There's an interesting two-part interview, by The Register, with Symbian Foundation CEO Lee Williams in San Francisco, talking with him partly about the possible peaking of the iPhone ecosystem, but mainly about the impending battle between Symbian and Android. There are some nice insights, though you have to overlook a few silly spelling errors by el Reg.
Read on in the full article.
Looks like the iPhone is the phone for people that need help getting laid.
Ha! I just knew someone would make *that* joke!!
8-)
"The Register" - long known as the "Fox News" of the IT world, where half truths merge into legends merge into fiction with a light dusting of reality on top. Honestly if you have any respect for that rag, then you probably read the Daily Sport for the education it gives you.
FTA: "but that market share's been slipping in the past 12 months.". Yeah, as AAS reported on the latest Canalys figures, for Symbian specifically it's a fraction of a % drop over 12 months - not really significant. For S60, there's been a 6% rise in share year on year, and an overall market share rise to 40%.
Android which didn't even register in smartphone sales until the latest quarter, now commands a frighteningly massive 3 - count 'em - 3 WHOLE percent of the smartphone market.
And Android is technically inferior on multiple levels (and before you call me out on that I've been programming OSes for most of the last 25 years, done professional studies of the iPhone and Android SDKs, and have long followed Symbian/S60).
Honestly, Android is hype, hype, hype, hype, hot air, and some more hype.
Next please!
I've been trying out a HTC Hero for the last week or so, and is it just me or is it seriously laggy?
Why are Google allowed to get away with producing such a laggy interface?
Maybe with Lee's Android obsession might want to worry about OSX and maybe even more about Linmo, with Maemo and then initially Samsung's 2 Vodafone exclusives it was becoming a quiet threat because of the opportunity for manufacturer platform differentiation. Now it seems that SF have lost Samsung as a manufacturer Samsung announce bada os axing symbian and winmo and in fact seems resonable anectodal evidence/speculation that SF are just being strung along by the Far Eastern manufacturers who have very little real commitment to the platform and may even have felt that dtagging out the politics of the initial SF sart-up phase has helped them to "stick the boot" into Nokia.
As I keep harping on it is taking too long to get a decent UI out under SF and in the meanwhile the manufacturers are desrting/diappearing over the horizon.
Unregistered wrote:Honestly, Android is hype, hype, hype, hype, hot air, and some more hype. Next please!
Did somebody steal your rattle?
To the other poster: yes HTC Hero is seriously laggy, but the UI blows away S60.
Unregistered wrote:Did somebody steal your rattle?To the other poster: yes HTC Hero is seriously laggy, but the UI blows away S60.
Well then I'm dumping the Hero because it's just irritating. The UI is not that much better, and anyway I don't have a phone so I can play with the UI.
Here's the rub, when I was out in a poor reception area, the HTC was dead but the Nokia 5800 still got 2G. The Hero had given up on 3G long before the Nokia, and the battery went a full day before. The hero has a bent shape that is horrible in a pocket. The Hero also kept losing signal completely in a car in places where the Nokia never had a problem. Same network.
None of those faults (except maybe battery) is the fault of Android OS but surely the phone should work as a phone. People are more concerned with pretty OS, but overlook the stuff that Nokia does really well. And the Hero is laggy.
Has he also forgotten the little something known as Maemo? Nokia's all but said Maemo's long term goal is to kill Symbian dead. Someone should pass the memo on Maemo (ahme) on to Lee, eh?
Fresh from the presses: Samsung to drop completely Symbian by the end of 2010. Probably the i8910 HD was their last Symbian device.
They're also scaling down their Windows Mobile portfolio, while remaining pretty much committed to Android.
Finally, they're introducing a new smartphone OS. Like we didn't have enough of those already 😃.
Edit: Looks like snoFlake has preceded me.
Unregistered wrote:Has he also forgotten the little something known as Maemo? Nokia's all but said Maemo's long term goal is to kill Symbian dead. Someone should pass the memo on Maemo (ahme) on to Lee, eh?
Can you point to evidence of this?
Samsung Q3 results... Shame nothing reported here as usual. Nokia is the main source of news...
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_posts_q3_report_exceeds_20_percent_market_share-news-1233.php
Samsung dumping Symbian.
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_announce_bada_os_axing_symbian_and_winmo_-news-1245.php
Nothing interesting has happened the the phone industry since iPhone appeared in 2007. We are due another step forwards and I think that step will come from Samsung using Android on NVidia Tegra chips. Shame that Android need a 1GHz processor to be any good. I wouldn't buy Android just yet. I wouldn't buy anything for 12 months or so.
Quote: "Looks like the iPhone is the phone for people that need help getting laid.".
Looks like the iPhone was not enough to get someone laid and now they are complaining about it.
In the end, all of these shots at the iPhone go to prove that it is a popular piece of kit that appeals to a very broad market. Are some of the users fanboys and fangirls? For damn sure but they are also people who want a device that just works out of the box. They do not want to have to wait for three or four upgrades for Nokia to fix their OS or even worse, the hardware. Make it work out of the box with "natural" firmware updates are reasonable, but look at the N97. Hardware and firmware issues right off the bat. Who needs this for a supposed premium edition mobile phone from an industry leader.
Food for thought: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE5A950820091110
Unregistered wrote:Can you point to evidence of this?
No response. As expected.
"I've been trying out a HTC Hero for the last week or so, and is it just me or is it seriously laggy?
Why are Google allowed to get away with producing such a laggy interface?"
Like the N97 when it was released?
Unregistered wrote:"I've been trying out a HTC Hero for the last week or so, and is it just me or is it seriously laggy?
Why are Google allowed to get away with producing such a laggy interface?"Like the N97 when it was released?
NO. I'm talking about the general reaction.
Nokia/Symbian didn't get away with producing a laggy UI, they got universal derision.
But it's OK for HTC/Google to produce a laggy interface.
The Hero is an expensive device, I think that too much processor power has gone into this UI/SenseUI (can't blame Google for Sense, that's HTC), and it simply isn't good enough for this class of device, just as it wasn't for N97).