3 ms·

It doesn't matter how many low-end phones are sold. It's near impossible to put apps on them and even if the user can find a way to install an app, the users t

It doesn't matter how many low-end phones are sold. It's near impossible to put apps on them and even if the user can find a way to install an app, the users that buy low end phones have very little correlation with those that have a data contract. And even if they can a) get an app installed, b) have data, you have to deal with the crappy S40 UI. Totally not mom-friendly. My point is, it's pointless even considering these Symbian^1(who came up with such a fucking stupid branding as "^1"?) as being anything as a write off. They don't play a role in the app economy and there is such price competition at the low end that few profits could filter up to subsidise the smartphone division. So let's focus on Nokia's smartphone numbers rather than total shipments. Again... a big ship will keep drifting for a while. But eventually it will come to an end. I've seen many defections from the Symbian camp to the Android camp and have yet to find one developer yearning to go back.

pavlov 16y ago
You make a fair point about the app ecosystem. It has been horribly broken on Symbian for years (at least since they stopped allowing unsigned apps sometime around 2004). Nokia has recently made strides to improve things by concentrating on Qt as the toolkit of choice across the board and streamlining the Ovi Store for developers, but it still has a a long way to go. But note that my post didn't mention apps, and neither did the original article. I wanted to offer a counterpoint to the popular American notion that Symbian will vanish any day now. Regardless of the app ecosystem, that won't happen with Nokia shipping hundreds of millions of Symbian handsets over the next years. (BTW, what's your beef with S40 [which is not Symbian-based]? As far as featurephones go, I find S40 quite tolerable. It's the Symbian S60 lineage that really sucks UI-wise...)
codedivine 16y ago
Am not totally sure but looks like you may be confusing Symbian^1 and S40. Symbian^1 and S40 are completely distinct. Symbian^1 is also called S60 5th edition and runs on many smartphones such as N97, X6 etc. S40 is their feature phone platform. Also, with Ovi Store the app distribution model is better than it used to be. Last I heard, 2.3 million downloads per day were being made from Ovi Store. Ovi Store has the advantage of offering paid apps in many many countries though it is certainly very behind in terms of features like app updates and even basic search sometimes.
- imaginator 16y ago
  You are right. I was confusing Symbian^1 with S40. I've heard the 2.3M figure. That sounds about right given our experience and place in the download rank. I'm generally feeling negative about the whole platform now. To me that figure is 2.3M moments of pain and WTF? per day. :)

pavlov 16y ago

You make a fair point about the app ecosystem. It has been horribly broken on Symbian for years (at least since they stopped allowing unsigned apps sometime around 2004). Nokia has recently made strides to improve things by concentrating on Qt as the toolkit of choice across the board and streamlining the Ovi Store for developers, but it still has a a long way to go. But note that my post didn't mention apps, and neither did the original article. I wanted to offer a counterpoint to the popular American notion that Symbian will vanish any day now. Regardless of the app ecosystem, that won't happen with Nokia shipping hundreds of millions of Symbian handsets over the next years. (BTW, what's your beef with S40 [which is not Symbian-based]? As far as featurephones go, I find S40 quite tolerable. It's the Symbian S60 lineage that really sucks UI-wise...)

codedivine 16y ago

Am not totally sure but looks like you may be confusing Symbian^1 and S40. Symbian^1 and S40 are completely distinct. Symbian^1 is also called S60 5th edition and runs on many smartphones such as N97, X6 etc. S40 is their feature phone platform. Also, with Ovi Store the app distribution model is better than it used to be. Last I heard, 2.3 million downloads per day were being made from Ovi Store. Ovi Store has the advantage of offering paid apps in many many countries though it is certainly very behind in terms of features like app updates and even basic search sometimes.

imaginator 16y ago
You are right. I was confusing Symbian^1 with S40. I've heard the 2.3M figure. That sounds about right given our experience and place in the download rank. I'm generally feeling negative about the whole platform now. To me that figure is 2.3M moments of pain and WTF? per day. :)