The Tao of Mac has soe good advice on how Nokia should address the challenge of the iPhone , and generally sort out S60 for the consumer market. I particularly enjoyed agreeing with them on "The Series 60 UI is Horrendously Complex." Finland is probably drafting a reply right now... to point out they call it S60 now. As to the other issues, time will tell.
Read on in the full article.
The iPhone is not very good for the average phone user as, for example, you can't easily text something with one hand, something that is an absolutely essential feature in Europe and Asia. iPhone is ultimately a luxury item aimed at technology enthusiasts, it's not a blueprint for how phones should be.
It's also rather stripped of features. Comparing the S60 User Interface with the iPhone User Interface is like comparing the controls of a jet and the controls of a car: there are significant overlaps, but S60 devices have far more features and options accessible to the user, so by definition they will be harder to use.
However, I agree there's lots of changes that ought to be made to the S60 interface if it's to be sold as a computing platform, and to some extent I wonder if it might be better (and I know this will sound like heresy) to make a brand new simpler-to-use computing-centred UI instead of altering S60.
When I reviewed the Nokia N800 internet tablet, I found its Maemo UI far, far easier to use and far more intuitive than S60, especially for computing and advanced communication tasks. Maemo was designed by the same company as S60, but by a different team within that company that started with a blank sheet of paper. Their fresh approach seemed very much more suited to pocket computing than S60, probably because they came to the task without any of the Series 40 baggage that the S60 team had to cope with.
I'm not saying abandon S60 as a platform, that would just splinter the market. What I'd suggest is putting an alternative simplified menu system on top of S60, which is what lots of third party applications already do.
Nokia has been done things like this before too, to some extent:
- The N95's optional "carousel" menu lets you access the most popular advanced features in a very easy way.
- The active standby screen on S60 3rd Edition onwards has made it far easier to deal with day to day issues such as appointments, missed calls etc, and gives fast single click access to popular applications.
- The alternative Horseshoe and V-shaped menu layouts on S60 3rd FP1 onwards, which don't help very much in practical terms but do at least show that S60 doesn't have to only use a row of static icons.
However, there's an important caveat to all this: we shouldn't get carried away by confusing the small smartphone market with the huge normal phone market.
The market for something like the iPhone (or the N95, or any smartphone) is only a tiny part of the entire phone world. The vast majority of people just want calls and texts, and you couldn't possibly say that something like the iPhone has made either of those any easier. The iPhone's lack of buttons and two-handed approach actually makes calls harder, and in pure phone terms the iPhone is a step backward.
The dilemma for phone giants like Nokia is that most people want phones that are phones, while the technology fans want phones that are pocket computers. Apple is happy catering just to tech fans, because that's their target audience, whereas phone giants have a much much bigger and more diverse customer base.
The problem for S60 is that, unlike the iPhone, S60 phones stradle both of these worlds, they're mainstream handsets and pocket computers. If they put something like the iPhone UI on their phones, it would hurt mainstream sales, but if they don't make any alterations they risk hurting their tech fan sales instead.
The only way to solve this is to make different models to cater for different audiences, with a computing-oriented UI for technology fans, and a more phone-oriented UI for the mainstream majority of the world. There's a precedent for this with Nokia's latest Series 40 handsets, the cheapest of which have a very simplified menu system while the more expensive models have menus closer in style to S60.
The Symbian UI is fairly simple surely? As far as I can tell it's one handed and one button to everything that you need.
I think that the iPhone will sell to tech and others, it has gimmicky appeal, some people will buy it just to have something to show off.
If you talk to former S80 owners that are looking at the E90, they will tell you that S60 requires far more clicks to do allmost anything compared to the 9500/9300.
So there maybe something to this...
I'm hoping however that it is alot more friendly than Windows Mobile. Since I'm probably looking to switch to an E90.
Zuber
To some extent the iPhone does less than even some S40 devices so the UI will be simpler. The BT for example does a very limited number of things (one I think!). The iPhone has very powerful hardware to support the snappy UI - add 3G, A2DP & GPS and then see what the iPhone battery life will be like. Also the iPhone will never be as cheap as Nokia or SE phones with the same functionality. So there is a premium to be paid for the UI.
However, Nokia should address S60. I really liked S90 and S80. These show that someone at Nokia does understand how to design UIs. But the transition will be costly but needs to be done. Nokia could easily make their UI better - they have the resources. I fear for UIQ - this needs to be developed very quickly to make it easier to use.
I don't understand why everybody thinks S60 is so complicated? Before the dummy-proof iPhone came out, what were people comparing S60 to that made it seem so difficult to use? It seems to have a slightly smaller learning curve versus any other device on the market, with exponential opportunities for expansion. I came back to S60 specifically for its ease of use after using a Sidekick II (or, Hiptop II). I am unfamiliar with any operating system that has as many options for organization and customization as S60 does without sacrificing ease of use, like Windows Mobile does with all of the advanced tweaks. I've played with Motos, Nokias in S40 and S60, LG's, Samsungs, Sony Ericssons, various Verizon branded handsets, Nextels, WM devices, Treos, and Blackberries, but I keep coming back to S60 for a reason.
Actually, you do have a point.
I was playing with my nephews N95the other day. And I kept thinking. Where are all the "features". Did not feel right. It took a while to figure out that the difference was simply my being used to the Windows Mobile fiddly interface. the N95 was very straight forward compared to that. Though there is still room for improvement.
Zuber
It's possible to minimise clicks on S60 to make things incredibly easy to get too, setting up the MM Menu, the Active bar and the hot keys. The problem is that it is not obvious hjow to set it up in the first place.
As for being more productive, how productive do people need? It's like the difference between a millisecond and a microsecond. It's massively important in a CPU clock, but if it's how long it takes for a refrigerator light to come on when you open the door then it's irrelevant.
When something becomes good enough, then better starts to matter less.
I have an idea. "A merger without a merger" 😊
What if NOKIA teams up with SonyEricsson and make the best UIQ ever, and consolidate the Symbian software market to fight Microsoft and Apple off?
The UIQ is "good enough", especially with the jog-dial, that allows you to do most everything with one hand. And NOKIA once made a UIQ model 6708, for Indian and Chinese market, which is very popular there, I heard.
My point here is that analogue interface (PC mice, stylus, touch screen) is often perceived as 'better' or 'easier' than the digital (keyboards, buttons).
And by the way...
So what happened to the Nokia Aeon prototype?
<search Google Images>
Or was it a fake? 😉
Sorry but I dont think the merger idea will work. What you heard is not correct Nokia did release that UIQ phone here in India but it never went good. Its the same with Sony Ericsson phones P990 is not much of a success here, even after they reduced the prices drastically.
You'r right, Aeon (that concept phone http://symbian.avinashrathod.com/2007/06/nokia-r-aeon.html) actually should be brought to life to beat the iPhone.
jah wrote:I fear for UIQ - this needs to be developed very quickly to make it easier to use.
Each their own - I find UIQ3 much much easier to use then S40 😊 With my S40 phones, I have to stop far more often to think about how to do what I want to do. And that was even before I got my UIQ3 phone 🙄
Cheers,
--Tim
Personally I think you have to be careful about comparing UIs. S60 is harder to use than feature phones because it has more features / capabilities. There's a trade off between simplicity and functionality when it comes to UI design.
I dont think that number of clicks is the only metric that should be used. Its about the experience and how satisfying it is for the users. While the click path is clearly an important factor it is not the only factor.
What makes things even harder (as krisse points out) is that S60 also covers a much larger range of device types and form factors that other UIs.
No doubt there's room for improvement of course!
tnleeuw:
See my take at S40 at cubeover.blogspot.com
This could explain why you have issues with such an 'old and mature' UI.
iPhone is definitely very cool, but I think Nokia can quickly produce a S60 based phone to compete with it. See below for my wishlist of a S60 based iPhone killer.
- Similar size to an O2 Atom phone but thinner (58 x 102 x 12mm)
- GSM 850/900/1800/1900
- WCDMA 850/2100
- Wifi 802.11b/g
- FM radio
- GPS with assisted GPS support
- Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP, AVRCP, DUN, FTP, GAVDP, GOEP, HFP, HSP, OPP, SAP)
- 3.2 Mega pixels camera with autofocus,flash,macro mode
- VGA 30fps video recording
- Big battery (at least 1500mA 5-6 hours talk time)
- stereo speakers
- speaker phone
- 3.5mm stereo head phone plug
- microSD slot with SDHC support (Up to 8GB)
- 1GB or more internal flash
- More memory to run more apps similar to E90
- 3" 640x480 24 bit LCD with scratch resistance glass capacitive touch screen similar to iPhone
- No keyboard or pen, just standard S60 navigation keys (left menu, right menu, up, down, left, right, ok, menu and cancel keys) and +/- volume keys and camera key
- S60 3rd edition FP2 with finger based touch screen enhancements e.g.
Touch screen phone dialler, On screen qwerty keyboard for text editing (All apps requiring text input should automatically switch from portrait to landscape mode in order to give more room for the on screen keyboard)
- Price should be cheaper than N95 if possible!
😉 😉
Hi all,
Well i switched from UIQ and a touchscreen to S60 a little over a year ago and i really wouldn't say it was either that traumatic or difficult to adjust. Obviously as time has passed things have become far more intuitive as i have got used to it. The N95 with the addition of the Multimedia shortcuts and the amount of customisation it offers is more than sufficient for my needs but then not everyone's needs may be the same.
As for the title of this thread " What Nokia Should Do Next ?" well IMO that's simple more of the same, just continue to innovate and bring us great devices not of course forgetting more Ram and the OMAP Series 3 chip.
Marc