2 ms·

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. In the marketplace of ideas, both Symbian and BeOS eventually won the argument. They didn't win commercially.

• braythwayt 6y ago
  I make a similar argument when I say that “CoffeeScript was merged to main.” Yes, JavaScript 2015 won... By adopting all of the ideas that CoffeeScript made mainstream for front-end web development. I realize this is a philosophical distinction, but it really does come down to whether you are attached to the fundamental characteristic of a thing, or the label/name/brand of the thing. Financially, the brand matters. If Uber fails commercially, but ushers in an age of gig economy transportation, the idea won but the brand did not. As an investor or employee, you care deeply about the brand. But as someone trying to change the world, you care deeply about the idea coming to pass by any means necessary. Sutherland did not get rich. But do we say he lost because “The Mother of All Demos” was not an Apple II or Macintosh?
• gravitas 6y ago
  In this era I was into mobile phonery (is that a word?) and in 2006 the Nokia e50 (Symbian 9.1) was such a great phone, it went to many countries that year and I just loved it (it was maybe my 3rd Symbian). Not as a developer but an end user hacker lite, all the flexibility it offered over other choices at the time (most devices were "dumb"). Until the end of 2006 when T-Mobile (US) introduced the BlackBerry Pearl; it was at that point Symbian/S60 died in my life when I realized how limited it was and what it could have been, haven't touched one since (the Pearl being eclipsed by the first Androids after that in 2008). They had a shot and a solid following on HowardForums and just sort of blew it and let the competition outrun them.