4 ms·

Why phone software sucks and how to fix it

6 points by antirez 19y ago

mixmax 19y ago
According to the article the problem is that the harware vendor and the software vendor is the same, and since these are big companies with no particular incentives for creating great software it ends up being mediocre. That is true. The solution offered is splitting hardware vendors and software vendors. Unfortunately I think that if you call Nokia and tell them that they won't return your calls. It is a classical monopoly situation, and while I agree that it would be a great soultion it is totally pie in the sky wishful thinking.
- comatose_kid 19y ago
  I think the problem has to be something else. Look at the PC industry - Macs work with minimal hassle precisely because the h/w and s/w manufacturer are one and the same. And these companies do have an incentive for creating great software - more people will buy their phones! The problem is probably that these large companies don't have a strong leader who cares about product design...
  - mixmax 19y ago
    I think you said it in the last line of your comment: Apple is the exception because of Jobs' amazing reality distortion field and his style.
davidw 19y ago
Something that is likely to change the situation to some degree is always-on connections. If you can do mobile phone web apps, that changes things around significantly. Ok, you don't get to actually access the phone, but there are still tons of 'good enough' apps to be made if people aren't worried about paying for connection time. And of course we all know about the deployment advantages of web apps.
- antirez 19y ago
  Opera mini, probably the best j2me application ever written, is actually what I run in my N70 when I need to get a bit of fresh air :) Here in Italy there is an option to have mostly flat connection (some gigabyte of data for month, it's very hard to reach the limit just using web apps) that costs 8 euro for month so I'm already experimenting how cool it is the always on in mobile phone. Now of course this does not fix the main problem of the actual phone primary functions handled by poorly designed software.

6 points by antirez 19y ago

According to the article the problem is that the harware vendor and the software vendor is the same, and since these are big companies with no particular incentives for creating great software it ends up being mediocre. That is true. The solution offered is splitting hardware vendors and software vendors. Unfortunately I think that if you call Nokia and tell them that they won't return your calls. It is a classical monopoly situation, and while I agree that it would be a great soultion it is totally pie in the sky wishful thinking.

comatose_kid 19y ago
I think the problem has to be something else. Look at the PC industry - Macs work with minimal hassle precisely because the h/w and s/w manufacturer are one and the same. And these companies do have an incentive for creating great software - more people will buy their phones! The problem is probably that these large companies don't have a strong leader who cares about product design...
- mixmax 19y ago
  I think you said it in the last line of your comment: Apple is the exception because of Jobs' amazing reality distortion field and his style.

davidw 19y ago

Something that is likely to change the situation to some degree is always-on connections. If you can do mobile phone web apps, that changes things around significantly. Ok, you don't get to actually access the phone, but there are still tons of 'good enough' apps to be made if people aren't worried about paying for connection time. And of course we all know about the deployment advantages of web apps.

antirez 19y ago
Opera mini, probably the best j2me application ever written, is actually what I run in my N70 when I need to get a bit of fresh air :) Here in Italy there is an option to have mostly flat connection (some gigabyte of data for month, it's very hard to reach the limit just using web apps) that costs 8 euro for month so I'm already experimenting how cool it is the always on in mobile phone. Now of course this does not fix the main problem of the actual phone primary functions handled by poorly designed software.