...In which I am impressed by a couple of examples of superbly 'joined-up' applications from the iPhone world. Can the Symbian ecosystem compete? What advantages does the iPhone have to help the creation of joined-up apps and is there hope for similar software for S60 users? Comments welcome - can you think of any similarly impressive Symbian examples?
Read on in the full article.
- the iPhone has a large (320 by 480, 4"😉, patented capacitive display that's touch-sensitive and yet has super visibility in all light conditions, something that was previously impossible.
There's actually a very big dilemma here. This is the heart of the problem:
- On a high res touch-sensitive 4 inch display you have a LOT more options for writing applications. You can display more information and options at once.
- But most people will probably never buy a device with such a large touchscreen, at least not in the near future.
If you write apps for a large touch-sensitive screen you won't be able to use those apps on much smaller and/or non-touch screens, and you'll be restricting your audience to those with high end phones.
One of the strengths of Symbian is that you can run apps on many different device sizes, screen shapes and form factors. Until the iPhone platform is available on such a variety of devices it is very difficult to compare the two platforms directly. If the iPhone platform became available on such a variety of devices, it would make the design of applications much more complicated than it is now.
Of course most people who buy cheaper phones tend not to install extra software, but if that's the case then discussion of extra software is mostly irrelevant as far as the wider mobile world goes because it's a small niche.
I think, the main reason iPhone gets so many pictures posted on flickr is its screen size and the fast data contract attached to the phone. People can instantly see the quality of the picture on the larger screen and instantly post it. On a low dataconnection 32kbps or 64kbps upload speed it takes a lot of minutes to post or e-mail a simple picture.
Screensize is indeed the next best step and Nokia/Symbian has been lax in that department. Webbrowsers, picutures, e-mail, office apps all benefit hugely by a larger screensize. Taking them close to the experience at home behind their desktop pc. Windows mobile had the option larger screensize (Dell Axim X51v organizer) for a while and only executives running office software, e-mail and such really needed it. Now the average consumers wants this screen resolution too with mobile internet getting a boost.
Nokia has been working hard at mobile facilities like music stores, nokia.mobi, videocenter, youtube via flash support and loads more. WRT i.e. The current n-series are no doubt more powerful than most other (smartish) phones. There is now a whole mobile web out there, that with a bigger screen will entertain and addict many. Besides there are few things more addictive than information, useful and otherwise. If Nokia/Symbian finally gets going with Symbian Touch with better screen sizes I think the iPhone will take the same place as Apple computers do at home. Great eye candy, but very expensive for the functionality you get.
About touch and miniqwerty. Related (off)topics. Perhaps not every one agrees. But touch means finger touch. Little pens should be used for only one thing: Drawing. handwriting recognition has been a failure for years, except with flexible geeks during the Palm days. And for quick data entry with optimal screen usage for editing and composing people want miniqwerty keyboards with some sort of mouse. Either project a mouse point next to a touchfinger or have a thing like Samsung now uses.
I expect touchscreens with miniqwerty to flourish in the future and be the most sold formfactors.
The advantage that the iPhone has over S60 in writing these joined-up applications are
1) a simple interface. On the iPhone there is a single interface for apps to invoke other apps with parameters. On Symbian/S60 there are multiple interfaces (StartDocumentL(), the document handler interface, the view invocation interface, Web's URL interface, server apps), and it isn't clear upfront which one you need.
2) a documented interface. On the iPhone, the interface is well-documented. On Symbian/S60, some interfaces are documented, some are not, some don't work on some phones.
The view invocation interface would be the best one, but this one is plagued by not being documented, mainly because this is a task of the app that hosts the views.
But, AFAICS, all the things the iPhone does can be done on S60 too, apart from the Google Maps interface, which is not implemented on S60 (AFAIK).
About the beautiful cinema example. 'Vincinity' is a very scary application. Telling someone where I am. Tracking my positions by cookies? Where is my privacy, what about Orwell's 1984? GPS is doing just that.
It looks terrific by the way. Wanting to go somewhere while travelling. I can imagine finding a restaurant en getting their menu and pricelist and decide if you want to go there to eat. I doubt however if Apple has the pricelist of my fish and fries shop on the corner of my street or most other restaurants anyway.
Nokia Search has a yellow pages support in the Netherlands. You can search by name or category and location. Search results give phone numbers, map overviews of search results, weblinks to the company website (and my favorite cinema allows reserving tickets directly from their website) and a direct Maps integration to drive/walk there. It's not that different from Vicinity, though it does not (yet?) use the GPS for vicinity searches. Besides I might want to search for where I am tonight, not where I am right now.
The biggest problem I think is that there is no specification for location finding and entering in the HTML standard. Meaning: click on a weblink and open a satnav program of your choice to go somewhere. Or click on a button and the webbrowser says: Do you wish to send your GPS-location?
The Google API solves this I guess. So perhaps enlist it for HTML5? Including the KML and or GPX formats? If google maps becomes better than Nokia Maps/Search I might start even using it.
If i'm honest, reading about apps like this make me wish that the iPhone was more highly specified in other areas (camera, ad2p) so that I could actually get one 😊
I have, on a number of occasions, done stuff like this on S60, and it can be a pain: -
- Search for shop using yell or nokia search, by typing in my postcode/town location. Or nokia/google maps if it happens to have it listed..
- Copy & Paste (or have to type in) location once found, into Nokia Maps or TomTom to get directions
- Separate google search for shop/restaurant website if more info required.
It should be said, that the pure fact that all of this can be done on my mobile phone has still provided a wow-factor for a few people! However, it could be so much easier if everything was joined-up 😉
iPhone like all other phones has its merits and demerits. I am not even taking that path. Sticking to this article and whether symbian has any such joined up app or not, i will give iPhone's app developers 2 thumbs up. This is a wonderful app especially if you travel to a different city like me, and you have to spend 2 or 3 days there, its like a boon to have it.
Symbian has limitations of screen size and all, but can they not create a shorter version. We have .mobi alternative or .com, we can also have screen 2.8 alternative to screen 4.
I'm no developer, but I'm also astonished by how fast some good iphone apps have appeared. One you have not covered is the app for Wordpress, which truly does everything one needs for mobile blogging. And although some S60 are much better equipped for blogging (proper camera, keypad input etc), I could not find a good workable solution for s60. Which is a shame, I really think that a screen of 2.6" or 2.8" would sufficient.
The real game change, in my opinion, is the appstore, which makes it both easy to find and distribute apps. As you said here on aas earlier, the sooner Nokia/symbian implements a similiar system while mainting the current openess, the better.
are the joined up iphone apps mostly linked to US websites/companies?
is it because this is a phone popular in the US (and actually american) that programmers there are getting into it?
are their programmers/websites just quick off the mark in general? or just because it is "their" cool phone?
they are the most tech creative and richest country in the world after all.
we all know Nokia has never broken into the US market in any big way.
I know nothing about programming and SDK's but in addition to hearing that Apple's SDK (whatever that means 😊) is good etc. I gather it must indeed be much easier to develop an app that is intended to run effectively on one model only - the good thing being that there 10 million of those out there already and rising; plus Apple has the most media visibility so an developer of a great app gets part of that shine too I guess.
Ultimately, I gather these kinds of apps hopefully will make the S60 developers go "damn, if they can do it, I sure can too" (assuming there is nothing that makes it impossible in the S60 environment).
The best "joined" S60 apps that I can immediately think of are mostly Nokia's own latest offerings like Sports Tracker (soon to become Nokiavine), Chat etc. In 3rd party terms.. hmm... not too much around but I guess Shozu (and other pic apps) are doing a little bit of that but obviously not enough. Some calendar apps do it "on the local, phone level" but I am sure could potentially add some more location awareness etc.
This is exactly why I can't wait for Android. The iPhone and Android have a very similar philosophy of offering developers a "window" to overlay their data so they don't have to do something twice. Case in point, the browser and maps and in your demo as well the movie player.
Symbian applications have to talk to each other, but they don't do that at a low level. The iPhone and the Android OS were built to do that at the OS level.
The next few years are going to be greatly exciting and the second Apple offers an iPhone with a competent camera, unlocked, I'm going to be highly tempted to pick one up.
I know nothing about programming and SDK's but in addition to hearing that Apple's SDK (whatever that means 😊) is good etc. I gather it must indeed be much easier to develop an app that is intended to run effectively on one model only - the good thing being that there 10 million of those out there already and rising; plus Apple has the most media visibility so an developer of a great app gets part of that shine too I guess.
Ultimately, I gather these kinds of apps hopefully will make the S60 developers go "damn, if they can do it, I sure can too" (assuming there is nothing that makes it impossible in the S60 environment).
The best "joined" S60 apps that I can immediately think of are mostly Nokia's own latest offerings like Sports Tracker (soon to become Nokiavine), Chat etc. In 3rd party terms.. hmm... not too much around but I guess Shozu (and other pic apps) are doing a little bit of that but obviously not enough. Some calendar apps do it "on the local, phone level" but I am sure could potentially add some more location awareness etc.
viipottaja wrote:
Ultimately, I gather these kinds of apps hopefully will make the S60 developers go "damn, if they can do it, I sure can too" (assuming there is nothing that makes it impossible in the S60 environment).
Here in the states "joined up" = "mashup"
would you call facebook a "joined up" app?
>>Here in the states "joined up" = "mashup"
>>would you call facebook a "joined up" app?
Facebook linked to Twitter linked to iGoogle via BeTwitter so a status update on any one is automatically transferred to any other is fairly joined up.
I'm a developer having a Nokia N95 and I was looking to see if after 2 years after iPhone appeared Nokia is able to release a similar phone. It seems they are too slow. Samsung, HTC and many chinese complanies have devices like iPhone but Nokia still struggels.
Even if Nokia had a Symbian Touch device 4 years ago, it simply abandoned it, they didn't realize what can be done with such a thing.
Even if they have Maemo Linux powered devices like N810 they don't realize to put a phone/3G connection on it to be always connected (wi-fi spots are still not everywhere), and Google Android Linux is knocking on the door to gain that market. What they want to do with the N810 succesor? No word about it... very disturbing...
Nokia did good with camera phone - 5 MP. But when iPhone will have a 5 MP instead of 2 MP...
Nokia did good with cheap phones. But in the YouTube and Internet era, every teen is willing to pay $200 for a 480 pixels 4" display phone. Because they don't need the computer anymore and thay can stay connected at school or everywhere.
This is the trend. The computer melted into a smart-phone. Bye-bye cheap S40 stuff !
Good morning 4" or bigger displays with 480 pixels or even 640 pixels !
Good morning integrated applications with everything at a fingertip (touch) !
I am a developer and yes, the good SDK interface in iPhone vs the multiple Symbian tighten interfaces to phone stuff is a big plus.
Nokia thinks by opening the Symbian in 2 years from now they will gain some applications from 3rd party developers...
I think 2010 Open Symbian is too late for Nokia compared to Apple iPhone applications. In just 4 months after the iPhone SDK was published there many VERY GOOD applications on the iPhone.
Why there are better applications on iPhone?
1) Very good applications are done by specialized software companies, and U.S is a big software producer with many software companies, willing to develop (only) for the American products like Apple iPhone and NOT for European companies or Asian companies.
2) Very good software is done not by one individual but by a team of many User Interface designeres + developers + testers. I don't think the FREE and OPEN software is the solution, but smart software companies need to be paid for their work ! I don't understand what Nokia wants to do by giving for free the Symbian OS, which already cost Nokia almost 1 billion $, to gain what? some stupid small games and small programs that nobody actually really needs? Competitive and very good software is not developed by one freelancer, but by companies.
3) Nokia needs to buy some good software companies in U.S or elsewhere. They bought Troltech (QT) but they really need to buy some software integrators and user-friendly application development companies. I think this is better than investing to produce tons of cheap phones. Why they don't limit the production of cheap phones to few models (not tens of models) and re-invest in S60 and Maemo software? My 2 cents...
I think there are two reasons mashups (which, as others have pointed out, is the current term for this type of app) are so common and well-done on the iPhone:
1) The iPhone has decent RAD tools.
Something like a mashup is almost entirely UI design, which just a bit of connecting code. Very easy to do with a decent RAD.
If the UIQ RAD tool in Carbide, which is based on the S60 version, is anything to go by, Symbian still doesn't have a decent RAD tool.
Thus we don't get many of these nice mashups, because they're just as hard to program as real apps.
Of course, S60 has widgets, a decent browser, flash, etc. and these mashups are easier to program in those environments, so that's where I'd expect to see them.
Which leads us to the second reason:
2) Mashups are a part of the "internet" culture, which is more prevelant in the USA than in Europe (Australia's part way between the two).
People don't just come up with ideas for software out of nowhere. The iPhone and its whole design culture is very much a Silicon Valley thing (and so is the web; after all, the real origin of the web was Mosaic, not HTTP). So it's unsurprising that the sort of apps the iPhone supports are very Silicon Valley style (such as mashups).
This also explains why the iPhone is such a joke as an enterprise tool: Silicon Valley's freewheeling, open culture struggles with enterprise issues. (It's no coincidence that RIM is not from the valley.)
-Malcolm.
I happen to be quite involved in the mashup space in San Francisco. *Everybody* here is building out APIs (application programming interfaces) to their web properties, or they are building cool apps that consume other's APIs. Mashups are built using these API's. This area is exploding. These applications take developers to write them. Developers are motivated by fame and money (yes there are many exceptions - please don't flame me). Fame perhaps being the more important of the two.
In Silicon Valley, all developers in the Web 2.0 space are Mac devotees - it looks cool and has unix underneath (that's cool). When the iPhone 3G was launched, being a N95 lover, I snickered at the "sheep" waiting in line at the local Apple store for hours to snatch up their less than capable "smart phone". OK, but here's the thing, how famous are you if you are the guy who worked on the project to deliver Flixster (SF based) so when your buddies down the street hit the iTunes app store, there's your #1 downloaded app. He's famous. He's cool. He writes an app for S60, he's neither, Nokia's aren't cool.
Money. How long do all us AAS geeks spend hunting for S60 apps? Personally, my religion is after the kids are asleep, I try to figure out which apps on my N95 have had a release or are worth the download (thanks AAS for being my primary info source!). And honestly, I'm no software pirate, but I rarely find an app that is worthy of a license (maybe Opera will be my second after they are out of Beta - that's how desperate I am for a better browser). How much have you spent on licensed apps? Would your mom or dad hunt the web for cell phone apps 😉? And how valuable is Download! (he says smirking at Nokia's innovative, but in the end, pathetic attempt). Right. Now think about iTunes. Everyone has it - my mom has heard of it. Easily find a cool app, pay $2.99 for it, it downloads, it's on your phone, it works, it's easy. My mom might do that. I'm a developer, I see a way to make money on iTunes as I have a distribution mechanism where the distributor handles all the customer acquisition, installation, payment, upgrades etc.
Easy. Cool. Money. Fame. Done. Thus, iPhone has better apps. Checkmate Jobs.
Nokia - create a phone that is considered cool - not geeky (N95 it pains me to say), but cool (iPhone - will N96 do it? I haven't seen one TV or print ad yet in the USA) (read: attracts opposite sex and you've marketed to create buzz). Make it easy to develop apps on it through a really great developer program - free tools, free swag, free beer (?). Make it easy to get and get paid for - really, do something better than Download!. Maybe you have a hope. Otherwise, hire more guys in your beta labs... quickly, seriously, because they are going to have a hard time keeping up with big 3rd party development pools.
Spot on about the 3rd party soft, Steve. 😊 I recently got an iPhone 3G to compare with my E90 and N95 8GB, and I am equally impressed by the number, and quality, of third party apps available for it. Especially after only being on the market for a couple of months. S60 3rd edition phones have been around for how many years now? And the same amount, or a little more, of third party, native apps are already available for the iPhone 3G... That's saying something... The Symbian third party software scene seems pretty much dead to me.
And it's not all about the sheer numbers, nor the high quality of the apps; it's about accessibility! Just opening up App Store, browsing through nicely organised catalogs, reading detailed info about an application, reading user reviews and even seeing screenshots etc. and then just a tap of the finger to install it... Even if it's 'payware' you just need a tap of the finger to buy and install.
As for Symbian, you have to search for apps on a computer, often search several different sites to find what you want. Then you download it to the computer, transfer it over to the phone, and go trough a bunch of security warning. And when you actually buy an app you have to give away your IMEI number and sometimes wait and wait for the unlocking code to appear in your mail box. It can be such a hassle to deal with Symbian third party software, especially when you want to change phones and keep using the software you purchased for the other model... God, that is really a pain. Having to e-mail the developer, begging for a new code, even sometimes having to pay a small fee... Ugh! Okay, so Nokia has the Download! app, sure, but that's a slow, buggy and painful experience isn't it. Not to mention the lack of apps there, and the shortage of information about them.
I never actually even thought twice about getting an iPhone, until I borrowed my brothers'. When I saw the screen, got to use the App Store - and understood that most of my software niggles could be easily remedied by a quick third part app install or two, I was sold. I always knew the UI was good (from reading reviews), but not brilliant - because it really is. Nokia and especially WM has a lot to learn here. Sure, the Nokia beats the iPhone feature/spec-wise, but when you compare all of the features they share, the iPhone is ten times better in pure usability at almost every one of those functions/features.
Except for a better camera, BT file transfer (what a ridiculous omission Apple!) and A2DP, I'm not missing squat from the Symbian world. And these words are coming from a devoted Symbian fan and user since the beginning. Having owned dozens of Symbian phones - S60, Series 80 and UIQ.
As for games, Nokia has their N-Gage - not putting it down because it has great potential, but let me just mention one game available for the iPhone through the App Store; "Texas Hold 'em" (from Apple Inc.). That is without a doubt The Best game I've ever played on a smartphone - and I've played lots of them. Of course you have to actually like Hold 'em, but this is just an example of how the iPhone is in this department and what it is capable of. And if you do like it, this game has the gameplay and the stunning graphics to keep you entertained for hours and hours.
I have of course hacked ('Jailbreak'😉 my iPhone. Did that the first day. And as a true power user the iPhone is pure joy to tamper with. :tongue: I've read statements from other self-proclaimed 'power users' saying that the iPhone system is 'too closed' and what not... Well, I could mentioned Symbian Signed and Platform Security here, but I wont. Because in my opinion, a true power user will do everything to make his smartphone his own. As I've 'hacked' both my N95 8GB and my iPhone 3G, I just want to say that I can do a heck of a lot more (geeky stuff) with the iPhone. :tongue:
Unregistered wrote:
Money. How long do all us AAS geeks spend hunting for S60 apps? Personally, my religion is after the kids are asleep, I try to figure out which apps on my N95 have had a release or are worth the download (thanks AAS for being my primary info source!). And honestly, I'm no software pirate, but I rarely find an app that is worthy of a license (maybe Opera will be my second after they are out of Beta - that's how desperate I am for a better browser). How much have you spent on licensed apps? Would your mom or dad hunt the web for cell phone apps 😉? And how valuable is Download! (he says smirking at Nokia's innovative, but in the end, pathetic attempt). Right. Now think about iTunes. Everyone has it - my mom has heard of it. Easily find a cool app, pay $2.99 for it, it downloads, it's on your phone, it works, it's easy. My mom might do that. I'm a developer, I see a way to make money on iTunes as I have a distribution mechanism where the distributor handles all the customer acquisition, installation, payment, upgrades etc.Easy. Cool. Money. Fame. Done. Thus, iPhone has better apps. Checkmate Jobs.
Nokia - create a phone that is considered cool - not geeky (N95 it pains me to say), but cool (iPhone - will N96 do it? I haven't seen one TV or print ad yet in the USA) (read: attracts opposite sex and you've marketed to create buzz). Make it easy to develop apps on it through a really great developer program - free tools, free swag, free beer (?). Make it easy to get and get paid for - really, do something better than Download!. Maybe you have a hope. Otherwise, hire more guys in your beta labs... quickly, seriously, because they are going to have a hard time keeping up with big 3rd party development pools.
However, I do not think that the game is already won by the iPhone. The Symbian ecosystem needs to get its act together and create a proper AppStore for Symbian apps. Add a payment system that works for Asia and Europe, and that isn't taxed to death by the operators, and you'll see the advantage of having 100 million devices in use.
Open Sourcing the Symbian OS is fine, but developers will go where the money is.
Similar experience here, after owning an ipod touch for a year along with a S60 phone decided to see what all the hype was about and purchased an iphone, while it has many failings the user experience beats anything Nokia/S60 has to offer with its seamless integration between hardware and software. Apple have always used this top to bottom control (retail-hardware-os-applications-services-support) to deliver products that are very usable but it sure makes life a lot easier, just works and lets you do other things in life, with the S60 it was like jumping through hoops to get things to work, so the S60 is now sitting in the drawer and the iphone is the main tool of choice..Still believe Nokia build better phones (performance wise) but are falling behind with the choice of OS and services (Ovi is still too scattered).
For mashup apps, I think Symbian may have a tough time catching up with Iphone. For one thing most of Symbian developers are not in the US and thus may not be interested to develop these apps which require connection to web-services that are so pervalent in the US and mostly serve US-specific data only.
The current batch of mashup apps that Iphone have are just useless outside the US. How would you develop these mashup apps for Symbian that can be used around the world (where most of symbian users are located)? Well, the app could tap on to google web service but google may not have as much localised data compared to some local-based web services. But once a local-based service is used the you render your software to be region specific.
Personally, I find Google Map/Search or the Nokia Search/Map (both basically doing the same thing) to be quite sufficient. Of course, it is not as efficent to use compared to the top-down task specific approach use by these mashup apps. On the flip side I may not want my phone to be cluttered up with one mashup app just for movie, one for buying grocery, one for buying books, one for looking up interesting places etc etc.