Oh yes, it's that time again and, only a week late, here's Mystic Rafe with his all-encompassing 2008 predictions for every nook and cranny in the world of Symbian OS . If you're planning on a year long vacation and don't want to miss anything, just read the predictions and you'll be more or less caught up for when you get back. A must-read!
Read on in the full article.
Here's another one: September will arrive, some time between August and October.
Oh please! These aren't predictions, just statements of the bleeding obvious!!
Unregistered, what exactly do you want/expect? Ridiculous pipe dream requests rather than realistic predictions of what is actually likely/possible?
Why is there going to be an expansion in the mobile web, if my new S60 Touch device with VGA resolution is perfectly capable of browsing the normal web? Even the Youtube problem has been solved already!
I think you should go into more detail about what impact Apple will have on Nokia. Will S60 Touch seem like last year's phone, particularly when compared to the inevitable 3G iPhone with GPS, or will Nokia have some tricks up its sleeve? Will Apple release a "nano" version, and, importantly, will the introduction of the iPhone SDK lead to an exodus of developers from Symbian? Should Symbian be working on more emulators to become more relevant in North America?
Another impact Apple and theoretically Android would be better update policies. As it is now, you have to buy a whole new device to get newer features, even if they would be supported on your current device. Apple (and likely Android) will keep providing updates for devices until they won't reasonably support the new features (for example, supporting PowerMacs with OS X updates for years). Can you comment on any trends here?
Groningen wrote:Why is there going to be an expansion in the mobile web, if my new S60 Touch device with VGA resolution is perfectly capable of browsing the normal web? Even the Youtube problem has been solved already!
While there will be high res devices the majority of phones will still have physically quite small screens. Its an unavoidable limitation. And even at VGA the full web experience is not optimal. For the best experience something tailored to the mobile device is necessary... That said I did say the web on mobile for a reason - lots of sites wont be optimised - they'll be usable, but not perfect.
You Tube is actually quite a good example - without the fit to screen function (added by the browser) the full YouTube site would be fairly useless.
Unregistered wrote:I think you should go into more detail about what impact Apple will have on Nokia. Will S60 Touch seem like last year's phone, particularly when compared to the inevitable 3G iPhone with GPS, or will Nokia have some tricks up its sleeve? Will Apple release a "nano" version, and, importantly, will the introduction of the iPhone SDK lead to an exodus of developers from Symbian? Should Symbian be working on more emulators to become more relevant in North America?
Its much harder to make predictions about such things... but since you asked my opinion is that in real terms Apple wont have that much of an impact. At this stage the market is still growing and so competition between manufacturers is less of an issue. Apple will make it harder for Nokia to get into the US though. It hard to say much about S60 Touch (not a lot known), but its a technically more advanced and mature platform. And really its hard to compare - S60 runs across a very large portfolio of devices, it is a software platform - that also reflected in the number of devices sold - by the end of the year the iPhone is estimated to be between 10 and 15 million - S60 will be nearer 240 million (80 million in 2008).
Ok, so that's sort of avoiding your question.... I think that Nokia and Apple will be providing competition for each other for the next few years. I expect S60 Touch to be quite polished, but I suspect it'll have a different take on touch that the iPhone - more emphasis on both touch and softkey input rather than just touch). Each will have their own advantages, but the battle ground will be at the high end of the market (the top 40 million or so devices each year). But despite what a lot of media will tell you there's more to the market than that (and S60 is far better positioned here). You also have to consider its more complex that just one device versus another (people have focused on N95 8GB vs the iPhone - inevitably people will find one way or another to prefer one device over enough - interestingly in this case of these two devices the only market where they're competing equally - i.e. available via operators - is the UK and the N95 8GB is selling far better).
I think it is about the companies respective attitudes, strategy and culture. I think it will come down to who is more open, who has more openness in their product (yes a wooly and hard to define concept) and as thing stand Nokia has the advantage by some way here. [Some openness things to consider here: working relationship with other companies, the software platform itself, third party services, third party technologies and integration with, customer data, customer customisation and usage, use and adoption of open standards etc etc.]
I also think its a lot more than just Apple verus Nokia. You have to consider Microsoft, Google, Linux, other content or media owners... It also not just 2008, this is the battle of the next decade in technology generally in many ways.
I don't think anyone will 'win' or 'lose', indeed I think the market will be highly heterogeneous and Apple and Nokia will be both seen as winners. I do think Nokia will come out on top overall (no question) and at the high end (more debateable) by virtue of its broader mobile strategy and experience and aforementioned attitude towards openness.
Nano version of the iPhone - possibly (more likely in 2009 in my opinion), but many of the good things about the iPhone would be lessened. At the lower tiers of the market is cut throat in pricing terms (not sure Apple will like being here or is set up to be here either).
SDK - I'm sure there will be developers going in both directions. The clever developer is platform agnostic anyway - see my point on runtimes in the main article. I'd point at the device numbers again - there's more of market for Symbian developers. There'll be plenty of activity around Apple (its the cool thing in town) especially from US developers (some of the best mobile developers are based in the US) , but I honestly don't see too many people / companies making money from it.
Symbian relevance in North America - its more down to the carriers than anything else. Though Nokia and other Symbian licensees would do well to release QWETY devices for the US market too. The US market is rather different to the rest of the world. I've said before its a bit irrelevant - Europe and especially Asia are bigger markets - yes that's in jest, but there is a kernel of truth (i.e. the US is not about what your doing wrong globally, but about what you're doing wrong in the US). You could say its similar to the problem Apple is having in Europe.
Whoops, got rather carried away, but after all this is one of the big issues of 2008 and beyond.
Unregistered wrote:Another impact Apple and theoretically Android would be better update policies. As it is now, you have to buy a whole new device to get newer features, even if they would be supported on your current device. Apple (and likely Android) will keep providing updates for devices until they won't reasonably support the new features (for example, supporting PowerMacs with OS X updates for years). Can you comment on any trends here?
As I mentioned I think we will see things like FOTA come in more which would enable better update policies. We're already seeing Nokia do much bigger updates via firmware than has traditionally been the case. I think this will be mainly a flagship device thing as these are the customers who tend to be most interested in such upgrades. There is a danger that too much emphasis is put on this (high end users have loud voice on the web, but they are often a vocal minority).
I do think the mobile and the PC world are different (essentially there is less standardisation in the mobile world) and devices are more variable. Also consider there are multiple operator variants etc (something Apple not really got into). That means I don't expect to see updates between major versions.
It'll be very interesting to see how long Apple keep updating the iPhone software. I don't think it will be like the Power Macs you mention.
So predictions? More firmware upgrades of significance from Nokia (having backported Flash Lite 3 and WRT to FP1 I imagine a lot of the Nseries devices with FP1 will get these features). No upgrades between feature packs.
i'm afraid i have to agree with the first comment - all those things are already pretty obvious and not really "predictions" in the classic sense of the cristal ball..
where are the not so obvious things, that you will be listing as such at the end of 2008? 😉
Rafe wrote:
So predictions? More firmware upgrades of significance from Nokia (having backported Flash Lite 3 and WRT to FP1 I imagine a lot of the Nseries devices with FP1 will get these features). No upgrades between feature packs.
Thanks for your response, which I have to unfortunately agree with. I hope the Linux platforms do well and get away from this arbitrary customer abandonment, it should be possible at least for someone who wants to pay a bit or do a bit of work to upgrade as required. I wonder if the environment (re-use) movement and unlocking requirements mindsets will have any impact on this approach. It's really puzzling considering the amount of fragmentation that is created every time a product line is abandoned.
Rafe wrote:As I mentioned I think we will see things like FOTA come in more which would enable better update policies.
What sense does it make to 1st go to a PC, backup data, then disconnect phone, use FOTA to update firmware, and then reconnect to PC for data restore? The only possible advantage I see in FOTA is probable smaller update size.
FOTA wouldn't require a backup (in theory) as it shouldn't effect your data. I'm not an expert on this though and haven't seen in working in practise.
I have to agree with that most of what is predicted are more trends. It may have been more useful to structure the article by separating trends versus some stick your neck out predictions.
Virtually everything suggested can be evidenced from announcements made towards the end of 2007. Those announcements make it clear what the trends will be for 2008.
For Example: What will some of Nokia's devices look like in 2008? Will the first touch device have a keypad or keyboard or none at all? What specific hardware are you going to stick your neck out and predict?
What will the new p series device look like? Keyboard? No keyboard? Hardware changes? Screen size?
All of that is real crystal ball stuff 😊
Thats a good point, I'll bear in mind next year. I would point out that not everyone reads the market closely so summarising trends, what is coming next can be helpful.
You asked for stick my neck out predictions...
I think we'll see more in the double slider format.
First touch device... hmm I'll go for no keypad aside from the usual control cluster (softkeys, directional etc).
New P series will also just have the controls keys / directional pad. Though there may be a return to the traditional flip.... (maybe 2 devices?). Hardware wise - I imagine the camera resolution will be increased, GPS will be added in. The big thing will be a new finger optimised UI from UIQ (UIQ 3.5 or UIQ 5 perhaps?)