Symbian Claims To Leave Windows Mobile In The Dust

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33911">http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33911</a><br /><br /><i>"A SUPER confident Symbian is claiming to have kept the Beast of Redmond at bay with a 65 to 70 per cent share of the smartphone sector, according to CEO, Nigel Clifford."</i><br /><br />Doesn't it also depend on how you define what a smartphone is? I'd say some Symbian powered models are little more than feature phones.

[Vincent M Ferrari]

Someone should just walk right up to Nigel and ask him, "Outside of Europe, do you honestly think anyone buys a phone because of Symbian, or because it happens to run on Symbian?"

Then, as he says, "Because it runs on Symbian," you kick him in the shin and laugh at him.

Symbian is not a choice for many people, it's an included feature of a phone they're already buying.

[efjay]

Someone should just walk right up to Nigel and ask him, "Outside of Europe, do you honestly think anyone buys a phone because of Symbian, or because it happens to run on Symbian?"

Then, as he says, "Because it runs on Symbian," you kick him in the shin and laugh at him.

Symbian is not a choice for many people, it's an included feature of a phone they're already buying.

Thats what i think as well. Most people in Europe buy Nokia's but they are probably buying the Nokia brand name rather than the OS the device is running. The fact that its running Symbian probably doesnt matter as much to them as having the latest Nokia phone to show off.

Windows Mobile devices however I feel are perceived differently - as mobile versions of Windows and are purchased for their actual capabilities rather than a desire solely to have the newest phone.

[Rocky Sullivan]

I live in the UK so have some perspective on this issue - I think there are probably two categories of Symbian users in the UK; Ex Psion PDA users and regular phone users that do not fully realise that they have a smartphone.

The Psion OS went through a number of developments and eventually became known as Symbian.

The Psion 5 and Psion Revo were truly great PDAs for their day and became very successful for a couple of years. The problem was Psion stopped manufacturing and the competition from Windows CE devices with colour screens and media fuctions was on the increase. Many of the users remained loyal to Psion but once you were ready for a change alternatives became limited.

When my Psion 5 started to look and feel old the only option for me was to buy a Nokia Communicator - a large brick like phone which ran a Symbian OS similar to the Psion. For me, and many in the Psion community Nokia became the new Psion and as they began to release different phones with different versions of the OS Psion/Symbian users would upgrade - much the same as we do with new Pocket PCs.

I wouldnt underestimate the loyal fanbase that symbian has in the UK - around two years ago I would say about half the people I met with a symbian phone knew exactly what they had and what they could do with their devices. Today I would say this has dropped to around a 3rd as more and more devices have been released.

[twpd]

Good sensible post Rocky. I sometimes despair of the blinkered pro PPC mentality on this site that seems to think every other o/s (particularly the Palm o/s) is rubbish.

I have a P910i in addition to my Dell Axim..the 910i is a delight to use. Lean, reliable and highly functional. It's a shame that the replacement 990 is so expensive.

[alese]

...
"A SUPER confident Symbian is claiming to have kept the Beast of Redmond at bay with a 65 to 70 per cent share of the smartphone sector, according to CEO, Nigel Clifford."
...


That's exactly the attitude that some other company had some 6 years ago...
Microsoft had 0% market share in smartphones when they started in 2002/2003. Now 3 years later, they have roughly between 25-30% (judging by the numbers above), so in another few years who knows.
I do think that Symbian is nice OS and some devices are really nice, maybe if I could find decent replacements for my software and if more devices would have touch screen I would even try one out.

[Yata]

Someone should just walk right up to Nigel and ask him, "Outside of Europe, do you honestly think anyone buys a phone because of Symbian, or because it happens to run on Symbian?"

Have you seen Symbian's figures for Asia? India, Japan, China... all doing way better than the competition. It's only really in North America where Symbian is an unknown.

But I agree with most of the comments here. It's manufacturers who benefit most from Symbian, not the consumer. The manufacturer wants a mutli-tasking, feature rich OS but the consumer is pretty much ignorant. They just buy whichever phone best suits their needs without even thinking about the OS on it.

Symbian does its niche very well, just like Windows Mobile does.

[ppcsurfr]

Apparently it is only in North America where Symbian devices are not as popular. Almost all Symbian devices available run on the GSM network. Pretty much a minority in NA...

In the Philippines, people buy a Nokia or a Sony Ericsson unit because of the brand. The OS that is built into it being not really being a factor...

Until recently, people are looking for better versions of the Sony-Ericsson P900>P910>and now the P990i. They've come to know the OS and are sticking by it.

The users of these devices have been loyal to the brand for a while now. Nokia being the leader in mobile communications, and those who want to be different going for the Sony-Ericsson.

Okay, so people bought their phones because it was made by Nokia... but then they realized that since it runs on Symbian, they can do much more.

They had good hardware that worked with all previous hardware available from the same company. New Nokia units could easily talk with old Nokia units... vCard sending over SMS, the ease of saving a contact number from a call, from an SMS, cut and paste of tesxt messages, replying with a quoted previous message, etc.

Even Sony-Ericsson phones could talk to Nokia phones and had most of the features as well. But when we tried marketing the Smartphone 2002 powered devices here... all were disappointed that it couldn't even perform any better than the most basic Nokia phone available at that time. Windows powered smartphones surely had special features... a lot of them. But it didn't have the basic features of every GSM phone. Sure, your Smartphone can talk to another Smartphone or a Pocket PC Phone Edition device, but try sending or receiving a business card via SMS in the vCard format. Windows powered devices simply fail at this task.

Nokia and Sony-Ericsson make good phones... That's why people like them. Adding an OS to them becomes an added feature... not a replacement for the basic.

Microsoft powered device are wonderful devices as well, but they've never been good phones. They've never included the essentials of what makes a GSM phone a good mobile phone.

[unxmully]

As the subejct says, I found the series 60 implementation on a N70 to be so good I threw it in the bin and bough a Samsung D600.

Now I don't suffer crashes, screen whiteouts, missing calls because the phone doesn't ring and I can actually make calls as well.

Series 60 broke my 7 year allegiance to Nokia. Never again.

[Ed Hansberry]

Good sensible post Rocky. I sometimes despair of the blinkered pro PPC mentality on this site that seems to think every other o/s (particularly the Palm o/s) is rubbish.
Where did I comment on the capabilities of the Symbian OS itself?

And you did read the URL of the site you posted this on, right? If I thought there was a better mobile OS for me, I wouldn't be posting here. :) Don't expect an unbiased opinion. That is the difference between Pocket PC Thoughts and most other sites. We are biased (just like they are) and we are very up front about it. :wink:

[marcol]

Microsoft had 0% market share in smartphones when they started in 2002/2003. Now 3 years later, they have roughly between 25-30% (judging by the numbers above), so in another few years who knows.

These numbers don't support the view that WM is growing relative to Symbian:

Worldwide total smart mobile device market

Symbian: Q1 2004 41%, Q1 2005 61%, Q1 2006 69%
MS: Q1 2004 23%, Q1 2005 18%, Q1 2006 12%

http://www.canalys.com/pr/2005/r2005041.htm
http://www.canalys.com/pr/2006/r2006043.htm

Symbian: Q2 2004, 41%, Q2 2005 63%, Q2 2006 67%
MS: Q2 2004 23%, Q2 2005 16%, Q2 2006 15%

http://www.canalys.com/pr/2005/r2005071.htm
http://www.canalys.com/pr/2006/r2006071.htm

But remember it's a growing market so although PPC/WM devices have a declining market share the actual number of devices sold is increasing.

[lorcro2000]

The windows mobile OS is a pretty good PDA OS. There, it doesn't really matter if you have to soft reset three-four times a day to get bluetooth working or if it crashes regularly. Just swear a little, reset and keep going.

In a phone things get different. There, the OS just can't behave like that, it drives people insane. I for one, a long-time PPC PDA user, won't buy a WM based phone because I want to be able to trust the underlying OS. I want the phone to ring reliably when a call comes in, I don't want it hung in some weird mode it just decided to go into. I don't trust WM to be bulletproof. Not even close.

Calling Symbian phones "feature phones" and dismissing them as that isn't just biased, it's quite incorrect. The OS is a full-on 32-bit multitasking OS and one that is both more tested and more reliable than WM. The fact that a vast majority of the phones out there (running Symbian 60 and smaller/older) are indeed phones with some smartphone functions included doesn't change the fact that the new UIQ phones and Nokia's Communicators are really full-fledged PDA's with phones - and that those machines are highly reliable, especially as compared to WM.

[Ed Hansberry]

strange. I soft reset my k-jam 2-3 times a month and I use bluetooth 24/7 and toggle wifi on/off all of the time.

[zetsurin]

strange. I soft reset my k-jam 2-3 times a month and I use bluetooth 24/7 and toggle wifi on/off all of the time.

Well I don't find it surprising that you leave bluetooth on 24/7 due to the clumsy and counter-intuitive interface that WM presents (which is pretty much par for the course with just about any function in WM). I actually find it quite disturbing that you need to reset your device 2-3 times a month though, funny how you see it as a good thing. I've never owned any non-WM devices that required that kind of sympathy.

[burtcom]

I just got a smartphone -- a Nokia 6682. I was hoping to get a WM5 device, but my rural (Montana) service doesn't offer any yet.

I must say I am pleasantly suprised by Symbian OS -- so far it's been very stable, and I love the fact that it easily runs (and quickly launches) MIDP 2.0 apps.

I still carry around my HP rx3115 of course -- the bigger screen is much better for reading ebooks.

[Ed Hansberry]

Well I don't find it surprising that you leave bluetooth on 24/7 due to the clumsy and counter-intuitive interface that WM presents (which is pretty much par for the course with just about any function in WM). I actually find it quite disturbing that you need to reset your device 2-3 times a month though, funny how you see it as a good thing. I've never owned any non-WM devices that required that kind of sympathy.

yeah. toggling the BT on/off button is very confusing. :roll:

as to the soft resetting, I had to roboot/pull the battery from my Nokia 3650 far more often. and that is a symbian phone. My T68 was worse. as smart phones go, WM has been among the most stable i've used.

sorry you've had so much trouble with your WM phone.

[Yata]

I don't think you can use the Nokia 3650 as an example of the modern day quality of Symbian. It was released at about the same time as the original Orange SPV and that wasn't exactly the most stable of phones either. :)

To the original news poster - when you some Symbian phones are little more than feature phones, which was the last one you used that gave you that impressed and why? The ones my friends own (Nokia N80, N73, SE P990) seem very impressive.

I'm still happy with my i-mate KJAM though. ;)

[martin_ayton]

strange. I soft reset my k-jam 2-3 times a month and I use bluetooth 24/7 and toggle wifi on/off all of the time.

(slightly) OT: Stick with that K-Jam then, Ed. I just got myself a Hermes (in the guise of a Vario II) and toggling bluetooth on effectively toggles Wi-Fi off. Well, the Wi-Fi is still on and drawing power, but it won't actually do anything when the bluetooth is on :evil:

Oh, the joys of being an early adopter :roll:

[ppcsurfr]

Well I don't find it surprising that you leave bluetooth on 24/7 due to the clumsy and counter-intuitive interface that WM presents (which is pretty much par for the course with just about any function in WM). I actually find it quite disturbing that you need to reset your device 2-3 times a month though, funny how you see it as a good thing. I've never owned any non-WM devices that required that kind of sympathy.

This I really don't get. Somehow I find the current Bluetooth settings for handsfree kits pretty straight forward and simple. I too leave my BT headset on 24/7 if I can. But even if I have it on 24/7 there are times that I leave the BT headset in the car, on the charger, or in another room. I don't have any problems with it reconnecting when I'm within range. Have you ever thought that it might be the BT headset you're using which is not Windows Mobile firendly or simply of inferior quality? I use an old Bluespoon AX which is nearly two years old and it connects nicely to the Dopod 900 and 838, both tested with old and new ROMs without any problems whatsoever.

I don't reset my unit as often as Ed... I probably do a soft reset maybe once a month if ever. I run a fixed set of applications normally... a set of applications which I know and trust to perform well. Did you ever think of that as a contributing factor? People who know how to use Windows Mobile devices usually have a trusted set of applications they rely on. Another thing is that people who know Windows Mobile devices don't just get a device because they run on Windows Mobile... they also look at the company who made the device, finalized the ROM and if ever, what useless applications are preinstalled which hopefully can be removed.

Some Windows Mobile devices perform badly not because they run on Windows Mobile, it's because some users opt to install badly designed applications or in really bad cases, useless, memory hogging applications are added into the ROM over the standard Windows Mobile suite of applications by the ODM/OEM.

[Magellan]

I don't post much here since I moderate over at brighthand and spend more time there, but I follow along. Anyway, I still use my SE P900 and love it. I have taken many of the most recent Palm and PPC based smartphones for a spin, and it seems the phone integration still eludes both MS and Palm. Symbian UIQ did it very well starting with the SE P800 (I also owned one), and I am looking forward to the P990, but I think the price will keep me looking for now. I have had to reset my P900 once, maybe twice in the last year, and I have a ton of apps installed, and constantly use bluetooth with a headset. In comparison, I have had 3 Windows Mobile, and 2 Palm smartphones for about a week each, and had to reset every one of them (except the Treo 650) several times just doing basic stuff. I believe part of the problem in the US is people are migrating from existing Palm and PPC devices. They want to continue using what they know, and have invested money in existing apps that they still want to use.

[JMac]

Sales of Symbian phones do not reflect the popularity of the OS - not by a long shot.

In the US, the concept of "smartphones" is still in its infancy - or maybe it's a toddler by now. Just talk to the average cell phone user - not geeks like us, but your sister, your Mom or Dad; the person who sits next to you at your office. To most of them, cell phones (in the United States anyway) have always been, well, just cell phones. The ability to make and receive telephone calls anywhere is a tremendous convenience. But they are not actually computers, are they? "Well, yes, they can hold all of my contacts, and oh, that's true: I can now download and read my e-mail on my cell phone. And, OK, yes I CAN play some pretty neat games on it. But they are still not computers, right? I mean, a computer is a computer, but a cell phone is just a cell phone. Isn't it?"

Smartphones are what the wireless companies portray them as to their average customers; they are only as "smart" as the wireless companies allow people to perceive them to be.

Portable computers and cell phones are not even considered in the same family at all, by most US consumers. The majority of users of handheld devices in the US use Palm or Pocket PC devices. Smartphones have really just starting to catch on here. However the smartphone platforms that are catching on are MS Smartphone and Palm. Symbian devices are just starting to be “discovered” here. Symbian fans may not like hearing this, but there are some valid reasons why Symbian has yet to become a popular platform in the US.

Less than 10% of the phones offered by the US wireless companies that use GSM were Symbian phones, according to 2004 data. (Nothing later is available). Employees of those companies give me a totally blank stare when I ask them what devices they sell are running the Symbian OS. It's like I suddenly started speaking a foreign language to them! Why is this? How can Nokia NOT promote their Symbian OS devices to the US market? When I inquire about smartphones, every employee I spoke with could rattle off all of the features offered by Microsoft. But each and every one of them did not know that Nokia sold a smartphone! Even though they are authorized Nokia dealers! They would all explain the nice camera and all of the neat ringtones the phone could play. A search of the Cingular Wireless web site for the term "smartphone" that I performed while researching an article in late 2005 yielded the following result: "http://www.cingular.com/smartphone, a Motorola MPx 220 - a smartphone running microsoft's Windows Mobile OS and software". Yet they sell several Symbian OS smartphones! Neither Cingular nor Nokia see fit to promote the Nokia Symbian phones as "smart".

As for Symbian's sales volume in the US, they flooded the market here with "giveaways"; the phones that have been offered as "free" by Cingular and T-Mobile for the last two years, are usually not even supplied with a data cable - just a charger and a case. 20 to 30 million Symbian "smart" phones flooding the market in the last few years as free offerings to wireless users can certainly inflate the sales volume numbers in the marketing game. But it doesn't make it a more successful platform - not even close.

The biggest segment in the US - I'm not counting us geeks - is the business segment. But they are using almost exclusively Blackberry phones. How many business in the US are offering Symbian phones as the primary mobile device? But many are turning to MS Smartphones and PPC phones recently.

Of course by refusing to allow access to API's, Symbian is hampering its own market. While the Symbian platform is possibly the most stable OS purely for phone features, the extraordinary lack of robust 3rd party applications will continue to stifle the use of Symbian phones as smart mobile devices in the US marketplace. The main problem is that Nokia refuses to share any of their potential revenue with 3rd party software developers - they want it all! And as long as they continue like that, they will produce "smartphones" that are, well, not quite as smart as they would like to think!

(Parts of this post is paraphrased from an article I wrote for an online magazine in 2005).

[desertrat_blog]

In the US, the concept of "smartphones" is still in its infancy - or maybe it's a toddler by now.
The development of the mobile phone market in the US has been hampered by the incompatible networks and lack of even nationwide roaming. In contrast Europe and most of the civilised world had chosen to adopt the GSM standard and hence gained enormous advantages in the choice of handsets, competition between networks and international roaming (though consumers are still shafted by the cost of roaming).


Just talk to the average cell phone user - not geeks like us, but your sister, your Mom or Dad; ...
I think the same observation is true of most places, only the sophisticated users, the early adopters, the geeks, the technophiles would care about the underlying OS. Your everyday user wouldn't even know what an OS is.


20 to 30 million Symbian "smart" phones flooding the market in the last few years as free offerings to wireless users can certainly inflate the sales volume numbers in the marketing game. But it doesn't make it a more successful platform - not even close.

MS has been playing that game for decades, with their MSDOS and Windows tax.

Of course by refusing to allow access to API's, Symbian is hampering its own market. Could you please elaborate? You mean the SDKs that Symbian provides are incomplete and like MS, Symbian (and by your assertion I take it you mean Nokia as they are the major shareholder) are withholding secret API calls that makes Symbian produced phones more powerful than non-Symbian produced phones - doesn't make sense to me, Symbian don't make phones.


While the Symbian platform is possibly the most stable OS purely for phone features,

True :)


the extraordinary lack of robust 3rd party applications will continue to stifle the use of Symbian phones as smart mobile devices in the US marketplace.

This is completely unscientific and most likely inaccurate (but at least it provides some figures - unlike your assertion), I had a look at handango's site, chose the Windows Mobile Smartphone (what an oxymoron!) category then chose Motorola MPx220 (as that was mentioned in your post) and result was "1799 software titles available for download". When I chose Symbian OS there was "6457 software titles available for download". &lt;shrug>

[desertrat_blog]

strange. I soft reset my k-jam 2-3 times a month and I use bluetooth 24/7 and toggle wifi on/off all of the time.
It's sad how MS are building unreliability into more and more appliances and devices and people are accepting it as normal.

[JMac]

desertrat:

I'm not even going to bother getting into a tit-for-tat "mine is bigger than yours" discussion with you (though mine IS bigger! :lol: :wink: ). OK - kidding there.

All that I will comment on is that having been involved in development of Symbian software, it is beyind any shadow of a doubt a dead-end career. There are reasons why there is no Pocket Informant or other power PIM for the Symbian platform. And it is definitely not that their native PIM is good enough, because it is far from adequate. Agendus tried, and their attempt is truly sad. Agendus for Palm is super - for Symbian it is about as weak a PIM as I have seen. There just is not anything to hook there - Nokia will not make it available. Papyrus is about as robust as will ever be seen for the Symbian platform, and that is never going to show a profit - especially since it is so limited by Series differentiation.

And yes - Symbian does make phones... Nokia = Symbian. Nokia founded the platform and still holds a majority - and controlling - share. :)

[jneely]

This is completely unscientific and most likely inaccurate (but at least it provides some figures - unlike your assertion), I had a look at handango's site, chose the Windows Mobile Smartphone (what an oxymoron!) category then chose Motorola MPx220 (as that was mentioned in your post) and result was "1799 software titles available for download". When I chose Symbian OS there was "6457 software titles available for download". &lt;shrug>
Windows Mobile phones come in two varieties: "Smartphones" and "Pocket PC Phones" (like my XV6600). For the latter, you would specify "Pocket PC" as the category on Handango. This yields a total of 13174 software titles available for download.

[desertrat_blog]

[quote]
Windows Mobile phones come in two varieties: "Smartphones" and "Pocket PC Phones" (like my XV6600). For the latter, you would specify "Pocket PC" as the category on Handango. This yields a total of 13174 software titles available for download.
I was using the pendantic and uninformed comment that someone made earlier saying that Symbian phones are merely feature phones and not smartphones (whatever definitions anyone may attach to the two). That is why I specifically chose the WM smartphone category.

That aside, do you mean to say that all software for "WM PPC" would run on the "WM smartphone" platform? (this is not a rhetorical question :))

It would be very interesting to see how many (both absolute and as a percentage) of those programs (for all platforms) that are really useful. By really useful I mean (broadly) that it does not include trivial stuff like "make the close button really close instead of hide" (yes it is useful but that's something that should be in the bloody OS) and stuff like "yet another bloody battery monitor". And I'm pretty sure that a lot of the apps are counted multiple times (appearing in different categories, different versions etc).

[desertrat_blog]

All that I will comment on is that having been involved in development of Symbian software, it is beyind any shadow of a doubt a dead-end career.

...

And yes - Symbian does make phones... Nokia = Symbian. Nokia founded the platform and still holds a majority - and controlling - share. :)
As an ex-Symbian developer (however briefly), I would have thought that you knew at least some basic history of the Symbian platform (and you would've known had you read some of the earlier posts). The Symbian platform was created by Psion (bless them) and is an evolution of their earlier Epoc platform (an incredibly stable, compact and powerful OS). The Symbian company began life with Psion as the largest shareholder with (can't remember) 3 or 4 phone makers each having an equal share of the rest. Psion then decided to pull out of Symbian to concentrate on their original core business of "industrial instruments" and sold their share to Nokia making them the largest shareholder.

As for Symbian (in your view, Nokia) withholding the APIs for the PIM stuff, logically, there is no reason for them to do so because they don't make any competing products (eg there is no Symbian-Outlook :)). However (note I'm not a Symbian developer) I had a quick search and found this:

http://sw.nokia.com/id/30be96c4-cbcd-4b8a-9eb4-050868c39c94/Using_the_Series_60_Calendar_APIs_v1_0.pdf

Quotes from it:
"This document explains how to utilize the calendar facilities on a Series 60 Platform device"

"For the developer, several different APIs are available for interaction with the agenda model. Combined, these APIs provide the full range of functionality required to use all of the model’s features."

Again, I'm not a Symbian developer so I've no idea whether the documented APIs are enough for your needs. Do you have any links which deal with the subject of "Symbian with holding APIs"? googling for "symbian withholding api" shows nothing interesting. NB links to your blog don't count (although they may make interesting reading) - we want some unbiased 3rd party's info here :).

[JMac]

...Again, I'm not a Symbian developer so I've no idea whether the documented APIs are enough for your needs. Do you have any links which deal with the subject of "Symbian with holding APIs"? googling for "symbian withholding api" shows nothing interesting. NB links to your blog don't count (although they may make interesting reading) - we want some unbiased 3rd party's info here :).

To start, here are some links on this subject from Miake Raento's Blog. Mike is a professor at the University of Helsinki, and a Symbian software developer:

Symbian programming posting #1 (http://db.cs.helsinki.fi/~mraento/wordpress/?p=14)

Symbian programming posting #2 (http://db.cs.helsinki.fi/~mraento/wordpress/?p=15)

Symbian programming posting #3 (http://db.cs.helsinki.fi/~mraento/wordpress/?p=16)

Symbian programming posting #4 (http://db.cs.helsinki.fi/~mraento/wordpress/?p=17)

And here (http://www.internetnews.com/fina-news/article.php/3310111)is a news article from Feb 2004 regarding Nokia's ownership of Symbian. This was when Nokia purchased Psion's last ownership shares, giving them 63.3% ownership of Symbian. The other "minority owners" balked loudly and later that year, in July 2004, Nokia agreed to give up 13.5% in order to maintain a "just-under-50%" share. But maybe that really doesn't count as a majority in that part of the world. It sure does where I am.

Oh, BTW, Siemens is giving up their share in Symbian, and And Panasonic and BenQ will shortly be giving up their shares also as they move into Linux (Panasonic) and Windows Mobile development (BenQ). So the remaining shareholders are now scrambling, as Nokia stands to possibly gain even more.

This is a quote from this article at technewsworld.com (http://www.technewsworld.com/story/51041.html): "The Symbian operating system lacks the programming tools and development environment needed so third parties can write applications."

I could go on...


...but I won't. This is getting silly. Go play with your Symbian device, and I'll go enjoy my WM device. :D

[Ed Hansberry]

I was using the pendantic and uninformed comment that someone made earlier saying that Symbian phones are merely feature phones and not smartphones (whatever definitions anyone may attach to the two).
I must have missed that. Who said that? :?:

[desertrat_blog]

To start, here are some links on this subject from Miake Raento's Blog. Mike is a professor at the University of Helsinki, and a Symbian software developer:

Interesting, however I've done my research and the kind of apps that I would be running are available on the Symbian platform. And for heavy lifting I've got my Zaurus.


... But maybe that really doesn't count as a majority in that part of the world. It sure does where I am.

Not sure why you're bringing this up. I have said on the outset that Nokia does have the majority share of Symbian, and because of this I have already surmised (and stated so) that when you say Symbian you are implying Nokia. However just because Nokia "owns" Symbian, again: Symbian does not make phones. Saying Symbian makes phones is like saying Saab (owned by GM) makes Cadillacs.


This is a quote from this article at technewsworld.com (http://www.technewsworld.com/story/51041.html): "The Symbian operating system lacks the programming tools and development environment needed so third parties can write applications."

That statement is absurd BS, so where do the Symbian 3rd party apps come from? Someone's back orifice? Insufficiently good tools (use whatever standard you want) does not imply no tools.


...but I won't. This is getting silly. Go play with your Symbian device,

Haven't actually got one yet, but will most likely be getting a Nokia N93 soon.

[desertrat_blog]

I was using the pendantic and uninformed comment that someone made earlier saying that Symbian phones are merely feature phones and not smartphones (whatever definitions anyone may attach to the two).
I must have missed that. Who said that? :?:
Hmm, no smiley so I'll assume this is a serious question. Here's your answer:


Doesn't it also depend on how you define what a smartphone is? I'd say some Symbian powered models are little more than feature phones.

[Ed Hansberry]

I was using the pendantic and uninformed comment that someone made earlier saying that Symbian phones are merely feature phones and not smartphones (whatever definitions anyone may attach to the two).
I must have missed that. Who said that? :?:
Hmm, no smiley so I'll assume this is a serious question. Here's your answer:


Doesn't it also depend on how you define what a smartphone is? I'd say some Symbian powered models are little more than feature phones.

I thought that might be what you were referring to and that lack of an application of critical reading skills may be the culprit. Thanks for confirming that for me.

[desertrat_blog]

I thought that might be what you were referring to and that lack of an application of critical reading skills may be the culprit. Thanks for confirming that for me.
My contention is that all Symbian powered phones are smartphones. So perhaps I should've said:

"I was using the pendantic and uninformed comment that someone made earlier saying that some Symbian phones are merely feature phones and not smartphones (whatever definitions anyone may attach to the two)."

Better?

Anyway, Symbian have been used in smartphones well before MS jumped onto the bandwagon and came up with "Windows Mobile for Smartphones" (actually they tried many times to jump onto the bandwagon but they missed - and fell flat on their face). And knowing MS they'll probably want to turn the generic term smartphone into their trademark - like they did with windows.

[sofene]

This guy never quits!