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Symbian is dead [0]. It has been for a while. And Nokia will be too unless it adopts a new strategy very quickly. The figures from the article make this crystal

by auxbuss 16y ago

Symbian is dead [0]. It has been for a while. And Nokia will be too unless it adopts a new strategy very quickly. The figures from the article make this crystal clear: "Symbian's global market share has gone from 51 percent in the second quarter of 2009 to 41 percent in the same period of 2010". It's equally clear that it is Android that has hastened its demise. It am still astonished when I remember Nokia buying (the rest of) Symbian in June 2008. This seemed a bizarre waste of money. And so it proved. (The purchase of Trolltech was earlier, but surprising nonetheless.) Perhaps if they had done so years earlier, and open sourced it, then things might have been different. My opinion on the failure of Symbian was the failure to enagage developers. That, and the most tortuous development environment and deployemnt process that I have ever witnessed. Perhaps this could have been fixed, given time, starting earlier, but corporate institutions historically don't behave in ways to allow this. Regardless, it was much to late by the spending sprees of 2008. Nokia should shunt Symbina into the siding now and adopt Android immediately. It should get back to making great phones. [0] It has its place in some phones, arguably, but how long would you choose to continue to develop and support it when there is no long term need.

blub 16y ago
More nonsense from the people that can't bother with studying the subject even a bit before speaking. You seem to be unaware of the developments with Nokia and Symbian for the past one or two years. They are making an impressive effort to engage developers and they have made the development much more simpler and straightforward. People that have been developing for Android/iPhone have told me that the Qt SDK is competitive with those other tools when it comes to ease of development and speed of development. See: http://gigaom.com/2010/09/15/whats-it-like-to-develop-apps-for-nokia-phones/ http://gigaom.com/2010/09/15/whats-it-like-to-develop-apps-f... As for Nokia switching to Android, see this: http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/24/editorial-nokia-isnt-building-an-android-or-windows-phone-7-de/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/24/editorial-nokia-isnt-buil...
- krig 16y ago
  Impressive efforts can still come to nothing, and so far the numbers aren't favorable. I got and started developing for the N900 when it came out, because I absolutely support the effort of truly being open source that Nokia is betting on. It's just not working out so far. There are no users, the platform is immature, the N900 is not a good phone for users or developers, and most importantly: the Ovi Store is terrible. I released one piece of open source software and gave up on the platform after that experience. Absolutely, anything can happen and Nokia do still have massive market share. I just don't see how they can catch up to Android and iOS at this point, massive effort or not.
  - blub 16y ago
    From what I've seen with the N8 prototypes, it looks, feels better than Symbian 5th and it's faster too. Some people have been using the N8 more than myself and told me that they are happy with them. Still, anything can happen :) N900 was a cool project, but they didn't take it all the way to a commercial product IMO. It registered poorer sales than Symbian and it's always a bit behind when it comes to services & software support. A hacker-friendly and truly open source project, but I don't think that they wanted to invest too much in it, they were probably testing the waters for MeeGo. I'm curious, why do you say that the Ovi store is terrible?
    - krig 16y ago
      For one, the interface is a web site that isn't well-adapted to a mobile screen, so getting to the store is cumbersome in itself. Secondly, downloading an app after buying it is very slow and frustrating. It involves adding a special APT repository with a unique key, and APT on the device is unusably slow. Third, actually publishing on the store is, as far as I can tell, practically impossible unless you have a company and the name of that company is Rovio. Third, they have no decent categories, no search functionality worth mentioning, very little information about each app... the list goes on. As a final nail in the coffin, the prices are much higher than in the Android or iOS stores. This is all from when I tried the store, needless to say I haven't felt any desire to relive the experience again so things may have changed. I really doubt they've fixed it though. I don't know if you've used the store on a symbian device, the experience may be better there, but my experience was indeed terrible on the N900. I really don't see Nokia turning around and putting out a fantastic mobile OS with a well-integrated experience that grabs customers, just like I have a hard time seeing Microsoft managing it. Although, Microsoft do have Xbox Live they could leverage.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Hmm, I love Qt and I'd love to develop for Symbian. I'm working on a Qt desktop app that might be a good candidate for a mobile port. >>>I can't even find a Symbian phone in the US to develop on.<<< I can't see any way to begin mobile development from the US at all - except order a Symbian phone from overseas or something. If you can't start work, it doesn't matter how easy things are. (and yes, any Symbian folks who want to help me are welcome to come up with solutions)
  - blub 16y ago
    I've heard that Nokia is almost nonexistant in the US. But the 5230/Nuron should be available. It's a very cheap Symbian 5th ed phone, that's similar to the 5800 with no wifi/weaker camera and so on. It can get you far enough and then you can use the forum nokia virtual device lab for the rest. Nokia might release the N8 to AT&T in 2011 judging by their Calling all innovators 10m $ competition.
  - perokreco 16y ago
    How do you mean you can't find it? I live in the US, and all my phones have been Nokias for a while. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=n86+nokia&x=0&y=0 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap... http://www.nokiausa.com http://www.nokiausa.com
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- auxbuss 16y ago
  Two years ago was far too late. As I said, perhaps if they had started this initiative earlier then who knows? We've had nearly 4 years of the iPhone now, and nearly 3 years of Android, so this was a slow move and a late one. I applaud the idea behind the Symbian Foundation, but it was too late to tackle Apple and Google.
joe_the_user 16y ago
Hmm, Do you think they could finish porting Qt to Android and move their whole environment that way?
- blub 16y ago
  I believe that Google need to officially support the existing Qt Android port for it to catch on.

by auxbuss 16y ago

blub 16y ago

More nonsense from the people that can't bother with studying the subject even a bit before speaking. You seem to be unaware of the developments with Nokia and Symbian for the past one or two years. They are making an impressive effort to engage developers and they have made the development much more simpler and straightforward. People that have been developing for Android/iPhone have told me that the Qt SDK is competitive with those other tools when it comes to ease of development and speed of development. See: http://gigaom.com/2010/09/15/whats-it-like-to-develop-apps-for-nokia-phones/ http://gigaom.com/2010/09/15/whats-it-like-to-develop-apps-f... As for Nokia switching to Android, see this: http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/24/editorial-nokia-isnt-building-an-android-or-windows-phone-7-de/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/24/editorial-nokia-isnt-buil...

krig 16y ago
Impressive efforts can still come to nothing, and so far the numbers aren't favorable. I got and started developing for the N900 when it came out, because I absolutely support the effort of truly being open source that Nokia is betting on. It's just not working out so far. There are no users, the platform is immature, the N900 is not a good phone for users or developers, and most importantly: the Ovi Store is terrible. I released one piece of open source software and gave up on the platform after that experience. Absolutely, anything can happen and Nokia do still have massive market share. I just don't see how they can catch up to Android and iOS at this point, massive effort or not.
- blub 16y ago
  From what I've seen with the N8 prototypes, it looks, feels better than Symbian 5th and it's faster too. Some people have been using the N8 more than myself and told me that they are happy with them. Still, anything can happen :) N900 was a cool project, but they didn't take it all the way to a commercial product IMO. It registered poorer sales than Symbian and it's always a bit behind when it comes to services & software support. A hacker-friendly and truly open source project, but I don't think that they wanted to invest too much in it, they were probably testing the waters for MeeGo. I'm curious, why do you say that the Ovi store is terrible?
  - krig 16y ago
    For one, the interface is a web site that isn't well-adapted to a mobile screen, so getting to the store is cumbersome in itself. Secondly, downloading an app after buying it is very slow and frustrating. It involves adding a special APT repository with a unique key, and APT on the device is unusably slow. Third, actually publishing on the store is, as far as I can tell, practically impossible unless you have a company and the name of that company is Rovio. Third, they have no decent categories, no search functionality worth mentioning, very little information about each app... the list goes on. As a final nail in the coffin, the prices are much higher than in the Android or iOS stores. This is all from when I tried the store, needless to say I haven't felt any desire to relive the experience again so things may have changed. I really doubt they've fixed it though. I don't know if you've used the store on a symbian device, the experience may be better there, but my experience was indeed terrible on the N900. I really don't see Nokia turning around and putting out a fantastic mobile OS with a well-integrated experience that grabs customers, just like I have a hard time seeing Microsoft managing it. Although, Microsoft do have Xbox Live they could leverage.
joe_the_user 16y ago
Hmm, I love Qt and I'd love to develop for Symbian. I'm working on a Qt desktop app that might be a good candidate for a mobile port. >>>I can't even find a Symbian phone in the US to develop on.<<< I can't see any way to begin mobile development from the US at all - except order a Symbian phone from overseas or something. If you can't start work, it doesn't matter how easy things are. (and yes, any Symbian folks who want to help me are welcome to come up with solutions)
- blub 16y ago
  I've heard that Nokia is almost nonexistant in the US. But the 5230/Nuron should be available. It's a very cheap Symbian 5th ed phone, that's similar to the 5800 with no wifi/weaker camera and so on. It can get you far enough and then you can use the forum nokia virtual device lab for the rest. Nokia might release the N8 to AT&T in 2011 judging by their Calling all innovators 10m $ competition.
- perokreco 16y ago
  How do you mean you can't find it? I live in the US, and all my phones have been Nokias for a while. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=n86+nokia&x=0&y=0 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap... http://www.nokiausa.com http://www.nokiausa.com
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
auxbuss 16y ago
Two years ago was far too late. As I said, perhaps if they had started this initiative earlier then who knows? We've had nearly 4 years of the iPhone now, and nearly 3 years of Android, so this was a slow move and a late one. I applaud the idea behind the Symbian Foundation, but it was too late to tackle Apple and Google.

joe_the_user 16y ago

Hmm, Do you think they could finish porting Qt to Android and move their whole environment that way?

blub 16y ago
I believe that Google need to officially support the existing Qt Android port for it to catch on.