The last few months didn’t look too bright for UIQ: devices were discontinued before actually shipping, huge layoffs at the OS maker’s threaten the system’s future, …in short, it looks like the Palm OS market did a few years ago.
Malcolm Lithgow(the CEO of an UIQ-only house called DreamSpring) sat down with SymbianOne’s Richard Bloor and talked about where he sees UIQ heading. First of all: don’t expect any overly good news from him. He seems to be a bit bitter about Nokia’s decision to “axe” UIQ:
…While understandable, it’s a little disappointing that the Symbian Foundation is standardizing on S60 as it is, in my view, the inferior platform. However, compared to the current situation there’s a huge benefit in having one Symbian based UI. I do however hope that they incorporate some of the richer aspects of UIQ as it has a lot to contribute: not just in the UI framework but also in many of the other programming interfaces.
As for the future of UIQ developers: he sees them working together with former UIQ licensees in order to help them keep a competitive edge over Nokia’s high-end hardware beasts. Furthermore, he hopes that the Symbian Foundation will streamline the application purchase process in a fashion similar to Apple’s trouble-ridden iTunes store.
Should you feel like the full scoop, click the link below!
http://www.symbianone.com/content/view/5655/
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“Bitter”? I’m not sure why you’d read such a strong emotion into my comments, especially when your quote contains the word that does represent how I feel: “disappointed”. But realistically, S60 was the only choice (that’s what “While understable” means).
Oh, and DreamSpring’s not UIQ-only, BTW. We have released applications on ER5, S60 and UIQ 2 and 3. (So only S80 and S90 unrepresented from the Symbian fold.)
Have fun,
Malcolm.