Comments on: Symbian’s open source challenge http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian%e2%80%99s-open-source-challenge/ Distilling market noise into market sense. Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:11:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Scott http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian%e2%80%99s-open-source-challenge/comment-page-1/#comment-60634 Scott Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:24:06 +0000 http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian%e2%80%99s-open-source-challenge/#comment-60634 This is a great post - very thorough and thought provoking. I think that one inherent disadvantage for Symbian compared to Apple and Android is the glamour factor. This can be demonstrated by looking at the comments stream to this excellent post. If it had been talking about Apple or Android it would have people crawling over themselves to comment. Symbian just does not elicit the same excitement. This means - more meaningfully perhaps - that developers gain more kudos for developing for one of the glamour platforms than for Symbian (despite its market share). The other issue - which might now be more perception than reality (though I doubt it) - is the complexity of Symbian. It is just too complex and developers stay away. Taking Symbian into the open world was either inspired or inevitable (depending on the generosity and far-sightedness of your view) but that will not be enough to save it. Scott This is a great post – very thorough and thought provoking.

I think that one inherent disadvantage for Symbian compared to Apple and Android is the glamour factor. This can be demonstrated by looking at the comments stream to this excellent post. If it had been talking about Apple or Android it would have people crawling over themselves to comment. Symbian just does not elicit the same excitement. This means – more meaningfully perhaps – that developers gain more kudos for developing for one of the glamour platforms than for Symbian (despite its market share).

The other issue – which might now be more perception than reality (though I doubt it) – is the complexity of Symbian. It is just too complex and developers stay away. Taking Symbian into the open world was either inspired or inevitable (depending on the generosity and far-sightedness of your view) but that will not be enough to save it.

Scott

]]> By: Andreas Constantinou http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian%e2%80%99s-open-source-challenge/comment-page-1/#comment-60419 Andreas Constantinou Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:55:12 +0000 http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian%e2%80%99s-open-source-challenge/#comment-60419 Tote, This post was by Roger, but I 'll try to address your questions. Funnily enough I was just interviewing TAT for a new report we 're launching at the Symbian Show. Their Cascades framework (underpinning most phone applications) is launching on 30 handset models this year. And yes, they have invented some pretty cool stuff. You also raise the point that UIs should not be tampered with, as users have come to trust the S60 UI, the Walkman UI, etc - which is totally true. But there is a whole new market of post-sales (downloadable) UIs which is being enabled by the likes of Acrodea, TAT and Digital Airways; UIs which are up to the user to download if and when they like and so are not messing with the out-of-the-box experience - we 're covering this very topic in our report. Andreas Tote,

This post was by Roger, but I ‘ll try to address your questions.

Funnily enough I was just interviewing TAT for a new report we ‘re launching at the Symbian Show. Their Cascades framework (underpinning most phone applications) is launching on 30 handset models this year. And yes, they have invented some pretty cool stuff.

You also raise the point that UIs should not be tampered with, as users have come to trust the S60 UI, the Walkman UI, etc – which is totally true. But there is a whole new market of post-sales (downloadable) UIs which is being enabled by the likes of Acrodea, TAT and Digital Airways; UIs which are up to the user to download if and when they like and so are not messing with the out-of-the-box experience – we ‘re covering this very topic in our report.

Andreas

]]> By: canny http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian%e2%80%99s-open-source-challenge/comment-page-1/#comment-60343 canny Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:00:40 +0000 http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian%e2%80%99s-open-source-challenge/#comment-60343 The main problem is the lack of an easy to use toolkit that provides functions like UIKit. On the maemo end there is going to be Clutter, which will ease the use of all the fancy compositing effects that bring the shininess of an iPhone. But then there is still Qt, which still has troubles to deliver the fanciness but is obviously going in the direction in terms of support for OpenGL ES (*THE* key component of the success of the iPhone UI) and even better integration of widgets in some compositing based canvas. I think they key point here is that in the mid term Nokia has to drop S60 and go for an Qt based interface. This can either be with Symbian or a Linux core. Especially this particular fact of platform abstraction makes it even more likely they choose this way, as if Symbian turns out to be a dead end, they can reuse the middleware and switch to Linux. Of course all this implies that Qt manages to bring the necessary tools for *fast* and *fluent* interfaces on embedded devices (which I think is going to happen, seeing the direction of Qt 4.5) AND a consistent and thoughtful rewrite of the UI Specification that can hold up against the bar the iPhone raised. The main problem is the lack of an easy to use toolkit that provides functions like UIKit.
On the maemo end there is going to be Clutter, which will ease the use of all the fancy compositing effects that bring the shininess of an iPhone.
But then there is still Qt, which still has troubles to deliver the fanciness but is obviously going in the direction in terms of support for OpenGL ES (*THE* key component of the success of the iPhone UI) and even better integration of widgets in some compositing based canvas.
I think they key point here is that in the mid term Nokia has to drop S60 and go for an Qt based interface. This can either be with Symbian or a Linux core. Especially this particular fact of platform abstraction makes it even more likely they choose this way, as if Symbian turns out to be a dead end, they can reuse the middleware and switch to Linux.
Of course all this implies that Qt manages to bring the necessary tools for *fast* and *fluent* interfaces on embedded devices (which I think is going to happen, seeing the direction of Qt 4.5) AND a consistent and thoughtful rewrite of the UI Specification that can hold up against the bar the iPhone raised.

]]> By: Tote http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian%e2%80%99s-open-source-challenge/comment-page-1/#comment-60340 Tote Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:26:04 +0000 http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2008/09/symbian%e2%80%99s-open-source-challenge/#comment-60340 Andreas, There's a problem with UI renovations which is in contrast with coming out with a new one: you already have customers who have already got used to a user experience and you shall not "betray" them. Nokia has already sold gazillions of handsets where although the user experience is not the same (as it cannot be), but at least they converge (i.e. similar). How can you renovate such a UI without (severely?) affect your existing user base? Btw, the name of TAT (http://www.tat.se/) has already appeared several times with regards to doing some make-up of S60 UI. Although officially never announced, I think it would be a great idea: to ask an external entity who's not influenced by Nokia's engineer-minded approach to invent something really new, compelling & competing to iPhone UI. You know, as Apple could work out their great UI, others can do that, too. It's not impossible, though, Nokia (and admit that lots of other companies, too) could not do it so far. Finally, it's not only the UI that Apple excels at apparently: their professionalism in "selling themselves" has contributed a lot to today's hype, too. Andreas,

There’s a problem with UI renovations which is in contrast with coming out with a new one: you already have customers who have already got used to a user experience and you shall not “betray” them. Nokia has already sold gazillions of handsets where although the user experience is not the same (as it cannot be), but at least they converge (i.e. similar). How can you renovate such a UI without (severely?) affect your existing user base?

Btw, the name of TAT (http://www.tat.se/) has already appeared several times with regards to doing some make-up of S60 UI. Although officially never announced, I think it would be a great idea: to ask an external entity who’s not influenced by Nokia’s engineer-minded approach to invent something really new, compelling & competing to iPhone UI. You know, as Apple could work out their great UI, others can do that, too. It’s not impossible, though, Nokia (and admit that lots of other companies, too) could not do it so far.

Finally, it’s not only the UI that Apple excels at apparently: their professionalism in “selling themselves” has contributed a lot to today’s hype, too.

]]>