In this editorial, Ewan mulls over the Smartphone Show 2008 and its significance in the grand scheme of things. How will Symbian Foundation attract developers in the coming years? Was the atmosphere one of post-iPhone doom and gloom? Not from Ewan's perspective, he ends up very optimistic about prospects for Symbian ES (EcoSystem).
Read on in the full article.
if you want developers then better and easier development systems.
i had a psion. i learned opl from a 200 page manual and wrote loads of little useful apps on it. very good system.
i would like to learn python to write similar programs for symbian but the documentation is insane. the pdfs don't view on the device so i can't learn while i commute like i did with opl. the language is updated so often that what were working examples on the web are no longer valid. crazy.
and don't suggest writing the apps using c. i then can't write the apps on the device. totally pointless from my perspective.
ymmv
Have a look at NS Basic/Symbian OS - it's the modern equivalent of OPL.
unfortunately ns basic is not free. i had the first version for palm os and it wasn't bad. however you don't write the app on the device. you have to write the app on a pc. this for me defeats the purpose of having a portable device. i have the time when i am out and about while commuting to learn a programming language and write apps. not when i am at work or home.
there are a lot of school kids/commuters in the same situation. this is an untapped development mine.
it's so close to been a perfect device. but i can see them losing their lead to android. not really the iphone as it is quite limited.
The main problem with the Symbian Smartphone Show this year was that there was no announcement of a Symbian AppStore. The biggest problem for commercial developers is the fact that there is no cheap route-to-market. Apple's AppStore provide this cheap route-to-market, and that is one of the main reasons people are making lots of money there. Lee Wiliams did mention in his speech something about that there should be a system that doesn't tax the developer, but that's not good enough. First, it was too vague, which means that the release of such a system is at least 6 months away. That's too long. Secondly, an AppStore taking a cut is not about taxation, but about providing a valuable service, the on-device integrated fulfillment process.
The tools and the documentation used to be the biggest issues, but I do not see that as being the case anymore. Carbide is now as good as Visual Studio. Symbian Press is releasing a lot of good books nowadays. The documentation situation is not perfect yet (try looking in the s60 5th edition sdk for a good introduction on how to add touch support), but it is nowadays ways better than it used to be.
There still a big obstacle for Symbian to spread her wings.
Apple has multitouch
Winmo will make it in winmo 7.0
I think multitouch is really in important in touch-devices.because even in button-devices there are a lot times you press 2 buttons at the same time.or even playing.so i really don't understand why nokia hasn't made possible.i think it isn't impossible to pay the licence of the patent from the company who projected it.
Why do you think guys?
multitouch?
tried an ipod touch during the week for the first time. a workmate brought one in to show a friend who was thinking of getting one. he was all for getting one till i pointed out that it has no global search like palm who he's a big fan of. so he could add notes to the device but could not search for them. there may be a third party solution but it was such a glaring ommision that he couldn't believe that it was not there as standard.
he raved about the multitouch enlarging and reducing images. it looks impressive but is it more efficient than pressing a single enlarge/reduce icon that could have been displayed on screen? it it more efficent that pressing a single + or - button? i don't think so. it is more a technology looking for a solution than anything else at this point.
he argued about browsing the web as with links that is more efficent with the ability to tap on links. i agreed with that and the browser on the ipod touch is truly beautiful. however i have had no problems with opera mini and importantly for me it reduces the amount of data that i have to download as it compresses pages before downloading them which reduces the cost. and this week it is announced that opera will not be allowed to compete on the iphone market with the apple browser. i wouldn't touch winmo as i have yet to see a device that is stable with a battery life that lasts a day.
the best argument against touch interfaces is psion v palm and were we are today. psion had keyboards and its main competitor had a stylus touch interface. the apple newton also had a touch interface. palms and apples looked sexier and i think that gave them a lot of sales which hurt psion. psion is gone even if symbian is its offspring. but look at all the modern devices including palm treos with their keyboards. keyboards won out in the end not because they are prettier, they're not. not because they're cheaper. they won because they are more efficent. i could type 30-40 wpm on a psion 3a. i could type 30-40wpm on a psion5. on a palm iiix, iiic, m125, visor neo or palm e i could achieve only 15-20 at best. acceptable but noticeably slower. the e71 i'm using now i reckon i get at least 20+wpm.
-moylan