5 ms·

Symbian was way behind iOS and Android by 2010, both in terms of functionality and developer experience. Abandoning Symbian to switch to Microsoft was a massive

by mjg59 6y ago

Symbian was way behind iOS and Android by 2010, both in terms of functionality and developer experience. Abandoning Symbian to switch to Microsoft was a massive step forward in both respects, although the original plan had been to drop Symbian and move to Meego with Qt available as a developer transition path. (Maemo, the precursor to Meego, was originally a GTK-based platform. The Symbian faction of Nokia acquired Trolltech in order to be able to advocate for Qt to be a shared development platform for both Series 60 and Maemo, which meant throwing out large parts of the existing Maemo codebase and starting again. This delayed Maemo significantly, and somewhat ignored the fact that there were basically 0 apps on Symbian that anyone cared about in the slightest)

secondcoming 6y ago
Symbian didn't provide a UI. Mobile phone manufacturers applied their own on top. Series 60 was Nokia's chosen UI, and the API was appalling. But yes, Symbian C++ was a difficult paradigm for newcomers to get their head around.
- usr1106 6y ago
  In the very old days Symbian did not provide a UI. Around 2003:ish Nokia was the only Symbian licensee left and they had even 3 UIs: Series 60, Series 80 and Series 90. Only Series 60 survived. Series 80 had 2 products and Series 90 one public prototype. Series 90 was the only with touch input originally. Series 60 got touch after the iPhone, but that was too late. Yes, Symbian C++ was too difficult even inside Nokia. Productivity was very low, many products got cancelled before seeing the market and those who did were massively delayed.
  - girvo 6y ago
    I don’t believe that is correct: Sony Ericsson had the UIQ3 interface on top of Symbian — my favourite phone of all time, the M600i ran it. That was 2005, 2006. A few more UIQ3 smartphones were released after that, as well.
    - usr1106 6y ago
      Wikipedia claims that UIQ company went bankrupt only 2009. If that is correct I remembered the history wrong. So they still tried while Symbian was 100% owned by Nokia.
  - danielscrubs 6y ago
    I remember that Symbian C++ just like QT back in the day barely looked like C++ with all annotations and macros. You basically had to learn a new very ugly language for no good reason. Also it seemed that there was no way to earn money on apps as the friction to buy apps where too big.
    - usr1106 6y ago
      > You basically had to learn a new very ugly language for no good reason. Agree with the ugly. Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some say it was an engineering master piece of the 1990s. But it was different from everything else and it was difficult, I don't think this can be disputed. The no good reason is not the whole truth: * When Symbian (then called EPOC32) was developed there was no C++ compiler that supported exceptions without major problems. "Don't use them" was typical in style guides at the time. So EPOC came up with their own macro hackeries instead, which worked when used correctly. The latter was too difficult for many developers. * Early devices had just single digits of megabytes of RAM. So 500 times less than a phone of today. More macro trickeries to save Bytes were the answer.
      - danielscrubs 6y ago
        I’ll give you that the c++ exceptions had some issues if you agree that they should have removed the macro hackeries as soon as c++ exceptions was the norm. QT also had their own signal implementation with macro hacks way longer than necessary (maybe still do?)
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    > Around 2003:ish Nokia was the only Symbian licensee left That's definitely not true. I joined Symbian in 2005 and there were lots of licensees around. I think 2005/2006 were the glory years of the company.
usr1106 6y ago
> somewhat ignored the fact that there were basically 0 apps on Symbian that anyone cared about in the slightest That's not fully correct. Symbian was the leading smartphone operating system years 2000 - 2008 or so in Europe and some parts of Asia. Skype, browsers, games existed. I remember Skype offering me a refund when they discontinued the app. I remember visiting software conferences in the US maybe 2005:ish and all the Americans had only feature phones. They seriously told me "All I want to do is call and text, I don't need anything else". The truth was that packet data coverage sucked in the US in those days. These were Smartphones with keypad navigation (qwerty models also existed). They had packet data and the possibility to install apps, both native Symbian and Java (J2ME MIDP). The problem was that developing for Symbian was too difficult for many programmers. Not only outside Nokia but also inside. I would claim that at least 40% of the Symbian developers did not fully understand how strings worked. Which had several types, none of which was called string and conversion between them or using the wrong one was a continuous source of bugs. MIDP was too limited in its sandbox to build truly competitive apps. When the iPhone came and capacitive touch started to win Nokia had nothing to offer. They had a couple of models with resisitive touch (requiring a pen or long nails), but all too little and too late. When the Smartphone development started in the US Nokia was just obsolete. No competitive hardware and a difficult software platform. So Apple and Google conquered the world.
- gitowiec 6y ago
  This is true. Symbian was very versatile. I worked at Playsoft - then, at 2007 it was company dedicated to porting games. We had big safe cabinet full of phones from all of the European countries. It was more then thousand of them. Some had TV built in, some had chatting apps, push to talk apps, beautifully animated built in games, calendars, internet browsers, Bluetooth sharing content apps, etc, etc. These weren't Android phones, all of them were Symbian with Java ME.
pjmlp 6y ago
Except that Symbian developers had just been asked to move into Qt and PIPS the year before.
usr1106 6y ago
> and somewhat ignored the fact that there were basically 0 apps on Symbian that anyone cared about in the slightest Depends on the time. It must have been christmas 2002 that I took my first skiing videos using the video recording app. Probably still in beta then. And I sent the app to the recipient by Email. Sending the videos went by MMS. Max size 50 KB IIRC, maybe 100 KB but I believe that came only in the next model. Yeah, those smart phones came only with a still camera. But being able to build a video recorder show the strength of the platform. Of course there was no security model, access control or anything at the time, which made things easier. Of course in 2010, being able to build a video recording app was no longer a competitive advantage.

by mjg59 6y ago

secondcoming 6y ago

Symbian didn't provide a UI. Mobile phone manufacturers applied their own on top. Series 60 was Nokia's chosen UI, and the API was appalling. But yes, Symbian C++ was a difficult paradigm for newcomers to get their head around.

usr1106 6y ago
In the very old days Symbian did not provide a UI. Around 2003:ish Nokia was the only Symbian licensee left and they had even 3 UIs: Series 60, Series 80 and Series 90. Only Series 60 survived. Series 80 had 2 products and Series 90 one public prototype. Series 90 was the only with touch input originally. Series 60 got touch after the iPhone, but that was too late. Yes, Symbian C++ was too difficult even inside Nokia. Productivity was very low, many products got cancelled before seeing the market and those who did were massively delayed.
- girvo 6y ago
  I don’t believe that is correct: Sony Ericsson had the UIQ3 interface on top of Symbian — my favourite phone of all time, the M600i ran it. That was 2005, 2006. A few more UIQ3 smartphones were released after that, as well.
  - usr1106 6y ago
    Wikipedia claims that UIQ company went bankrupt only 2009. If that is correct I remembered the history wrong. So they still tried while Symbian was 100% owned by Nokia.
- danielscrubs 6y ago
  I remember that Symbian C++ just like QT back in the day barely looked like C++ with all annotations and macros. You basically had to learn a new very ugly language for no good reason. Also it seemed that there was no way to earn money on apps as the friction to buy apps where too big.
  - usr1106 6y ago
    > You basically had to learn a new very ugly language for no good reason. Agree with the ugly. Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some say it was an engineering master piece of the 1990s. But it was different from everything else and it was difficult, I don't think this can be disputed. The no good reason is not the whole truth: * When Symbian (then called EPOC32) was developed there was no C++ compiler that supported exceptions without major problems. "Don't use them" was typical in style guides at the time. So EPOC came up with their own macro hackeries instead, which worked when used correctly. The latter was too difficult for many developers. * Early devices had just single digits of megabytes of RAM. So 500 times less than a phone of today. More macro trickeries to save Bytes were the answer.
    - danielscrubs 6y ago
      I’ll give you that the c++ exceptions had some issues if you agree that they should have removed the macro hackeries as soon as c++ exceptions was the norm. QT also had their own signal implementation with macro hacks way longer than necessary (maybe still do?)
- secondcoming 6y ago
  > Around 2003:ish Nokia was the only Symbian licensee left That's definitely not true. I joined Symbian in 2005 and there were lots of licensees around. I think 2005/2006 were the glory years of the company.

usr1106 6y ago

> somewhat ignored the fact that there were basically 0 apps on Symbian that anyone cared about in the slightest That's not fully correct. Symbian was the leading smartphone operating system years 2000 - 2008 or so in Europe and some parts of Asia. Skype, browsers, games existed. I remember Skype offering me a refund when they discontinued the app. I remember visiting software conferences in the US maybe 2005:ish and all the Americans had only feature phones. They seriously told me "All I want to do is call and text, I don't need anything else". The truth was that packet data coverage sucked in the US in those days. These were Smartphones with keypad navigation (qwerty models also existed). They had packet data and the possibility to install apps, both native Symbian and Java (J2ME MIDP). The problem was that developing for Symbian was too difficult for many programmers. Not only outside Nokia but also inside. I would claim that at least 40% of the Symbian developers did not fully understand how strings worked. Which had several types, none of which was called string and conversion between them or using the wrong one was a continuous source of bugs. MIDP was too limited in its sandbox to build truly competitive apps. When the iPhone came and capacitive touch started to win Nokia had nothing to offer. They had a couple of models with resisitive touch (requiring a pen or long nails), but all too little and too late. When the Smartphone development started in the US Nokia was just obsolete. No competitive hardware and a difficult software platform. So Apple and Google conquered the world.

gitowiec 6y ago
This is true. Symbian was very versatile. I worked at Playsoft - then, at 2007 it was company dedicated to porting games. We had big safe cabinet full of phones from all of the European countries. It was more then thousand of them. Some had TV built in, some had chatting apps, push to talk apps, beautifully animated built in games, calendars, internet browsers, Bluetooth sharing content apps, etc, etc. These weren't Android phones, all of them were Symbian with Java ME.

pjmlp 6y ago

Except that Symbian developers had just been asked to move into Qt and PIPS the year before.

usr1106 6y ago

> and somewhat ignored the fact that there were basically 0 apps on Symbian that anyone cared about in the slightest Depends on the time. It must have been christmas 2002 that I took my first skiing videos using the video recording app. Probably still in beta then. And I sent the app to the recipient by Email. Sending the videos went by MMS. Max size 50 KB IIRC, maybe 100 KB but I believe that came only in the next model. Yeah, those smart phones came only with a still camera. But being able to build a video recorder show the strength of the platform. Of course there was no security model, access control or anything at the time, which made things easier. Of course in 2010, being able to build a video recording app was no longer a competitive advantage.