AllAboutSymbian’s Steve Litchfield has posted an article containing a few things he never quite understood. Coming from the Palm OS, I see things differently…here are a few possible answers to Steve’s questions:
Why do companies like Symbian (they’re not alone in this, you know) bother issuing time-limited DRM-like certificates for software when they’re so trivial to get around? You’ll recognize this if you’ve ever tried installing an older item of freeware or a theme. You get the message ‘Certificate expired’ and you sigh, pop into ‘Clock’ and set the year back one notch and then try installation again, successfully, before putting the year back right again. What purpose does the expiry of certificates then serve? Beats me.
Those DRM time limitations are NOT targeted at freaks reading TamsS60, AAS or another Symbian site. They are intended to keep the huge population of technically-unsavvy users in check…people who don’t wish to invest the time needed for figuring this out.
Why did it take Nokia and Sony Ericsson SO long to realize that computers like RAM and that they were shipping device after device in generation after generation with far too little of the stuff. From Nokia 6630 to Sony Ericsson P800 through to the Nokia N95 and Sony Ericsson P990, RAM shortages have been an utter CURSE in the Symbian OS world. A monkey with half a brain could have figured out the bottleneck sooner, I’d have thought.
The reason for the lack of RAM is twofold. First of all, there is corporate greed. Saving one dollar on a million boxes…you get the idea. If you factor in that many many users are not technically savvy(see #1)…the people feeling the lack of RAM are a vocal minority compared to happy users.
Why are Sony Ericsson so appalling at marketing their smartphones? They have a developer network second to none and here at AAS we’re always receiving press releases about this and that developer initiative. But who cares about developers and third party software if there are relatively few smartphones to run it on? Nokia and S60.com rightfully shout from the rooftops about every new device, what it can do and they keep on shouting. And hiring the likes of WOM World to help spread the word has helped enormously. But Sony Ericsson only seem to stick their head up above the parapet once a year and trying to get news from them is like getting blood out of a stone. And marketing? When was the last time you saw an advert for the pretty decent P1i?
Sony Ericsson seems to sell its devices mostly via carriers. If carriers sell the boxen, why take the huge effort to market to end customers?
Ah yes, interfaces. Why on earth are there four (and arguably five) totally different ways to launch some applications in the Nokia N95? Why are the tiny main control icons in UIQ 3 tucked away in a corner of the screen where they’re almost impossible to reach with a fingernail? And how on earth did it take EVERYONE so long to realise that simply redesigning the S60 ‘menu’ button icon as a ‘Home’ key (as in the E51) would (roughly) triple S60’s accessibility for new users?
Why are there 500 application launchers for Palm OS? As for control icons, please allow me to refer you to an old Palm research paper about user interaction. Buttons at the bottom of the screen are close to the input area..and can thus be reached easily with the stylus…
And talking of interfaces, which illegal substance WAS the designer of the Nokia 3650’s CIRCULAR keypad smoking? “Woo, round and round we go, I can see it now…” [hits 'Submit to production' button and falls over]
Keypad design madness is something that is like the plague. It sometimes hits a designer, causes him to go eeker, and leaves him again. Examples are far-and-wide in the industry - examples are Siemens SX1 and other machines.
Why was it that, despite OPL being one of THE crown jewels in Psion’s treasure store, an onboard language that enabled the creation of THOUSANDS of user-written applications, started my own career in the Symbian world, and created an entire device-recommending community, it was never given even a couple of official man hours by ANYONE at Symbian or Nokia or anyone else with money in the smartphone world. How come it’s OK to spend 10 million dollars on an ad campaign but too risky to spend 10 thousand dollars on an intiative which could potentially do the same for a modern manufacturer as it did for Psion, only on a larger scale?
OPL…AFAIK, it was designed to be touchscreen-based right from day one. Series 60 boxen don’t have a touchscreen…so why should Nokia invest money?
How come Nokia, as the single biggest Symbian shareholder and licensee, never sponsor Symbian’s London Smartphone Show?
As for the Symbian Smartphone Show…I could say something about lack of press support and one hand not knowing what the other does…but I don’t. But leaving Symbian’s completely incapable press dept alone for a moment - WHY should Nokia support them? Series 60 just uses Symbian as a kernel - and Nokia can easily afford a tradeshow of its own where it can also show off phones based on its IOS…
What do you think?
