Symbian has had a bit of a string of bad news lately, but starting today, things might just start looking up again. Major changes have been announced with regards to the Symbian Foundation and Nokia’s involvement with the platform, which all basically come down to this: Nokia is taking over development of the platform, while the Foundation focusses on licensing.
Up until now, the Foundation was responsible for developing the Symbian platform, but with the recent news that both Samsung and Sony Ericsson are winding down their Symbian line of smartphones, and thus will become less involved with the foundation, it only seems to make sense that the (by far) largest Symbian player take over development. The Foundation will now focus on licensing.
Following a strategy review, the board of the Symbian Foundation has today decided to transition the role of the non-profit organisation. The foundation will become a legal entity responsible for licensing software and other intellectual property, such as the Symbian trademark. Nokia has committed to make the future development of the Symbian platform available to the ecosystem via an alternative direct and open model.
Interesting changes, but if a recent article by Tim Ocock, former Symbian consortium employee, it might not be the best idea to hand over development of Symbian to Nokia. Ocock describes the way Symbian development took place over the years, and the picture isn’t particularly flattering.
“The real root of the development problem with Symbian, was that the APIs and tools roadmap were driven by the needs of kernel engineers and system integrators,” he details, “It was not unusual to hear it spoken by senior staff that there would never be a market for after-market apps and games, so why support third party developers?”
“‘Easy API’ projects, to make phonecalls or send messages in less than 20 lines of code, were started and never finished. The Psion OPL language was briefly resurrected, as its BASIC like syntax had led to a thriving third party apps ecosystem on the original Series 5. A suggestion to extend Java beyond the usability constraints and limited API of J2ME was shot down without a second thought,” he continues, “Each died quickly, Symbian’s engineering department forbidden to put resources on activities not authorised by product management. In turn, unlike at Palm, or Android today, there was no product manager representing the needs of third party developers.”
If Nokia approaches development like this once more, then Symbian won’t crawl out of the dark place it is in now. The key – as far as I see it – is Qt, and it seems like Nokia has seen the light there.
Uh, it seems that the best place to control the development of Symbian is the company that stands almost completely alone in both 1) paying for the development and 2) using the OS.
Thanks for the Ocock article reference anyway, it’s a pretty accurate review of the history of Symbian. Nokia’s approach to developer ecosystem has completely changed over time (basically after Qt came around). It used to be “We know Symbian C++ development is terrible, deal with it, it’s profitable anyway” but now developer efficiency and powerful tools are seen to be critically important. It pretty much has to be since now developers can vote with their feet if they think you suck.
The fruits of that work will mostly be seen throughout 2011.
I dont have much working experience on Symbian phones but I have some friends that really like it.
I’m perplexed on why it has become so unfashionable so quickly.
On usability what would Symbian(Nokia) have to do to catch up to Android and Apples IOS?
Or has Symbian got some unfair treatment?
Edited 2010-11-08 21:14 UTC
Wasn’t the issues with multi-touch and maybe a designed made for using a stylus instead of over-sized for fingers? Also resistive type touchscreens? And maybe less applications.
Maemo and MeeGo have everything they need I guess. Symbian may get there to, what do I know?
The N95 was a wonderful phone, technically very advanced and the UI worked very well – but it was all controlled with keys, not a touch screen.
Then the iPhone came out with a totally different tactile interface. The N95 8GB was a technically much better phone but the iPhone GUI was years ahead.
Nokia have spent the last few years trying to catch up with the iPhone GUI.
You’ve actually answered your question here. It’s all perception – what makes you think Symbian has to catch up with MeeGo?
Post like this make me wonder if “Nokia” is just Finnish for “Apple”. That’s some kinda wonderful distortion field you’re living in, if you think its Symbian is as attractive as Meego.
People? (Mostly people who have used an older version I assume.)
Reviews?
Comparisons with WebOS, Maemo and iOS?
Nokia themselves? (Why the need to develop it further, delay it or use Maemo/MeeGo for higher end phones unless there’s a difference?)
All the other phone companies switching from Symbian to Android or something else instead of staying with Symbian?
Edited 2010-11-10 10:31 UTC
Symbian is the Windows XP of mobile operating systems. It does the job for a lot of people, but switch to something modern like Windows 7 or Snow Leopard, and you’ll be bewildered why you once insisted on using the dreaded XP.
I use both XP and Windows 7 and don’t see much difference. One is more modern than the other, but I still get the exact same work done in the same time, using the same tools.
Sure, once people stop writing for XP outright, then you have a point, but let’s not be throwing our working tools away for the name of nothing more than fashion.
And what would be the Windows 7 or Snow Leopard of mobile phone os then? All other major OSes are still running some kind of old UNIX kernel. I don’t see anything more modern yet. I agree the GUI that Nokia puts on top of Symbian could be improved though but the latest developments seem to go in the right direction.
I don’t know why Symbiab receives all the hate. I suspect that is because it is not owned by an Alerican corporation. People always mention Android, iOS and WP7 and never Bada. Why is it so?
Edited 2010-11-10 09:39 UTC
Kernel-wise: So what? The kernel doesn’t make all for the phone. If it did then why have we had the last 15 years of development of Linux distributions. Same old kernel, no difference. Stupid comment.
UI, toolkits, shipped-with applications, application store, browser, Flash and video support, GPS software, phonebook intelligence, IM and social networking support, …
Bada? Probably because it’s small and people haven’t used it?
The point is that Symbian is not “old”. The linux kernel is fine, I agree. I just object to the comment made that Symbian is old stuff. It’s not. It’s actually younger than most UNIX kernels in use in mobile phones.
The Symbian micro kernel is well adapted to mobile phones. It’s secure enough to run native applications without resorting to iOS style walled garden. Its network stack is well suited for the mobile phone. It is a very advanced kernel actually. I would not call it the Windows XP of mobile phones.
Edited 2010-11-10 10:59 UTC
It’s old as in the “feature- and user-interface-wise behind”, obviously, or atleast they think so.
Mean-while Nokia stocks do fine today, which is good for me
, but it’s damn jumpy all the time, higher lows for four periods though.
And yet, I’m not an American. I say Symbian is a pile of outdated crap because I own Symbian devices.
Bada isn’t sold in the US.
Indeed but you watch hollywood movies. You probably know english better than your own language. You probably get your informations in english from American media.
It isn’t? Now that explains why it doesn’t get any media exposure.
let me put it in simple english: expensive, yet lousy products.
Is it expensive in the US?
I would claim that there are some aspects of usability in Symbian that I haven’t found on Android (dunno about the others).
An example for me would be when needing a wireless connection you can define connection profiles by which it will prefer wifi (if available) and then move onto the phone network. You can choose for this to be done automatically or let you choose which network.
On Android I have to be connected to the wifi before it is used, sometimes an app will offer to send me to the settings page to turn it on (why can’t it just be turned on in the dialogue?). However, many apps just put up a dialog moaning that they don’t have a connection.
it is a royal pain (unless I’m doing something wrong).
Because it’s the cool thing to love iOS and Android, I think. People seem to believe that, now that those two do things differently and all by touch, that there’s no room for anything else anymore and that maybe, just maybe, different people prefer different styles of os. Symbian bashing is like Microsoft or Apple bashing, it’s the cool thing to do so everyone does it. I, personally, love Symbian for its lack of bling and battery-guzzling graphics. If I want that sort of thing, I’ll load up a game. I just want the os to do what I tell it to and stay out of my way, and as a mobile os, Symbian does exactly that for me.
Continuing development of Symbian is exactly what Nokia DIDN’T want to do. Now, they’re stuck with it. They’re back to paying for the development of an OS that they will begin depreciating shortly. Not something that any organization wants to do.
Maemo was shaping up nicely, but got discontinued. Meego for Handset, at this stage, sucks pretty badly. I will be surprised if they can produce a usable Meego phone one year from now. It was just a month ago when it has the ability to make phone calls.
So, I don’t think Symbian will be deprecated shortly.
More like, it got renamed to “MeeGo Handset UX”.
MeeGo for Handset is not what Nokia will release on their upcoming MeeGo phone. It will have “MeeGo compatible” Harmattan, the artist formerly known as Maemo 6.
You can’t judge that product from reference applications and graphics you see on MeeGo Handset UX.
Great, thanks for the information. Maemo + Qt = awesomeness
Maemo isn’t really “discontinued” when MeeGo is the follow up.
this would go in the same vein of news as NASA suddenly decides to head the development of steam rocket engine. delusion of past grandeur is so pathetically funny.
i have written nokia off my gadget radar 2 years back when i purchased my first so-called nokia smartphone, the accursed n96, and i have been having a good laugh at everything nokia has been trying to do to get back to the top. this is not going to change thing one bit. know why? it’s because they are like a horny dog humping the leg. everybody else can see what’s wrong and having a good chuckle. but they simply think they are humping the wrong leg.
Symbian is what keeps me away from Nokia smartphones. Despite being (Nokia) my favorite brand.
Symbian is like a sinking boat and has been like this for some time already. One can paint it in cool colors or have great shows and great news on that boat but sooner than later it will still sink. The proof of all these is MeeGo.