Symbian^4 UI Concept Proposal shows future

No, I do hope that this works out and Nokia regains its momentum, but it's still playing "catch up with the leader", whoever you think the leader is at the moment.

As someone said on the other site reporting this: 2011? By then, competitors UIs will be capable of time travel... 😊

Well, we should see some improvement soon enough with Symbian^3 or at least I hope so.

Those screen shots look good.. however, Nokia need to realize that can't keep on pushing out phones that are starved of memory and lack processor speed. I.e., Stop being cheap!!!

Of course, there's the issue of excessive bugs - poor QA , management decisions to release the phone before the software is ready.

Additional, Nokia absolutely must make their Development tools better. Symbian is a total bitch to develop on. Compare this to iPhone - the development tools are OK, they aren't the best - and just to do plain development is paradise compared to Symbian. I'd rather develop on iPhone than Symbian - its just so much easier.

If your can't attract the developers, your platform is dead.

I really want Symbian to succeed, but the way they are going, its not going to happen, sadly, they will continue their slide to irrelevance.

I personally think that it's the last chance for Nokia to get into position. Don't bring again, crappy S60 5th software or X6 hardware.

I'm a Nokia Fan and own N82 but if this year they don't bring awesomeness to their devices, I might switch to Android.

Maemo is great but N900 is not for everyone!

Looking forward to MWC 2010! 😊

@stewart01 - for god's sake quit living in the past. Qt is the future man. You call yourself a developer?

Anyway - "If your (sic) can't attract the developers, your platform is dead." argument is massively overstated (probably by developers). A few goons make big bucks on the iPhone and all of a sudden the dross that passes for 'software' which most developers create is the lifeblood of a succesful platform. Please...

2011 - this needs to be coming out next month!

I'm just posting to lend support for what Stewart01 said.

Steward01 is stating the consensus: development of mobile apps on competing platforms is significantly easier and faster. Other platforms' SDKs have pre-built methods for creating useful basic UI elements and have quicker recompile/test cycles.

Qt is nice in theory, but our adoption of Qt has been delayed by questions about what the future market for Symbian and Maemo will look like and potential impending fragmentation between even Symbian and Maemo. More info here: http://talk.maemo.org//forum/thread/34686/

Nokia may be able to survive by not attracting more third party developers, but ...

I'm writing this up myself and thought I'd share some things I can see and what implications they may have. It seems to me that the back button will act as the way into the menu and also provide access to the task switcher functionality, perhaps through a long press. It's the only real reason I can see it being put on the homescreen of the phone. I'm also assuming the bottom bar on each screen will set up the four primary buttons automatically, but it'd be nice if the core applications offered the chance to change which functions you prioritise. The title bar with it's extra menu options is another great addition. I'm also assuming that the battery and network indicator can provide one touch access to the connection manager and other settings. I've got to say, with these parts of the user interface omnipresent throughout the interface (and assuming my assumptions are correct), the Symbian Foundation may well have cracked the balance between beauty, functionality and a clean interface.

If Maemo 5 is any indication then Nokia is on a roll here. And to all the doom mongers out here, Nokia can afford to wait until 2011 because the competition has just added eye-candy but still lack the functionality of Symbian which is why most are still using the phones like E71 or 5800XM - funtion reigns over form for some of us.

iPhone may be easy to develop but Objective C over QT - are you serious ? :icon13:

As a professional mobile developer and industry analyst I have to correct some of the assertions above.

@stewart01: "Nokia need to realize that can't keep on pushing out phones that are starved of memory and lack processor speed. I.e., Stop being cheap!!!"

You say that as a comparatively rich developed-world consumer. One of my specialities is mobile in the developing world. The most heartwarming and greatest development in mobile these days is the push of sophisticated handsets to the poor in the developing world, where they often don't have PCs, and where mobiles are their personal computer. Nokia MUST be cheap. It is FANTASTIC that Nokia are doing whatever it takes with memory and processor speed to push Symbian-powered handsets into the developing world. This will have a huge effect in myriad ways on many people's lives, yes, really.

Secondly, for NSeries, and in a comparison with other high end phones, you might have something of a point under some specific circumstances. But remember that Symbian is technically FAR superior to competing smartphone OSes on multiple fronts (sadly people judge books by their cover and seem to think that UI responsiveness is the same as the whole OS). Symbian has FAR better processor use and battery life than the iPhone or Android for example.

"Symbian is a total bitch to develop on." Leaving aside any comments about how good a programmer you might be, your statement isn't true. Only 2 days ago I attended an official Symbian Developer Day. Symbian apps can be written in: C++, Open C/C++, Qt, Python, WRT, Web browser, Java ME, and Flash Lite. This gives developers an AMAZING range of personal choice, power, learning curve, feature set, and development environment. On the geek-hyped iPhone and Android you have 1 (ONE!) choice. Or 2 if you include web browser. If you don't like it, tough. To me, THEY are a bitch to develop on.

"If your can't attract the developers, your platform is dead."
Total rubbish. Many phone platforms have become extremely successful without decent 3rd party software. Honestly, what's next? People saying Apple invented mobile apps?!

@irfanil: "I personally think that it's the last chance for Nokia to get into position"
I personally know you're wrong 😊 Nokia can have loads of future chances, they've got the market share and clout to be able to lose multiple times and still come back. Apple and Android are mere upstarts with all to lose. Nokia are in a very safe position. Sure, every time they screw up big they'll lose market share possibly (although their growing market shares in some regions e.g. developing world will help offset) but they've got a lot of safe space. Did you know Symbian has 80% market share in the whole Asia Pacific region? And 65% across Europe and the Middle East? And that the US (where they have a small share but whose geeks shout the loudest (and arguably have the least to say)) is not actually that important?

@Unregistered: "2011 - this needs to be coming out next month!"
No it doesn't, it needs to come out when it's ready. Nokia are already very competitive in smartphones and in a great position (again, it's daft the way everyone judges everything on how full of useless crap your appstore is and how responsive your UI is). Hype and nonsense says this last year was terrible for Nokia. Truth and FACTS say that while iPhone market share grew 6.7% Q3 to Q3, Nokia smartphones grew almost as much, 6%, but that's 6% of far larger sales.

As a developer whose studied all major platforms I wouldn't touch iPhone or Android with a barge pole. They're total loss making propositions for most developers. Symbian is the best bet and will be for years.

@Unregistered

Pretty much everyone would echo your concern about fragmentation of Symbian and Maemo - so I'm not going to argue there. It would indeed be fantastic if developers had the tools to address both platforms at once.

Your trepidation about the 'future' of Symbian and Maemo (but particularly Symbian) is founded on what though? Surely it's not hard fact or there wouldn't be any trepidation on your part. Qt is set to be compatible for all Symbian devices going back to S60 3rd edition FP1. That's hundreds of millions of devices already, so what are you so concerned about? Maybe it's to do with Symbian supposedly becoming 'lower end'. You know the device that gets the most sales on the Ovi store is the 5800 right? So volume can translate into sales, whereas most seem to think that those who own cheaper devices are less likely to by apps - it seems they're wrong.

The only place that Symbian has no future is in the warped minds of sensationalist bloggers and fanbois, so it might be a good idea to do a bit of research before you make the mistake of ignoring a fantastic market in favour of an overcrowded one.

@ajck

Ooooh, nice response. Thanks for highlighting the wealth of development choices on Symbian. Qhat Symbian's really about is choice. If you don't want to develop your app with Objective-C and deploy it via iTunes then you're pretty much stuck in the Apple world (unless you want to restrict your audience to the 'jailbroken' community)

Also, thanks for pointing out that pretty much everything that is said about Nokia and Symbian most of the time is a fantasy in somebodies head.

And also thanks for pointing out that there are more important things in life than extra clock cycles - such as enabling access to technology for those of us who live in the majority of the world (not me BTW, I'm in London!)

just to chime in quickly....
i dont think symbian is dead...maybe not "fancy" like other UI's...BUT
definitely efficient, only to be let down by hardware(Nokia)..
i think its a general consensus of many that "symbian = Nokia"
Yes it was the preferred platform of nokia...but lets take the samsung
i8910/omnia hd for example...same symbian...much more "visual" UI...and definitely efficient.

secondly, whats this about app stores being the lifeline of a platform?
ridiculous! were platforms not surviving prior to BA? (before apple)
yes the tides have turned....it just amazes me how gullible some people are.
i dont know about you guys...but when i am choosing a new phone i read
the specs list....and the more the phone does "out of the box" the more inclined i am to purchase...

i once wrote an article "i dont get app stores" and was verbally "beaten" by some who missed the point....i wasnt saying apps stores are silly or should not
exist...it was the fact that if more came "out of the box" on devices...the less
"patching up" the consumer has to do....if i bought a high end device (�450+)
i dont expect to be patching it up with "add ons" that SHOULD have been there to begin with!

Symbian may be superior OS, but that means nothing if the platform / devices don't appeal to the average consumer. Many people who have a Symbian phone don't know its a smartphone, and definitely do not install applications.

Once you get over the oddness of ObjectiveC, i think its pretty nice. I'd rather use ObjectiveC over C++. I don't want to bust a gut choosing a more technically difficult solution to build applications. I'd rather more simple but yet flexible, something I'd enjoy. Mind you, a visual basic level is too far 😉

Nokia need to advertise Symbian more, its capabilities, its applications and ease of use(!). They have to make Symbian phones appealing to the consumer.

The Apple AppStore has a lot of crap, in fact, mostly crap, however there are a few gems. Overall, the quality of Symbian Apps is better than iPhone / Touch apps. However, there are some good applications I'd love to see on Symbian.. though because of lack of developers, I don't think we'll ever see them.

Consumers are attracted to iPhone partly because they can get a vast amount of applications.

"Total rubbish. Many phone platforms have become extremely successful without decent 3rd party software. "

Like I said above, the average consumer didn't realize the phones that hosted those platforms knew they were smartphones. Symbian became popular because of Nokia, not because it was a smartphone OS that the average consumer looked out to buy.

ajck wrote:As a professional mobile developer and industry analyst I have to correct some of the assertions above.
snip...
@stewart01: "
Total rubbish. Many phone platforms have become extremely successful without decent 3rd party software. Honestly, what's next? People saying Apple invented mobile apps?!

@irfanil: "I personally think that it's the last chance for Nokia to get into position"

No it doesn't, it needs to come out when it's ready. Nokia are already very competitive in smartphones and in a great position (again, it's daft the way everyone judges everything on how full of useless crap your appstore is and how responsive your UI is). Hype and nonsense says this last year was terrible for Nokia. Truth and FACTS say that while iPhone market share grew 6.7% Q3 to Q3, Nokia smartphones grew almost as much, 6%, but that's 6% of far larger sales.

As a developer whose studied all major platforms I wouldn't touch iPhone or Android with a barge pole. They're total loss making propositions for most developers. Symbian is the best bet and will be for years.

What geeks / techies think appeals to the consumer vs the average consumer is often very different.

@stewart01

Yes, historically many Symbian owners were not aware that they could download apps onto their phone. One thing we can thank Apple for is that they showed everyone else (most of) a good strategy for getting apps pushed to the consumer.

So now, despite the late and extremely shaky start - the Ovi store is seeing over 2 million downloads a day. May not be as much as the iPhone but you're not telling me there's no market there.

Another thing to consider about Symbian is that the app figures are skewed against it by one of it's big advantages. The fact that you can get a Symbian app from anywhere. ANY app developed for iPhone *must* register on the iTunes store. Nice for Apples marketing - not so nice for the rest of us. So yes there are only about 5,000 apps on the Ovi store right now, but there are many more out in the wild.

And I find it funny that you use this comment:

"What geeks / techies think appeals to the consumer vs the average consumer is often very different."

Considering that you seem to be on the wrong side of that debate.

I'm not saying there's no market, iPhone / Touch is just better / healthier.
Saying that, 2 million downloads per day is good.

All I'm seeing on the OVI store are free apps - in Canada - no paid for app which really suck 😞.

Regarding iPhone again, I absolutely loath the closed platform for the iPhone. Hell - I can't even develop iPhone / Touch apps and deploy my own apps to my own device without either jail breaking or paying Apple $99. Symbian is far superior in this respect. But again, to the average consumer - does this matter - probably not - only indirectly, if developers get pi?sed off and stop developing apps in droves.

Having one store is good - but having exclusivity ala Apple AppStore is not. Apple determine what applications users should or should not run. That is a step too far.

Brendan Donegan wrote:@stewart01

Yes, historically many Symbian owners were not aware that they could download apps onto their phone. One thing we can thank Apple for is that they showed everyone else (most of) a good strategy for getting apps pushed to the consumer.

So now, despite the late and extremely shaky start - the Ovi store is seeing over 2 million downloads a day. May not be as much as the iPhone but you're not telling me there's no market there.

Another thing to consider about Symbian is that the app figures are skewed against it by one of it's big advantages. The fact that you can get a Symbian app from anywhere. ANY app developed for iPhone *must* register on the iTunes store. Nice for Apples marketing - not so nice for the rest of us. So yes there are only about 5,000 apps on the Ovi store right now, but there are many more out in the wild.

And I find it funny that you use this comment:

"What geeks / techies think appeals to the consumer vs the average consumer is often very different."

Considering that you seem to be on the wrong side of that debate.

Sure, I'm a geek, but I also have a touch and can see from that, what is lacking in Symbian. The OVI Store is one of them - on the E71, the OVI client is a horrible experience. Of course, the reverse, what is lacking in iPhone / Touch, i.e., no unrestricted multi-tasking.

ajck wrote:As a professional mobile developer and industry analyst I have to correct some of the assertions above.

@stewart01: "Nokia need to realize that can't keep on pushing out phones that are starved of memory and lack processor speed. I.e., Stop being cheap!!!"

You say that as a comparatively rich developed-world consumer. One of my specialities is mobile in the developing world. The most heartwarming and greatest development in mobile these days is the push of sophisticated handsets to the poor in the developing world, where they often don't have PCs, and where mobiles are their personal computer. Nokia MUST be cheap. It is FANTASTIC that Nokia are doing whatever it takes with memory and processor speed to push Symbian-powered handsets into the developing world. This will have a huge effect in myriad ways on many people's lives, yes, really.

As a human being I immediately say: "excellent, well done, the less poverty the better", but as a commercial first world mobile developer I will add immediately after that:" do warn me again as soon as the people have enough disposable income to blow on a couple of mobile apps".

If Nokias main market is people who have just enough money to buy a Nokia phone and some text messages then there is no need for a lot of mobile developers. All western mobile developers will be happy to talk to any party who wants to pay for their hours at their commercial rates to develop apps these people can actually use. But I don't see a market here for first world developers, at the very least for the simple reason that it is very expensive for us to figure out what these people need. Local people will be placed a lot better in that respect, but then there is the problem that they will still need desktop PC's to actually develop these apps. And the fullfilment process is a nightmare with local operators removing most of the profit a sale will make in those markets.

Secondly, for NSeries, and in a comparison with other high end phones, you might have something of a point under some specific circumstances. But remember that Symbian is technically FAR superior to competing smartphone OSes on multiple fronts (sadly people judge books by their cover and seem to think that UI responsiveness is the same as the whole OS). Symbian has FAR better processor use and battery life than the iPhone or Android for example.

Market share is not determined by technical superiority. At a certain point a device is good enough, and then non-technical issues take over.

"Symbian is a total bitch to develop on." Leaving aside any comments about how good a programmer you might be, your statement isn't true. Only 2 days ago I attended an official Symbian Developer Day. Symbian apps can be written in: C++, Open C/C++, Qt, Python, WRT, Web browser, Java ME, and Flash Lite. This gives developers an AMAZING range of personal choice, power, learning curve, feature set, and development environment. On the geek-hyped iPhone and Android you have 1 (ONE!) choice. Or 2 if you include web browser. If you don't like it, tough. To me, THEY are a bitch to develop on.

You might be able to write in all those languages, but in what languages can you actually sell your apps? C++ (including Open C++ but not yet Qt) and Java.

Neither ObjC or C++ (excluding some of the more exotic generic programming things that are possible in C++) are that hard as languages to program in. Professional developers that find one of these languages hard should*look for a different job.

The problem here are the system libraries. iPhone OS has a very good set of UI classes, but has a number of massive gaps in it's middleware. Symbian OS has an amazing range of middelware, but it's Avkon UI sucks big time at the API level.

"If your can't attract the developers, your platform is dead."
Total rubbish. Many phone platforms have become extremely successful without decent 3rd party software. Honestly, what's next? People saying Apple invented mobile apps?!

A better quote is: "if you cannot attract developers, your platform is a complete waste of time and investor money".

@irfanil: "I personally think that it's the last chance for Nokia to get into position"
I personally know you're wrong 😊 Nokia can have loads of future chances, they've got the market share and clout to be able to lose multiple times and still come back. Apple and Android are mere upstarts with all to lose. Nokia are in a very safe position. Sure, every time they screw up big they'll lose market share possibly (although their growing market shares in some regions e.g. developing world will help offset) but they've got a lot of safe space. Did you know Symbian has 80% market share in the whole Asia Pacific region? And 65% across Europe and the Middle East? And that the US (where they have a small share but whose geeks shout the loudest (and arguably have the least to say)) is not actually that important?

Problem here is (IMHO) that Nokia at the management level still treat smart phones and wids as appliances, who's APIs happen to be accessible by third parties. Understandable, given their background. When they bought Qt I believed that they understood platforms too, but as soon as it became clear that Maemo 6 and Symbian^4 would get different APIs it was clear they still did not get it. Pity.

@Unregistered: "2011 - this needs to be coming out next month!"
No it doesn't, it needs to come out when it's ready. Nokia are already very competitive in smartphones and in a great position (again, it's daft the way everyone judges everything on how full of useless crap your appstore is and how responsive your UI is). Hype and nonsense says this last year was terrible for Nokia. Truth and FACTS say that while iPhone market share grew 6.7% Q3 to Q3, Nokia smartphones grew almost as much, 6%, but that's 6% of far larger sales.

As a developer whose studied all major platforms I wouldn't touch iPhone or Android with a barge pole. They're total loss making propositions for most developers. Symbian is the best bet and will be for years.

again seems to be entering one of those Tech circle jerks about who's OS is best.

My tupp'nce whilst many here keep avowing Symbian is technologically superior (we'll leave that to one side for the minute) even Nokia and SF and Rafe and Icertainly do that the UI is far from ideal which is acknowledged by the fact it is being completely overhauled (4yrs late but hey) . However naby experts on here poo poo this and say it's only the UI well what other part of the OS do most people (ie the paying customers) interract wiith and they don't like SF Touch and particu.arly not if they've had a chance to use soomething like an iPhone. This is the hill to climb and it's happening slowly, will the market and buyers wait - I think Apple could announce some phenominal Q4 sales figs and this is the market being eroded from SF.

We hear a lot about Nopkia's huge instslled base - so what they demonstrably install very few Apps and often don't realiise the have a smartphone at all. So it seems to me the more relevant data is the sales and installed base of s60v5 and SF^1/^2 devices ; 5xxx series N97s and X6 and ignoring earliier generations I fairly confidant in saying the iPhone 3GS has slaughtered them in sales and therefore installed base and these users prpovably are active in the device's ecosysytem.

Lastly the much paraded technical superiority doesn't seem to have resulted in more stable or more advanced devices in the iPhopne. in fact to the contrary pretty much all devices launched on SF so far have had problems ranging from crass to alphware (N97) if it is so superior no manufacturer seems to be able to cope with it to nake a stable hadset. what are these huge technological superiorities in SF and how have they manifested themselves in released devices and what superiority has this offered over rival alternatives.

Nokia should now concentrate more on producing technically sound handsets rather to attract people by doing cosmetic changes to their technically same sets. Samsung and the very latest model of LG prove they are far ahead in technology than Nokia. Nokia should now realize that they can't cash their name for long if they really not gear up technically.
We want enriched sets rather than seeing these childish changes in screen appearance.

wIll thIs be the uI for non touch devIces too? I don't really see how havIng the controls on the top of the screen would work for my e63.

I guess they're truly moving Symbian down into S40 territory:

In their User Interface Concept Proposal (v.2) [DOC link], they compare it to Android’s moveable homescreen (though Symbian Foundation has “independent unique pages” rather than one multi-panel screen), the way Palm’s webOS does away with Exit commands (but Symbian will save exit state and release phone memory rather than keep the app running in the background)

No more multitasking? WTF? Nokia has completely lost the plot at this point.

Jonnycat26 wrote:I guess they're truly moving Symbian down into S40 territory:

No more multitasking? WTF? Nokia has completely lost the plot at this point.

i dont think that means no multitasking at all. it just means that if you exit an app then it will close vs the android method where you have no control whether you want to exit the app or leave it running in the background. no worries, they are not going to remove multitasking from symbian.

RogerPodacter wrote:i dont think that means no multitasking at all. it just means that if you exit an app then it will close vs the android method where you have no control whether you want to exit the app or leave it running in the background. no worries, they are not going to remove multitasking from symbian.

You need to reread the comment. It certainly sounds like you won't be able to do much, if any, multitasking.

Just a quick note (need to come back and reply in more detail later).

It absolutely will still do multi-tasking. However the way it is presented to the user may change.

The note mentioned is referring to the fact that Symbian handles multi-tasking differently (actually more sophisticated) in order to more stable / reliable on resource constrained devices.

If anything multi-tasking will become more obvious to the user:

- improved task switcher minimizes Exit commands and provides improved visual access to backgrounded �continuous experience� applications (e.g., music playback, active call, etc.)

Rafe wrote:Just a quick note (need to come back and reply in more detail later).

It absolutely will still do multi-tasking. However the way it is presented to the user may change.

The note mentioned is referring to the fact that Symbian handles multi-tasking differently (actually more sophisticated) in order to more stable / reliable on resource constrained devices.

If anything multi-tasking will become more obvious to the user:

Sorry Rafe, you're wrong. You really need to read everything and put the pieces together.

"Continuous experience" applications include things like the dialer, contacts, media player, mail, etc. Those things will still continue to multitask.

Other applications will have the whole "save state and exit" thing going on, as mentioned in the SF presentation/PDF.

Looks like Maemo 5 UI on the Nokia N900

Nokia sent only one proposal? I Think The More The better! How About a competition for new ui

is it just me or is this UI ugly?

i dont see anything refreshing to it, Nokia you're all losers up there, you have nobody with some imagination to really come up with a good UI design.

Jonnycat26 wrote:Sorry Rafe, you're wrong. You really need to read everything and put the pieces together.

"Continuous experience" applications include things like the dialer, contacts, media player, mail, etc. Those things will still continue to multitask.

Other applications will have the whole "save state and exit" thing going on, as mentioned in the SF presentation/PDF.

Err no... you're wrong.

The save state and exit thing is referring to what happens when Symbian asks an application to close in the background without your knowledge (as happens when you run out of memory when using a massive web page or similar).

Continuous experience is referring to the way they are presented in the task switcher.