Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

I’m not entirely sure what I want to say in this post, so you’ll have to bear with me for a little bit.

In the past…
telling apart a smart-phone from a dumb-phone was quite simple. Smart phones were generally required for some features such as running multiple applications at once, being able to run Java apps, or browse HTML web pages. Even IrDA (infra-red) and later Bluetooth were generally left strictly for smart phones. Finally GPS came out, and that was deemed too expensive for mainstream phones, so smart phones were the only ones to support that feature.

But what has happened now?
Java is included on pretty much any phone you can think of, and through some simple multi-threading so is support for multiple processes. Most newer phones support HTML browsing, while some smart phones don’t support JavaScript, or web-based Java and Flash content, so that can’t be the differentiating factor. IrDA is no longer included in all but the smartest of smart phones, and Bluetooth is included in just about every mainstream phone. And GPS? Well even that is starting to get included on specialty dumb phones (that is if you can call a specialty phone “dumb”).

Where to look?
Maybe I’m approaching this from the wrong point of view, so lets what Wikipedia defines an Operating System to be:

An operating system (commonly abbreviated to either OS or O/S) is an interface between hardware and user; an OS is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer.

Ok… so not very helpful, maybe Smartphone?

A smartphone is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-like functionality (PC-mobile handset convergence). There is no industry standard definition of a smartphone.

So there is no industry standard definition, but reading on we see David Wood, EVP at Symbian Ltd., defining a smart phone as:

“Smart phones differ from ordinary mobile phones in two fundamental ways: how they are built and what they can do.”

And we finally see some defining characteristics of smartphones:

• Full-featured email (i.e.: ActiveSync, BES, etc.)
• Ability to read business documents (i.e.: PDF, MS Office documents/spreadsheets, etc.)
• Advanced contact management
• Standardized application development platform and interface
• Advanced hardware – GPS, accelerometer, QWERTY keypad, touchscreen, digital compass

Of course I would say that some other features are required for a smartphone to bear that name, however many of those are found even in dumb phones so they’re not really defining characteristics. On the other hand, GPS and QWERTY and touchscreens are far from being unique to the smartphone realm.

So what OS’s are there?

• Android (HTC, Samsung)
• BlackBerry OS (BlackBerry)
• iPhone OS (Apple)
• Linux (Motorola, Asus)
• Symbian (Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola)
• WebOS (Palm)
• Windows Mobile (HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Asus, HP)

Well at the very least here we can see that some companies are putting all their eggs into one basket (Nokia, BlackBerry, Palm, Apple) while others are trying “diversify their portfolio” (Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC). Which operating system is the best? I think its more a matter of taste as the features between them tend to differentiate quite a bit, however I do believe that some heave clear advantages over others.

It is also important to differentiate between smart phones and operating systems. A perfect example is Symbian S40 vs. Symbian S60. Both operating systems are build on the Symbian OS, however S40 is considered a dumb phone OS, where as S60 is considered a smart phone OS. In this post I will be talking about the S60 of operating systems.

This also brings me to my next point: I strongly believe that up until recently iPhone OS did not even deserve to be put into the smartphone OS category. While the iPhone may have had a large following (as any Apple product), and had some innovative applications, it lacked some of the most basic of concepts available on other operating systems, such as multitasking, task management, and access to the file system. Oh wait, those still aren’t available, guess its STILL not a smart phone OS (just let me cross it off the list…. done).

So where does this bring us?
So we have 6 operating systems left, of which 3 are mature: Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS; 1 is immature: Linux; and 2 are still in their infancy: Android and WebOS. I’m afraid that due to the sheer number of Linux flavours out there, I will have to fore-go that OS in my further discussion. However, do not see this as a negative for Linux, its a powerful OS, I simply do not have the time.

This leaves us with 5 operating systems, all of which have done something to revamp themselves in the last year or two, and continue to do so now.

The mature Operating Systems
Symbian, Windows Mobile (WinMo) and BlackBerry OS (BBOS) have been around for a long time, and have gone through a number of iterations, bug fixes, and varying flavours. Currently they are all facing the problem: how to take an operating system that was designed for a small resolution screen, for use on a phone with hardware buttons (or a mouse, in the case of WinMo), and convert it for use in a high-resolution, finger-friendly touchscreen device. The entire thought process has to be stopped, and restarted in a completely different direction.

We can see Symbian doing its thing with v9.5 S60. However they were not able to completely turn around as they were afraid to lose a dedicated following. Their fears were not misplaced, however they approached it from the wrong point of view. When Nokia 5800 was released, it was hated by those new and old to Symbian and Nokia, as the interface was inconsistent and many things in the OS still required that stylus. I should note, however, that a stylus is not a bad tool, as I believe it is the easiest way to input Asian words/characters/text (not sure what the correct term here is). Which is also why the 5800 and N97 alike have resistive touchscreens, and not capacitive ones that cannot accept stylus input.

While Windows Mobile has been going on and on about v6.5 and v7, we have little to see in the way of hardware; and manufacturers such as HTC have quickly caught onto this and designed their own shells to put on top of the existing WinMo 6.0 and 6.1 shell, which has not changed since the early days of the OS. It should be noted, however, that the number of these shells out there signifies that it is easy to design and implement; this is a brownie point for WinMo as highly customizable interfaces are important to keep the users entertained. Finally, I give credit to Windows Mobile (or HTC at least, not sure) how easy they made the flashing process for their phones. After all, a new OS means new features, new interfaces, and with an all-touchscreen phone, it practically becomes a new phone altogether.

At last we come to BlackBerry OS. I have only played with it a short while, however even this purpose-built operating system is being revamped for mainstream use. Of course since the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 came out in 2006, BlackBerries have been regarded more and more as a mainstream phone with a status symbol. I believe this to be mainly attributed to the reduction in the size of the phone than in the improvements of the operating system. The newest OS revamp, arguably the second, was caused by releasing the Storm – BlackBerry’s first touchscreen phone. The issue here, much like with Symbian and Windows Mobile, is that all that RIM did with this operating system is put an under-designed touchscreen shell on top of an operating system that was never meant for it.

All three of these operating systems are amazing at what they do, the problem is, that unless their designers scrap everything they knew about interfaces and start fresh, these operating systems will be doomed to fail.

The immature Operating Systems
This brings us to the newest, least mature, and yet the most promising operating systems in the market to date: Android and WebOS. Each system brings something new to the table, and generally does so quite well.

Android was Google’s way of driving the free and open culture, while at the same time strengthening the grip on all of your data. I’m not going to bad-mouth Google, I believe they’re a great company and have done some great things, it just scares me as to how much data they have on just about anyone in the world. (on to Android…) Android was designed from the ground up to be used with fingers, and not a hardware keyboard. Granted, the original release required a keyboard and would have been useless without one, however that was not due to poor design, but under-development due to time constraints. My Magic, for instance, is quite usable with just 8 hardware buttons and a trackball. The next positive aspect to it is the operating system’s embrace of today’s open culture. Because designing for the phone is so easy, we have hundreds, if not thousands, of great applications all vying for your attention. Besides that, replacing this operating system in my Magic has so far been a breeze and I hope other manufacturers support this. My only gripe with it is the rather simplistic task manager.

WebOS, on the other hand, I haven’t use yet. Although based on what I’ve heard about it, it too seems to be quite promising. For instance that live-card-based home screen is definitely an interesting concept, one which I would be quite interested in trying out. However the resource limitations of the Palm Pre means that we can only have a handful of application open and running at the same time. This would be fine if only I didn’t have a half-dozen applications running on a regular basis. Of course this is not a short-fall of the operating system but of the hardware, so it shouldn’t be judged quite so abruptly. While WebOS will support all of the advanced features, this OS is simply too immature to be able to tell where it will lead. For that we need to wait at least one or two more iterations of it.
In fact, not having a logo shows just how immature the operating system really is. Come on Palm, we want that logo!
 
 
 
 
Conclusion:
Besides iPhone OS not being a real operating system, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you hanging on this one. I guess you can think of each of the descriptions of the different operating systems and their own little conclusions, but besides that there really ain’t that much to say. Do feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them all.
My only word of advice: when you’re looking at which operating system to choose, ask yourself: are you looking at the OS itself and its features, or is the shell responsible for some behaviour/functionality? While this may not make that build of the operating system usable for you, it may prove that the OS itself is fine, and maybe only a new manufacturer is all that is required.

-Nokia FanBoy