

Symbian Imploding As Foundation Head Resigns - noarchy
http://mashable.com/2010/10/19/symbian-foundation-resignation/

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imaginator
Good.

I won't miss their stupid branding (<http://developer.symbian.org/>).

I won't miss their slow app signing
(<http://twitter.com/buddycloud/status/13062324669> (ended up taking 6
weeks)).

I won't miss all the crap we went through to get buddycloud working on this
godforsaken platform (good work @incrediblepants).

It could have been so good. But Nokia dithered around opening the platform.
Even with an open platform, how many hackers really want to look at some long-
closed source code and start fixing strangers bugs? Meh!

Had the platform had gained adoption amongst hackers with an ecosystem
comparable with Android, writing and debugging code on it was still at least
5x slower than iOS or Android and about as enjoyable as pulling fingernails
with pliars. Then you were fighting back up against a terrible widget-set and
UI (<http://n8fail.tumblr.com/>). Yes, I know the "but Nokia sells more phones
blah". A big ship will also keep drifting for 10km after its propellor has
fallen off.

On the other hand, working on Symbian has been a good example of where
concentrating on niches can reap benefits; Symbian never received the hype
that some other platforms have enjoyed and did allow buddycloud to gain about
500k users that were underserved by the dearth of decent social and location
apps on the platform. That's been a win for us.

This article is about Mr Williams leaving. The writing has been on the wall
for ages - all the good people left two years ago: hired away by other mobile
startups in London like Truphone or to start their own ventures.

I hope Nokia can get their shit together because I like their hardware and
have some friends working for them. But they don't deserve to.

~~~
codedivine
Did you develop your app in Symbian C++ or Qt? What are your thoughts on Qt? I
have never done any Symbian C++ stuff so cannot comment on that, but I am very
much liking Qt overall.

~~~
defen
Ahh but Symbian C++ is not really C++...more like its bastard stepchild which
manages to remove most of the nice stuff from C++, and is just different
enough to make you rewrite your whole app </bitter>

~~~
noarchy
This is precisely the sort of thing that no doubt scared away potential
developers, including me. Having owned a smartphone that ran on Symbian, it
was only natural (for me) that I'd want to look at how to develop for the
platform. When I did, I was not encouraged.

------
codedivine
Nokia's earnings call is coming up in a few days. Lets see what type of
numbers they put out before declaring the death of Symbian.

------
pavlov
From the article: _"Symbian may be the largest phone operating system in the
world by marketshare, but its free fall is approaching terminal velocity."_

I know it looks that way from the American perspective, but globally Symbian
is still very much holding its own.

Nokia, Symbian's corporate daddy and only remaining serious user, is selling
more smartphones each quarter and increasing marketshare. That does not
justify such hyberbole as "free fall at terminal velocity".

(iSuppli reported 11.6% growth for Nokia/Symbian in Q2 2010:
[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/10/isuppli-
smartpho...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/10/isuppli-smartphone-
numbers-show-its-good-to-be-the-droid.ars) )

I know the next argument: you're not talking about last quarter's numbers, but
an impending implosion of Symbian under the onslaught of Android... Well, so
far that's just speculation. Nokia has managed to hold its global marketshare
for over a decade against both big Western competitors and nimble Chinese
copycats. They seem to know something about this market.

For what it's worth, Nokia is predicting that 50 million smartphones with the
latest Symbian^3 platform will be sold next year. That's on top of cheaper
units running Symbian^1 or even older variants.

These devices are not iPhone killers or any other such nonsense, but they're
well built and usable. They will keep selling by the millions in countries
where Nokia has a strong brand and people know how much they're paying for
their phone, unlike the U.S. where the phone's real price is hidden in an
exorbitantly overpriced wireless contract. (I can't believe people regularly
pay $80+ / month for their mobile over there...)

~~~
imaginator
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.

~~~
codedivine
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
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. :)

