slashdot.org] Web site. If that bothers you, use another site.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Symbian is a goner (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't Nokia moving to MeeGo for their premier phones? Even the guy who runs a big Symbian fan site has given up [symbian-guru.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Think most makers (Including Nokia) will still be using Symbian on their Mid to low end mobiles for years to come.
If they would just drop the disaster that is the S60 GUI (Well I think it is) and build a decent GUI for Symbian it might stick around longer..
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They're moving to QT.
Re: (Score:2)
QT is not an OS, you flid. Your comment makes as much sense as saying that they're switching from Linux to Gnome.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Symbian is a goner (Score:4, Interesting)
QT isn't an OS, so saying that they are "switching to QT" is indeed wrong; but saying "Symbian" has, traditionally, implied much more about the UI, widget set, and preferred programming languages than saying "Linux" has. S60, UIQ, and MOAP are all closely tied to Symbian, and all pretty different from QT, though they cover much of the same ground, so the QT switch means that a lot of the guts of those are headed for the cutting room floor.
Symbian/QT is about as similar to prior Symbian+UI/PIM layer iterations as Android is to a traditional Linux setup(possibly less so, actually, because virtually everything but the native X support is still there behind the scenes with Android, you just can't see it without some poking).
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, Symbian is Nokia's (old, obsolete) OS for the mass-market phones that people buy when they just want a phone. That puts it out of the smartphone market, which is why "no one talks about it" when they're talking about Android and iOS. The article's attempt to equate Symbian with these is a bit disingenuous.
no, the bog standard phones are S40 (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, Symbian is Nokia's (old, obsolete) OS for the mass-market phones that people buy when they just want a phone
Nope. That's the S40 range. Symbian is used on the smartphone range where ram,cpu,battery matter.
If you don't give a crap about battery life then there's the Linux systems which are coming in.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I spent countless hours in attempts to getting the SDK up and running for Symbian.
My programming experience with Symbian has been very positive. I bypassed the whole SymbianC++ clusterfuck and went to Python [nokia.com]. Can't use it for a high performance game, sure, but all you have to do to start up is installing the framework on your phone. Your first "hello world" can't take more than a few minutes after that.
- Firstly there is S40, S60 and countless other types of symbian devices.
Actually, there's only Symbian. S40 isn't a smartphone OS and isn't related to Symbian in any way; and UIQ, Series80 and Series90 are completely dead. Symbian now is the evolution of what
Re:no, the bog standard phones are S40 (Score:4, Interesting)
Might be best now to just target Symbian Qt [nokia.com] (with Nokia doing even new LGPL'd Qt Python bindings)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Symbian is a goner (Score:5, Interesting)
SymbianS60v3 and S60v5 (also known as Symbian^1) still powers pretty much all nokia's touch screen phones, which alone sell more then android and iphone combined.
Symbian^2 is fairly popular in Japan, due to its extremely low system requirements (same as ^1 really), and some specialized features.
Symbian^3 which is being developed for n8 seems to be the natural evolution of Symbian^1, i.e. mid range smart phone OS.
The problem is that unlike android and iphone, these phones are very competitively priced, and sacrifice "bling" features for actual function, such as better features, lower price and business-directed application support. As a result, there's many fewer people with "loose money" who are willing to sink a few euros/dollars/etc into some funny looking application on a weekly basis. They also tend to look much less pretty, focusing on function, and have slower hardware, meaning less responsive UI, which is advertised as a major feature on IOS and android.
This is really noticeable even on OVI store. Almost no games, but a shitload of various business-oriented and rather expensive applications ranging from call recorders to improved ms exchange handling to translation software. This stuff just doesn't sell to the young adult croud. Add to that the fact that much of smartphone hype is US-driven, and Symbian being big pretty much everywhere in the world but the US, you get the perfect storm scenario where little players on the market completely outshine the real behemoth in marketing and publicity.
Re: (Score:2)
which alone sell more then android and iphone combined.
Yup, for all the apple and linux flamewars ticking over and back on slashdot, its a bit of a surprise that most members missed the leviathan slowly cruising under their noses.
Yeah, but that's changing (Score:2)
All of Nokia's N-series smartphones will run MeeGo not Symbian [reuters.com] after the N8.
Re:Symbian is a goner (Score:5, Informative)
Heh, not only more than "more then android and iphone combined", actually more than RIM and iPhone combined, the 2nd and 3rd (at this point); and actually still on the verge of selling more than next three (RIM, iPhone, Android) combined.
All in market reports; but go ahead and "call bullshit."
Sure, Symbian is only a small part (around 20%) of what Nokia sells, but that together with its dominating position is only a sign of how huge Nokia is - they sell annually an order of magnitude more phones than the total number of iPhones ever made.
Those $$$ reflect also feelings and expectations of "investors" (which is frawned by /. in other cases...oh well). But ignore things like Nokia actually owning all if their (over a dozen) manufacturing facilities (most of them not in China, half of them in the EU, one even quite close to Cupertino...), massive R&D (you have again no idea what you're talking about here, stuff like Webkit is nowhere near the same league; and some are possibly freeriding on this R&D, we'll see how this case ends up), or that Nokia contributing greatly to close to 5 billion mobile subscribers is a monumental shift for humanity (one which will also give great opportunities for "investment"). A shift many companies don't care about, openly stating they target only "premium" people living in "premium" places.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What's stopping you from using other software? It's, you know, a smartphone; that's the point behind it.
Opera Mini is nice for touchscreen devices now; and speeds up also the perceptual speed of the connection as a bonus.
Nope (Score:2)
MeeoGo will only become the OS for Nokia's flagship smart phones. In fact, Symbian's market share will only increase over the next 5 years as Nokia roles out smaller mid- to low-level smartphones. You'll never see Apple selling an iPhone for only $25. Android has no intrinsic distaste for inexpensive phones, but all that java code eats cpu cycles.
All your Nokia and Symbian fan boys are also major fans of raw hardware specs, which means they're annoyed at choosing between owning the beefy power phone funn
MeeGo is a still birth (Score:3, Insightful)
Only by the time MeGoo is ready the marked will be carved up between iOS, Android and maybe RIM and only some breadcrumbs will be left for other OS offerings.
Not to mention (Score:3, Insightful)
The competitors are GOOGLE and APPLE, which have done more than just created a phone operating system, so they get a lot of buzz.
The fact that these two names come up more than twice Daily might have something to do with why I'd be interested in their phone business.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well Symbian has Nokia behind it, and they aren't a small company.
But I'm not persuaded it's all about the companies backing it. The soon to be released, MeeGo [meego.com] phones have Nokia backing too (as well as Intel) but I'm much more excited about that than Symbian. Having a fairly standard Linux stack on my phone is something I love about my N900 [nokia.com] and I'm looking forward to its successor.
Re: (Score:2)
Symbian hasn't got Nokia behind it more that it has, say, Apple.
Symbian is an autonomous Foundation today that licenses its open OS to phone manufacturer. Yes, Nokia is still the bigger user but this shouldn't be its selling point.
There is one other minor detail that everybody ignores and it will probably revolutionize the whole Symbian OS business: it's using Qt. Next year a bunch of MeeGo devices will be out (both from Nokia and other manufacturers) and by using Qt a developer could target- with minor cha
Re:It's just not American (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Sad. As I post this comment there are 72 comments in this discussion.
A similar story on either the Android OS, or the iPhone OS, or the Android OS vs. the iPhone OS would have 720 comments by now.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
people in europe (non tech savvy) may not know "symbian" - they simply buy nokia. it's far more bigger buzzword.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Bullshit. Nokia smart phones are so common here in Germany and around, that you can mostly just assume others have a Nokia S60 or S40. Usually you’re right.
So actually, there is no real point to developing for anything else than Symbian.
I mean Apple just kills your app off because you got a ooohhh-soo-evil “forbidden” word in it. (Caused by the mental illness that is religion, which creates mind distortions like these). [And good games tend to surpass such boundaries almost by definition.]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As someone from elsewhere in Europe... this is not the case everywhere in Europe.
Re:It's just not American (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that's why the iPhone has been selling so well in Europe and Japan.
No the real reason is that Nokia is a phone company. No one in tech news gives 2 shits about phone companies, they care about computer companies. Apple and Google, well they are computing companies, it's why they have actually made successful smartphone OSes and Nokia is lagging behind.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, Nokia just makes the world's most popular phone [wikipedia.org], that doesn't mean they know anything about smartphone OS design.
It does, however, mean they know a whole hell of a lot about phone design, which seems to be the one major complaint most people have about smartphones - they may be extra smart, but they're light on the "phone" (just see Apple's iPhone 4 antenna thing!). If Nokia can come up with a smartphone that's also a really really good phone, then there might be something worthwhile there - especiall
Re: (Score:2)
The upper level phones in japan allow you to make standard touchless debit transactions and have television tuners. I have yet to see an "iPhone wows Japanese consumers" article yet.
You mean the Mobile Suica system? You can pick up a Suica/Passmo card at a subway station ticket machine, buy a case from Softbank with a slit for placing the card in and voila, your phone case pays for your transit trips and convenience store purchases. I did exactly that with my 3GS when I was in Tokyo during golden week a couple months ago.
The real reason nobody talks about Symbian.. (Score:5, Funny)
...is they keep forgetting if it's Symbian or Sybian that's "work safe"
It isn't ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
It is actively despised.
Especially by developers... (Score:2)
The company I work for develops for many platforms and it was trying to have a line of Symbian apps as well. The effort required for porting from one OS version to the next was usualy not insignificant (ridiculous - most other OS's are more or less backwards compatible) and especially the jump from 8 to 9.x was so big that the boss just decided to give up on the platform (the non-existent app store or distribution system plus the fact we would have to keep working on separate versions to support pre-OS 9.x
iPhone (and Android) have both kinds (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look around, you can ALSO find the same groups of people doing consulting work for companies around iPhone and Android development. Yes it's true that both platforms also have the hobby developers, but that's only a small part of the overall market.
In fact if you think about it you could argue the iPhone had a leg up on said base of serious developers, because there was already a reasonably large base of professional Mac developers around before the iPhone - I would argue probably more than there were ever dedicated Symbian developers.
The problem Symbian had is the same problem WinCE and the same problem Android WOULD have had if, being Java based, they had just tried to bring J2ME forward a bit more into the smartphone realm. Both Android and iPhoneOS are designed from the ground up to be fully featured operating systems, without a ton of compromises and pretty old design philosophies baked into other existing mobile platforms. Yes there are a ton of Symbian devices around, but does that matter when you know you can sell an order of magnitude more software developing for the iPhone or Android?
It's only a matter of time before corporate use of these two platforms totally eclipses Symbian development in the enterprise, if it's not already happened.
Yes, true... but little app traction (Score:2)
Ehem, Blackberry?
Blackberry is indeed still the predominant enterprise mobile OS. But it's just not having much traction in the application space - and if you'd every looked at the API, you'd know why. It also has the same problem of a very old infrastructure, but they've been able to survive through extreme optimization of one task - email.
Application space in the enterprise will be taken up by iPhone/Android standalone devices - like the tablet form factor, or the Touch.
Symbian is dead (Score:2)
Nokia, what happened to you? (Score:2, Offtopic)
My last two Nokia phones have been an absolute disaster, the first a 6600 fold locks up if you press the 6 key, thats right you can't use the 6 key. It's a common fault and and seems like one of those bugs that is so bizzare that nokia have n't been able to fix it because it does n't affect every phone. I then made the mistake of getting a N97 Mini and I can honestly say it will be my last Nokia phone, the CPU is so under powered its like a sick joke and the phone interface is terrible.
There was a time wh
Re: (Score:2)
I have to say that I'm very happy with my E71. Full keyboard, nice screen, and Symbian so I can run whatever software I want. Opera Mini really improves it. Camera is not great, but has full GPS. Much slimmer than the Blackberry.
I've read that in Android Google can remotely install and remove apps at will, so that goes on my blacklist along with the iPhone. Hopefully HTC can port their Sense interface directly onto Linux. Now THAT is a phone I would buy.
Phillip.
Still waiting for an open-source release... (Score:2)
I've got a Symbian S60 device myself, an aging Nokia N73... I can't wait to switch to a more modern Linux-based operating system. Even Nokia has dumped it on their N-series devices! I tried writing some PyS60 apps for mine, but it was just too slow and underpowered. I can't have more than one app open at a time because it has so little memory...but it did do a lot with a little.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It has so little memory because it was released, what, 3 years ago? My N93 is not much better, having ~20MB of free RAM after boot, but they probably could not fit more memory to it without making it too expensive. Still, I can use Google Maps, Garmin Mobile XT (with external bluetooth GPS receiver) and Opera Mobile 10.00 though not at the same time and Opera sometimes runs out of memory, especially on large sites.
But the phone is easy to use, has a large keypad and no touch screen (I read somewhere that mo
It's a pain in the ass to develop for (Score:5, Informative)
The reason why it's ignored is because it's a pain in the ass to develop for. The options that you have is as follows:
* Download a very heavy C++ ide which was, till recently, locked down. You had to get a "professional" license if you wanted to do something useful. There is the "express" version but it was deliberately crippled. Oh yeah it only runs on Windows.
* If you wanted to distribute your app you had to get it signed. Ok sure yeah that sounds easy enough, but I can't tell you how often I get the "this app is untrusted" message.
* If you're a developer like me who is uncomfortable using a low level language you can go the Java route. Yeah. Write once, debug everywhere. It's a mess. I can't even get my midlet to get the IMEI code of the phone so I can use it for authentication.
* A beautiful middle ground is Python for S60. I tried to install it recently on my Nokia N73. A huge bag of fail.
* Yeah sure Symbian is open source. I want to download the source, build it and run it. Have you read the instructions to get it up and running under Linux? Let's just say that it goes way over my head. I heard on a podcast that Nokia uses some kind of circuit board made by Texas Instruments. Ok, so I need to go get some specialized device just to run the kernel? Please.
* Ooh ooh. There's also Qt Creator. Cool. Tried to install the demos. Didn't work.
* JavaFx. ... *sound of crickets*
So basically the choices you have as a developer are too many and every choice leads to a dead end.
It's really frustrating. That's why my next phone is the HTC desire. I can download and run the development environment on Linux. I can also be sure that my users will be able to run it without jumping through hoops. Trying to support an app running in Symbian is a nightmare.
Y
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Same experience here. Developing in Symbian C++ is very slow and tedious. It is almost as bad as developing for AVR with AVRStudio.
They also fumbled big time when it some to Python.I created a few apps with it but unfortunately the runtime has too many crashing bugs and it looks like they are not interested in fixing those.
Re: (Score:2)
It all depends on what you expect out of your tools and what you are used to. For me, the debugging capabilities just are substandard. I can't even remember when I used another IDE that did not have a debug callstack window. And in a way you are right, AVR Studio is similar to most other microcontroller IDEs, it's just that all the other IDEs are not that good either.
Carbide and TRK is similar in that aspect. It's very buggy and crash prone. In my opinion, with the computing power of today's workstations th
Low level? (Score:2)
C++ is actually a pretty high level abstraction, there's not much low about it apart from easily using C when you need to. But that's optional... (unless the API is all C, but I thought it was C++).
The C++ variant is an absolute mess too (Score:4, Interesting)
Until recently you had to jump through hoops for all object construction and memory allocation. It was very difficult to write or use even basic algorithms that are compatible with both Symbian and anything else. See http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Two-phase_construction [nokia.com] If you don't do it quite right, your code will probably still work in their "simulator," but will fail on the actual device. Remote debugging the simulator used to require two physical serial ports looped to each other via null modem cable.
Personally, I'd rather develop for any other platform.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. Well I started out on Amstrad Basic, moved on to Pascal, had a brief detour to Java and then came back to Delphi. Now I'm a C# developer. I've been using high-level programming languages my whole life. Unfortunately I didn't get exposed much to C/C++. Just happened that way. So to me C++ is a low-level programming language.
Y
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That *is* a solvable problem. In fact, I'd argue it's to your detriment that you haven't solved it already. Curiosity and self-drive are important in a software developer.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's some horrible, fundamental detriment, and I'm definitely not trying to troll or flame you, here. It's just weird that, in all these years, you haven't picked up C/C++ just, you know, for the fun of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Why? I develop embedded Linux applications for a living and did some x86 assembler 15 years ago but still I don't really like lower level languages.
Using lower level languages just forces you to reinvent the wheel again and again, just for the sake of it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's those places you go to to get books about C/C++ which help you reinvent the wheel, right?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Problem is that the article talks about "most used OS in the world". If we start limiting our selection to usable Symbian versions then we have to talk about "the least used OS in the world".
You cannot do it both ways, count all Symbian phones and versions out there and same time boast some irrelevantly small number of devices that supposedly makes development easy.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Uhm, Qt is fine also for merely newish Symbian devices (last 2-3 years, basically); that's still much greater numbers than anything else.
Symbian has been committing hara-kiri for ages (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to work for Symbian a few years back. The company has comprehensively screwed every big decision it has taken. In no particular order, these were:
- Treating the app developer as some annoyance to be fobbed off whenever possible. No idea what's it's like now, but back in the day, to develop an app for Symbian you have to splash out on a compiler which retailed at over $2k. And if god forbid you wanted to actually debug code running on your device (rather than the not particularly good emulator), well, then you need a HW debugger box which ran to another $2k
- Completely and comprehensively fragmenting the eco-system whenever the slightest opportunity to do so arose. Hence Symbian never really existed as a platform per se - it was all an obscure and vast ecosytem of devices each with its own configuration - hence the prolliferation of Series 40, 60, 70, UIQ etc etc.
- As an operating system, Symbian was passable, although it was written way before it's time. Hence it assumed the C++ compiler didn't know about exception handling and did everyting possible to conserve every last resource of the device at the expense of making developing for it an activity which took quite a long time to acquire a taste for.
- Quite a few bits of Symbian got taken over by the detritus that got ejected from Ericsson and Lucent when they collapsed. Hence you had all these big company people introducing processes used to launch space shuttles into space - exactly what you don't need if you're trying to innovate in one of the most rapidly changing industries.
Or at least that's my 2c.
Re: (Score:2)
This report [techcrunch.com] does seem to agree with you. In particular I note things like this:
This isn't surprising. I am naturally a C++ developer - though I move between languages frequently, currently, I get paid to write mostly in C++. I've also done some J2ME in the past. So when I heard that Android was J
Nokia 5800 (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently picked-up a Nokia 5800 because it was a good price, I didn't need to get locked into a long contract (this is Canada), and I got an unusually cheap unlimited mobile data plan for it. (Money's tight.)
As a smart phone, yes, it's laughable how few apps are available for it, and I still have iPhone/Android envy... but it does the job well enough for me without breaking the bank.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a smart phone, yes, it's laughable how few apps are available for it
Apple claim something like 20k applications. Think about that for a second, and then... What exactly could they all possibly be?
So you've got what? 500 different fart applications? Or what? No really. How many different word processors (for example) can survive in a market? MS Word. Open Office, which is free, and then?
Clearly if you want your fart application in a specific shade of brown rather than green, Apple have got you covered. For the slightly less discerning among us, maybe fewer/better apps isn't so bad.
Over 200000 apps actually. The app store works pretty well, it seems fairly easy to find whatever you are looking for. Sure there are a lot of options, just pick the one that has a lot of good ratings. I don't know where this fart app comment comes from since I keep hearing it, but somehow it always takes the credibility away from any Apple appstore critic. There are plenty of good apps, and they cost surprisingly little (the most I payed for an app was about around 8€ (don't remember exactly) and it f
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:20,000 fart applications? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, most iPhone and Android apps are useless and/or redundant. I can personally confirm this for Android, and there's no reason to assume iPhone is any different. But you're taking exactly the wrong lesson from this.
Ask yourself why thousands of losers bother to write and publish "fart" apps for these platforms. Because it's easy to do, that's why. And that easiness means there are a lot of gems amongst all those turds.
Let's see. (Pulls out HTC Hero.) I've got Evernote (notebook, automatically syncs to web and PC versions) MortPlay (the only MP3 player that suits my particular needs, had to sort through a couple dozen others to find it), StreamItRadio (MP3 streams, same comments), Weather Channel (automatically updates itself based on my current location) and Yelp (very handy when I'm in a strange neighborhood and feeling peckish). Not a lot of apps, but I haven't seen comparable apps on other platforms. Don't know about Symbian, but I'll bet not.
Oh yeah, and there are direct links on my Android desktop for Google Reader (never know when you might have to wait in a really long line) and for the web pages for the BART stations I use the most. Those last ones get updated once a minute with actual (not scheduled) train arrivals, which minimizes my stand-around time.
None of these features are life-changing, but I find them worth having. And I don't see anybody rushing to write similar apps on Symbian.
Personally...N97 ended my relationship with Nokia (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU [youtube.com] - is about as true as it gets. As someone who had the various n95 models reading about the n97 sounded like a dream come true - so I bought it the day it came out :/. Yes it can do everything the iPhone can do - or even Android (it even has features that Android doesn't have - like copying files over bluetooth) but they are all unusable or extremely clunky.
It had a webkit based browser, flashlite etc etc (so a good chunk of websites looked ok on it) - but was slow
So was BREW (Score:3, Insightful)
Jokia (Score:2)
I'm working on an independently funded project right now with a marketing exec, a UI guy, and a flash dev from Nokia. They're all good, smart people; they all refer to Nokia as "Jokia". The exec is running the project, and is continually astounded that the money she pays us consultants 1) actually gets her something, and 2) is paid out after delivering something on time.
Put Nokia in the same bin as Dell, where years of focus on cost-management has destroyed an innovative company that once led the market.
iPhone attracts big and small developers (Score:2)
iPhone has really been successful at attracting just the hobbyist, or the one- or two-person company, or the person who just wants to go onto the web and start developing.
Right, hobbyists like Microsoft, IBM, Accenture, Oracle, Computer Sciences Corporation, SAP, Yahoo!, Electronic Arts, Activision, Ubisoft, Take-Two...
iPhone has really been successful at attracting developers of all sizes including the hobbyist, or the one- or two-person company, or the person who just wants to go onto the web and start developing.
There, I fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Symbian sure try hard to prevent you developing! (Score:5, Informative)
It's been a year or so since I last used Symbian (thank science) but it struck me at the time just how much crap they put in the way of you actually developing apps.
Take this quite normal scenario: You need an extra engineer on cell phone app development. You need them to install an environment and be productive as soon as possible. Here's what happens with Android:
iPhone is much the same plus some sign-ups:
Here's Symbian/Nokia's idea of Getting Started:
Pardon my English, but that's not how to make a fucking SDK. I will refrain from talking about the daily experience of coding for Symbian, because I may start using a lot of profanity.
And once you are through you have Ovi (Score:3, Interesting)
And once you are through all that you have Ovi to sell your stuff. If you are a registered company that is. If not you are to be ripped of by Handango and the likes.
Disaster upon disaster.
Martin
Name one Symbian phone sold in America... (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, here's the two hundred ton elephant wearing a pink tutu dancing between Lady Gaga and Madonna that (surprisingly) nobody seems to have mentioned yet: for all intents and purposes, Symbian doesn't exist in the United States. As far as I know, you can't go to a store operated by Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile and buy a brand new phone subsidized by the carrier that runs Symbian (maybe, MAYBE Nextel might have one imported from Japan, but I wouldn't count on it).
Actually, it goes deeper than that -- as far as I know, you can't even buy a phone running Symbian, period, that's capable of 3G data on any network in the United States (with the *possible* exception of an imported Japanese phone that by some miracle of God might work on Nextel). For whatever reason, Symbian is almost a synonym for "Expensive GSM phone that nevertheless can't do EDGE, and is capable of 3G UMTS only at 1900/2100MHz". Thus, no sane American likely to be remotely interested in a phone running Symbian is going to go out and spend $500 or more to buy an unlocked phone that's basically a GPRS paperweight capable of making voice calls in a pinch.
"Invisible and Irrelevant in America" == "Invisible and Irrelevant to American Journalists" (who happen to generate most of the English-language content that gets read worldwide, and highly influence the rest of it). Thus, daily headlines about iPhone and Android. Occasional mentions of Palm. <tongue location="cheek">Symbian? Is that, like, the new name for Palm or Windows Mobile or something? </tongue>
The fact that Symbian started enforcing code-signing a couple of years ago (effectively shutting out casual developers who've always been welcomed with open arms by Android and pre-Kin/7 Microsoft) certainly hasn't helped, either... the moment they did that, they effectively wrote off a big chunk of their most influential and outspoken EUROPEAN former users, too.
Nokia Qt SDK (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.forum.nokia.com/Develop/Qt/ [nokia.com]
Disclosure: I work inside Nokia on Qt.
Re:Too bad Apple has so tightly controlled the app (Score:4, Informative)
Minor nit -- it's not that you need a different phone to get tethering, you need a better carrier.
My Rogers iPhone works just fine for tethering. All I have to do is turn Internet Tethering on in the preferences, then plug it into the sync cable. Leopard pops up a dialog box which says something like "Hey! New Ethernet Interface found; would you like to use it?" -- click Ok, disable any other active network interface (or tweak your routing table) and bam: you're surfing on 3G.
I don't know how to do it in Windows, but it can't be much harder.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm... you made that sound fairly complicated. A cable? This is the 21st century! With my phone (an N900 but it works with many o
Re: (Score:2)
I do that on my Palm Pre too. It eats the battery alive.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I do that on my Nokia E61i. It sucks the battery down to nothing in well under an hour. In order to really be useful, I still need a cable - the one going from the phone to the charger plugged into the wall.
Overall, the USB cable approach is a whole lot more flexible - works on buses, in taxis, all those places where I may need to get online for a while but don't have AC power.
Re: (Score:2)
Still wears down both my phone's and my laptop's battery much faster than using the USB cable. It takes me about 5 seconds to find and connect the cable, and if I'm using the laptop, it's not like I'm running around anyway, so it's not particularly an inconvenience. Plus it was a whole lot easier to get Linux to work with the cable (worked immediately) than with Bluetooth (required installing additional packages and other puttery).
Re: (Score:2)
Well.. I'm on the same network as the GP (ok FIdo, but it's essentially Rogers for this discussion) and I use the bluetooth wireless option as well.. no cable required, can leave the phone in my pocket in fact when i fire my laptop up at a cafe. It's not a WAP (jailbreak apps do exist for that) but the iPhone is capable. The cable would probably result in a bit faster connection compared to BT.
with that said i can't wait to drop the iPhone 3G for a decent Android in a year or so...
Re: (Score:2)
With my my current (Nokia N93) and previous (Nokia 6310i) phones I did not even have to get permission from the carrier (I bought the phones separately, whithout contract). I just connect the phone to my laptop using Bluetooth and set up the dial-up connection (some bluetooth software manages that as well, but with standard Windows BT stack I needed to set it up manually).
If I can connect to the internet from my phone, then I can also do it from my laptop using the phone as a modem. If the connection is int
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, my previous phone was 6230i, not 6310i.
Re:Too bad Apple has so tightly controlled the app (Score:2)
Um, you can run an SSH client just fine. There are several in the app store. I have a free one that does the job just fine. And I have used it to remote in and fix servers before. While I say it is not ideal because of the form factor, it is indeed better than nothing. What you can't do is run an SSH server on your phone without jailbreaking. Which, personally, my reaction is "why do you need to SSH into your phone?" Really.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not a goner as an OS for mobile phones. It is a goner as a major platform for 3rd party apps and games on mobile smart phones. People who are interested in downloading and running lots of apps and games, probably own a droid, a nexus one or an iPhone. People who just use their phones as... hmmmm... phones, and don't give a shit about apps, are probably the biggest chunk of Symbian's market share.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, technically Nokia says so [linuxinsider.com], but what would they know about phones?
Um, no... (Score:2)
Um, no.
Someone from In-Stat and someone else from the 451 Group said that, not Nokia.
Go back and really read the article you referenced.
Yes, the biggest is a goner (Score:3, Insightful)
The phone OS with the biggest worldwide marketshare is a goner, because the phone is a goner. Few people want a phone; they want a personal computer that fits in their pocket and happens to be able to do "phone stuff."
Saying Symbian is the King of Phones, while possibly true, is like saying my rawhide whip business is the King of Buggy Whips. I could have 100% marketshare but you'd be a damn fool to invest in me, unless I tell you about how I'm getting into the chewy doggie-treat business.
The answer to "w
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got a Nokia N95, which is a decent enough phone I guess, but the symbian OS is easily the 2nd clumsiest one I have ever used (first being windows mobile). It's like no one there cares at all about usability, almost like a Dilbert strip. My sound recorder is in office tools, for whatever reason, and it's like 7 clicks deep. I can't customize my appearance in terms of where buttons go or which do or don't show up very well, so whatever background image I am using is obscured by loads of useless crap
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I've got a Nokia N95, which is a decent enough phone I guess, but the symbian OS is easily the 2nd clumsiest one I have ever used (first being windows mobile).
Obviously, you've never used a Motorola phone with... what the hell do you call that operating system? Besides offensive?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You probably moved the sound recorder. You can move it back to wherever you want through the menu that comes from the left soft key. Also, if I understood well what you're saying, take some time to look at Tools -> Settings -> Phone Settings -> Standby mode.
Re: (Score:2)
Symbian is the example of why I raise an eyebrow at people talking about how 'evil' Apple is because iPhones are locked down or have a restricted app store. Compared to desktops, sure, they are restrictive. Compared to cell phones before it? Amazingly open.
Symbian still doesn't (nor didn't) restrict users from installing third-party apps. And, of course, the "cell phones before it" weren't just Symbian - WinMo was also a very big player, and there was also PalmOS, all more open than iOS.
Re: (Score:2)
S60 (in its 5th edition) was renamed Symbian^1. It's the point where current Symbian started. It's absolutely NOT dead at all. S40, on the other hand, isn't Symbian and isn't a smartphone OS, so I have no idea on why you mention it here.
Nokia currently sells, from cheaper to most expensive, lots of S40 dumbphones, lots of Symbian S60 smartphones and a tiny amount of Maemo-based smartphones. They are pushing Symbian S60 (now called just Symbian) down: they will have full smartphones being sold for the same p
Re: (Score:2)