Our very own Asri al-Baker has taken the time to sit down with Malcolm Lithgow, the guy behind Dreamspring, a software house which has been in the Psion and Symbian worlds for almost as long as I have(!) - Asri questions him on the challenges and rewards of developing for Symbian and asks him to summarise a modern developer's other options (Maemo, iPhone, Android, etc.) Here's the fairly lengthy, but interesting, interview.
Read on in the full article.
This really should have been audio/visually recorded! Why would you want to type the whole thing out and expect the reader to read the whole thing when it's so easy to just have recorded it so we can listen in?
We're rapidly becoming a generation of consumers who don't want to sit and read a whole stream of text. Life's too fast! Let's listen to it please!
This bloke had some interesting things to say - particularly suggestiveness regarding the short-term Android influence/development (against the general opinion of everyone else out there!) but I can't imagine people generally being willing to trail through it all by reading alone.
Maybe I'm in the minority here but I expect now to be able to consume my media in easier ways. Who's got/wants to commit time to reading through reams of text?
While I'm happy they've managed to stay in business for 10 years, the actual way they stayed in business (by fixing UIQ's, and now S60's poor contact management) is a sad commentary the on Symbian platform (Symbian never fixed it itself, and they rely on the SF not fixing it anytime soon). As a user, rather than a developer, do I want to stay with an OS whose problems are never fixed, or fixed this slowly?
I am amazed by the negativity of this man, hey sounds rather frustrated. His comment: "I think Android is hopelessly over-hyped, like much originating from Silicon Valley" sounded fairly unrealistic btw!
I wonder if Symbian have always deliberately restricted their built in apps to encourage devs to fill the void. For example, email was always very poor, yet a few euros to Lonely Cat and you have profimail, which is as good or better than anything else out there. Same with Opera (though I personally prefer the built in browser) and this DreamConnect stuff (although the basic contacts is more than enough for me).
A couple of responses:
First, thanks for reading the interview, and interacting with it. I appreciate that, since I doubt I get everything right, and am keen to refine my ideas.
Regarding "fixing" built-in apps:
This is something that's always needed on any platform. The OS vendor is never going to be able to meet the needs of all users with their suite(s), so there are always going to be alternatives.
Even when the OS vendor offers multiple levels of functionality (eg. MS's Outlook Express, Outlook, and MS Dynamics CRM) there is still plenty of room for alternatives.
I would hardly view this as "sad", and while I agree that S60 over-simplifies the PIM apps, there is a reason behind that strategy, it's not just stupidity on Nokia's part. (And no, it's not just to encourage ISV's -- if they wanted to do that they'd have the "vectoring" APIs I talk about.)
Regarding my negativity:
What some call realism others call negativity. Would you care to explain your reasons for thinking stuff from Silicon Valley is not "over hyped"? All I can say is that my assessment was based on straightforward evidence (fragmented development, small market, etc.).
Regarding an audio interview:
Speaking personally, I find audio presentations irritating because I can read far faster than I can listen (and I can do "random access" with my reading but only sequential access with listening). Having said that, I think the page could be laid out a bit more clearly, right Asri? 😉
However, I do understand that different people have different preferences, but unfortunately, since we did an email interview, the original is in text (it hasn't been transcribed, in other words).
Love that Psion screeny!