Symbian^4, Orbit and the compatibility break

So does this basically mean Nokia/Symbian Foundation admit that S60 on 5800 and N97 are far behind competition in terms of UI? And they have nothing new to propose till 2011?
This will not end well for Nokia...

Yes and no. I would think there is no particular reason to assume that both SF^2 and SF^3 could not introduce fairly important usability and, apperently more importantly for many, flash graphics and effects etc. Second, AFAIK, the second best selling TS device in the world IS the 5800 so its not like they are in dire straits anyway. With N97, N97 Mini, 5530 and others added to the line up they'll do ok till 2011. Third, they have Maemo 5 rolling out, which may or may not be a significant improvement alredy (ahead of Maemo 6 later).

That's one spin you can put on it. You can say this about any substantial software update... However as I tried to suggest in the article the thinking behind this is more complicated that just a need to update the UI (which receives disproportionate attention from techies).

The change is really part of an overall move of better positioning a platform strategy for the next 10 years. Symbian's SHAI (which receives little or no attention) might also be considered part of this and could be just as vital.

While I think you can say that the N97's UI is behind compared to its competition, UI is only one element in any device. Incidentally I think the 5800 doesn't really count in this comparison as it currently has no comparative open OS competitors in its segment. Hence why its selling well.

As viipottaja says and I mentioned in the article things aren't going to stand still either.

Symbian ^4 is on devices in around 18 months. Software does not magically appear over night. It takes time to develop. The timescale for Orbit+Direct UI is relatively fast compared to similar projects.

I have upgraded* N82 to 5800 for that reason - I only buy unlocked phones, and basically 5800 has no competition on the market. I am also very familiar with S60.
Indeed there are some UI things on 5800 that feel very strange and need changes (like seeing text twice on the screen when you type on the small on screen keyboard or the need to scroll menus to exit the app, while it could easily fit on screen).

But OS change with breaking compatibility is very difficult and can go very wrong.
- will Nokia keep the schedule or will we see significant delays in this development?
- will developers develop apps for current S60? I would say app market on Symbian is already kind of weak, Ovi store is almost empty (even not everything from Download! is there).
- will current phones sell well now? (I would not buy N97 knowing what is going to happen)
- will Nokia provide OS upgrade for current hardware (looking at the recent history I very much doubt that, Apple provides OS 3 even for the first, 2 years old iPhone model)

I kind of hope for the best case scenario, bit I have many doubts. And I would not agree that "The time-scale for Orbit+Direct UI is relatively fast" - this should be ready one year ago. Nokia should put touch OS as a top priority and investment on the first day iPhone was announced, instead of spending effort and money on non essential things like Navteq acquisition. But that just my opinion 😊

* excluding the camera is in fact sadly very much downgraded, even on N97 (no Xenon)

You can say the N97s UI is behind the competition. But you can also say it is unstable and has large bugs and shortcomings in essential functionality.

Reported problems like :- text messages not being delivered, "out of memory" errors, web browser shutdowns/silent crashes, phone not ringing when called or randomly changing to default ringtone, phone not unlocking when unlock button used, phone not allowing calls to be answered, complete spontaneous reboots, messaging application not updating the screen properly... I could go on. This is not UI 'gloss', this is the stuff that makes a phone in 2009.

The whole point of a operating system is to give a degree of stability and application portability on different hardware configurations. However, it seems in the exciting rush to the future ('jam tomorrow', or in 18 months time), the present has been forgotten / neglected and Symbian-based phones seem to be going backwards and not forwards in the stability stakes.

I agree, this will not end well for Nokia or Symbian. They will have precious few of their existing users left if they continue at this rate, no matter how wonderful Symbian ^4 might be.

By the way, to illustrate OS compatibility problems - Nokia was not able to transfer some of it's own, internally developed apps from S30 R3 to R5 - like Nokia Internet Radio (does not work on 5800, no new version), Nokia bluetooth keyboard software (no new version, old version kind of works, but not reliably), Nokia Sports Tracker (no new version, there is only the "unofficial" version on the internet) etc. 5800 is available on the market for 10 months and Nokia cannot handle even this simple transition... What is going to happen with the significant compatibility change?
On top of that some of my applications purchased for older phones simply were not transferred to R5 by the developers. This is not a good sign for the future - those developers simply do not care enough to put time and effort.

Is there any information as to when the first Nokia device running SF will appear (outside of roadmaps)?

Throwing this out there, I think SF will herald the end of the N series. N series devices will still be launched running S60 in 3rd and 5th edition flavours, but when SF appears on a Nokia device, it will be the excuse Nokia needs to launch something new, an 'S series' if you will.

I've read a lot of group tests involving the N97 in the past month (against the latest flagships from Apple, Android and WinMo) and it has come mid-table in many, the UI and speed being the main areas of criticism. Maybe SF is the fresh start Nokia needs to capture the high ground and let S60 migrate to the mid-ground?

celios wrote:I agree, this will not end well for Nokia or Symbian. They will have precious few of their existing users left if they continue at this rate, no matter how wonderful Symbian ^4 might be.

haha .. you mean they might be down to just a few billion users!

Get real celios. The harsh truth. Most users dont really care. You know, the majority of users for whom their smartphone is just a phone. The ones who never bother installing any new software to their phone, dont bother rearranging any of the application icons, dont even bother remapping the softkeys. They use it exactly as it is for the length of their contract, and then upgrade to another phone and chuck their old one in a drawer somewhere.

Its really just a tiny, tiny, tiny proportion of users (kind of like the people who come to sites like this) who get worked up about it.

Anyway, the realy future is not in Western Europe of the USA, its in the new markets and Nokia are bettered placed than anyone to expoit these markets.

I have a feeling Nokia / Symbian will do just fine, and for all your concern I bet you buy a Symbian ^4 when one is available 😉

@PaulyLaw, "Nokia profits down 90%"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/16/nokia-profits-fall

The future is here already!

"Nokia said it shipped 5m N series phones in the quarter, a lower figure than expected. Devices such as the N95 and N96 have been losing out in the lucrative smartphone category to the iPhone, which has sold more than 17m worldwide, and touchscreen phones from makers such as Samsung and HTC."

Most people won't bother to post on internet forums when the are unimpressed by a phone like the N97, they will either return if for another or just not buy Nokia next time.

I feel really sorry for the N97 user for whom it's just a phone and they never install any new software. Let's hope the poor devils manage to at least get off the v10 / v11 firmware, as it has numerous bugs in the telecommunication side of the device.

Delivering buggy products in the present and talking optmistically about the future will only take you so far. Especially when there is real competition about.

I like what Nokia is doing with Symbian... it makes sense now.

Symbian will be free for all to use and built on

S60 will replace S40 as lower and mid end devices OS

Maemo will be the future of high end devices

Since Maemo & S60 are compatible with QT they can take advantage of Symbian^2 & Symbian^3 developed applications.

In short Nokia is giving out the tools for free apps that they can use in their S60 & Mameo OS. At the same time they can implement the Symbian^# OS if their proprietary S60 and Maemo OS becomes obsolete...

[italic]I feel really sorry for the N97 user for whom it's just a phone and they never install any new software. [/italic]
Unlikely to be many of those, given it comes with Facebook/iPlayer widgets preinstalled on the homescreen and with Ovi Store that - despite its flaws - is pretty simple to use.

I believe the binary break with Symbian^4 is something Symbian OS can live with, because this already happened to some extend when moving from S60 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition too.

At that time many feared developers would not support 3rd Edition or 2nd Edition anymore, but instead 3rd Edition applications started appearing quite fast. Some users of old devices have been disappointed, however, as they did not get all the software for their device anymore.

I believe it could be a larger risk for Symbian not to enhance the platform just to remain compatible with the past.

As a bad example, technology wise, we've seen how desktop Windows hasn't developed pretty much at all for 10 years now, because Microsoft has wanted to keep it compatible. Not much development has happened since Windows 2000 was released.

what does this mean for someone planning buying an S60 phone or upgrading? I hate to buy an N86,N97 and have no software for it in 12 months. I know some people change phones in less than 6 months but some stay with one for at least 3 years. For the average consumer planning to get a phone now. Palm,android, other new OS etc... seem to be more attractive seeing it will still have support 2 years later.

On the other side, it is exciting to see what nokia has instore but seeing this news, they wont get my money now.

Is there a report concerning Qt's performance on Symbian? Qt is a port so there is one more layer between sysyem and UI. How will this affect the performance.

One more question:
How will developers write applications for symbian as there will be 2 environments ( native Symbian C++ and Qt )?
I believe that Qt does not have Active Object support or Client-Server feamework. How should a developer connect Descriptors with QString ???

Binary breaks are always a problem, both for the developer and for their customers. But there is a lot that can be done to alleviate these problems, and the question is whether such an effort is going to happen with the Symbian ^4 binary break.

There is already one problem which is Qt not being part of Symbian^1, ^2 or ^3. Putting Qt in ROM in Symbian earlier will mean that development effort to port parts of an app to Qt can be spread over a longer time period. Qt as a separate downloadable will not work (it will generate lots of support issues), it has to be part of the system.

Branding is another issue. People are now getting used to the S60 brand in larger numbers because of Ovi, but what is happening to the S60 brand with Qt instead of Avkon? It shouldn't matter, but will this be the case?

Another technical developer problem is hiding the Qt and Avkon versions of the app in a single sis file. It was technically impossible to put S30 3rd ed and S60 1st/2nd ed apps in a single sis file, and this has resulted in increased customer support issues for developers. It is also much harder to market an app that is supposed to work on a single brand (S60), but that has apparently two different incarnations for the same brand.

For customers it is the problem that their bought apps will become valueless with the arrival of the new system. There has to be a mechanism in the ecommerce shops (like Ovi) that allows people to upgrade to the Qt-based system according to the developers wishes (like for free, or for the developers standard upgrade fee), and not make it mandatory to buy a new app. Such a thing might work for the one dollar apps, but not for higher priced ones.

Any reason why you're referring to the Q1 results and not the Q2 results which showed recovery and an increase in smartphone share, celios?

The people saying Symbian is doomed miss one point - despite its clunkiness it still outsells every other smartphone platform by a significant margin in the markets it competes in.

Nokia need to ensure that they improve and evolve Symbian whilst not losing their USP which is, of course, its familiarity to millions upon millions of European, African and Asian customers.

The people saying Symbian is doomed miss one point - despite its clunkiness it still outsells every other smartphone platform by a significant margin in the markets it competes in.

Ultimately the shareholders will decide.

Volume means nothing, profit is everything.

Last year Apple and RIM made up only 3 percent of global cellphone sales, but took in 35 percent of operating profits for the market

Apple and RIM merely need to increase their share slightly to destroy Nokia's smartphone profitability.

If Nokia fails to compete in markets where it generates profits, the shareholders will demand the removal of the company officers, and new executives who can pursue the profit goal better.

Read your Dickens!

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

Mr Mark wrote:Any reason why you're referring to the Q1 results and not the Q2 results

Yes. I didn't even know the Q2 results were available.

YoY they are still down 66%, they are up QoQ, primarily because Q1 was so dire.

"Converged device shipments (smartphones) were 16.9 million, of which 4.6 million were Nseries and 4.7 million were Eseries. This is the first time that Eseries has outsold Nseries devices and perhaps suggests lacklustre sales of the N79, N85 and N96, compared to earlier Nseries devices. This further suggests that Nokia has concerns to address in the high end consumer market where it is facing fierce competition from Apple, HTC and Palm. Eseries performance continues to be encouraging."

I couldn't agree more.

Good to see they are making more money from each device, after paying �500 for an N97 I can certainly see where a lot of their profit is coming from here.

Oh, and apart from the shareholders there is one other group that affects Nokia (and Symbian's) future. Their customers.

You're forgetting that 5800 isn't Nseries or ESeries.

Add 5800 to NSeries' numbers and the figures are back to previous levels.

celios wrote:YoY they are still down 66%, they are up QoQ, primarily because Q1 was so dire.

My point is celios, why worry so much about Nokia in the first place, and why get so worked up about it?

Look, I love my N97. I know its got bugs and it could be better, but honestly I dont really care that much. It pretty much does everything I want, and does things I couldn't even dream of when I bought my first Psion S3 (and S3a, and S3c, S3mx, S5, S5mx, S7) all thoses years back when everyone was having the same debate about how Psion's business was going.

BUT .. and its a big but, however much I love the N97, I have absolutely ZERO brand loyalty to Nokia, like I had zero loyalty to Psion. Providing they kept pumping out decent enough devices, I kept buying them. When they stopped I switched to try out other devices until I ended up back with the devices that Psion evolved into, but now owned by Nokia.

If at any point Nokia stop producing decent devices, either because they lose market share (as the doom makers amongst us seem to predict) or they simply do a Clive Sinclair one day and put out the wrong product at the wrong time and lose out because of that, I will simply move on again. What do I care how Nokia as a business does? I dont own any shares in the company.

Thats what I dont understand about your argument. Not the points you are making. They seem to make sense, I dont necessarily agree with all your points but OK, they make sense. My misunderstading is just why you care? Unless you own shares in the company, dont waste your time worrying about Nokia, spend your time enjoying their devices. And if you dont enjoy their devices, then go buy someone elses that you do enjoy. Simples.

Nokia seem to have done a pretty good job so far. They absolutely dominate the market and have done for years. I am guessing they actually know their market pretty well and probably better than any of us, so my guess is they will do just fine. And if they dont? Who cares, (apart from shareholders of course haha).

@PaulyLaw, I don't give a monkey's about Nokia, beyond the fact I have paid �500 for something I can't return and doesn't work properly. My fault for expecting anything to change I guess. Since they are the only company in the world that are shipping Symbian based handsets in any volume, I was referring to their recent stagnating performance in the smartphone market as the start of things to come.

As an end-user of Symbian smartphones since the SE P800, I am noticing a worrying trend. Instead of more stable, bug free devices, as was the case for a few years, they seem to be regressing. With initial software quality levels that I personally find very, very poor. Yes, eventually after patches, firmware upgrades and workarounds, they get there in the end. But surely it shouldn't be like this? I have been drip fed spiel about how Symbian is built specifically for smartphones, with great stability and multitasking capabilities, etc. but this does not seem to be bourne out in end user experience. Even now, 6 weeks after receiving it and after the most recent firmware updates, my N97 still completely locks up after some undemanding usage, like browsing a web page.

Right now, I would guess very few end users of Symbian handsets even know that's what they've got, but as the brand name becomes more prominent (as it will surely have to, to compete with the likes of Android), people are likely to associate Symbian with this less than stellar experience.

celios wrote:I don't give a monkey's about Nokia, beyond the fact I have paid �500 for something I can't return and doesn't work properly.

Exactly, this is the point. From my persepective the N97 (even with quite obvious bugs and flaws) is still better than anything else out there (other than other Nokia devices, I would suggest the N86 is probably a more rounded device but it lacks the form factor I want).

If it wasn't still better than anything else I wouldnt buy it. I tend to agree with you that it is a worrying the amount of flaws that modern devices seem to have at shipping. I wonder about their quality control process, but this is not limited to Nokia. They all do it, until customers vote with their feet and stop buying.

Look at the mess that is MS Vista. Yes domestic customers bought it, but only cos they had not choice, it was pre-installed. Commercial customers took one look and said thanks, but no thanks. Its a dog and we'll stick with XP. Forced MS release Win7 way early.

So my point is, if it is too flawed for you dont buy any more, switch to the iPhone or Android or something, but my guess is that even with the flaws you'll find it still does things iPhone and Android users dream about.

On a separate note, honestly I have hardly had any real issue with my N97, except the early ones that we pretty much fixed with the fw update. You sure you havent just got a duff one?

Time to switch to allaboutmaemo.com?

From the Financial Times (Deutschland)

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.ftd.de/technik/it_telekommunikation/:Strategiewende-Nokia-verliert-Vertrauen-zu-Symbian/551805.html&ei=OFuBSvPTDqfajQfJpqT_CQ&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=6&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522Financial%2BTimes%2BDeutschland%2522%252BMaemo%26hl%3Den

Nokia ditching Symbian for Maemo, German FT reports
http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/nokia-ditching-symbian-for-maemo-german-ft-reports/