Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

Wow, it’s only been a couple hours but it seems Nokia’s reply to replacing Symbian with Maemo on their N-Series devices is already out!

If you ask me, this non-confirmation-non-denial of the leaked information means that at the very least they’re thinking about it, and at the most have already decided but still need to market it correctly. Nokia is saying that they’re strongly committed to Symbian, but that really means squat if you ask me. That’s the short and sweet of it, but decide for yourself. Here’s and excerpt from Nokia’s reply:

While it is our policy not to disclose details of our product roadmap, we’d like to explicitly communicate that we remain firmly committed to Symbian as our smartphone platform of choice. Any speculation on what our 2012 roadmap, including operating systems and product branding, are completely premature.

Along with a comment from Nokia on expanding their mobile OS portfolio from a couple months back:

As we have stated earlier, Nokia has multiple platforms to serve different purposes and address different markets. Symbian is more successful than ever in bringing smartphones to the masses. Maemo is our software of choice for devices based on technology that you’d typically find inside a desktop computer. It delivers a different user experience and enables us to widen the market we can address.

Ok, but desktop computer technology can be found in just about any Nokia high-end phone, so that doesn’t tell us much either.

I guess this update doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. But the update itself, the wording within in it, and context around it can tell us quite a bit.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Symbian Freak (read)

I’ve been wondering for a while about what Nokia is going to do with their OS portfolio, and just where they’re going to take it. Symbian is obviously much more stable than most other operating systems out there, and does wonders for the Enterprise-class devices, however it has little “sexiness” to show for the phones that are supposed to be, well, sexy. There are many apps the Ovi Store, but their extent just doesn’t reach that of say Android’s Marketplace. The home screen on Symbian, too, is better suited for the Enterprise.

Of course out comes Maemo 5, bringing lots of sex-appeal to a Nokia operating system, and immediately raising hype in the industry. Much to my disappointment, however, the only phone available with this new, sleek OS doesn’t have the 3G frequency of the cell phone providers in my area. ****! (sorry, a little bitter on this one)

So for a while now I’ve been waiting to see a Nokia cell phone with an operating system other than Symbian, and was kind of hoping it would be Android. For the most part because Windows Mobile didn’t really appeal to me and iPhone OS / WebOS / BlackBerry OS aren’t exactly an option.

Well back to the topic at hand: some information has been leaked and it appears that Nokia will be adopting their Maemo family, starting with Maemo 5 for their N-Series devices. The idea (or rumor at any rate) is to have all N-Series devices run on Maemo by 2012, that is unless the world tears itself apart… I’m actually fairly excited about the switch-over, however I’m not sure which one is better suited for the job: Android or Maemo. And of course, it still stands to see just how stable Maemo 5 turns out to be.

What does this mean for Symbian? Really, nothing. I expect Nokia to continue putting out Symbian S40 basic phones, and S60 on their E-Series. Its the X-Series and the yet-unannounced C-Series that I’m still not sure about, however I’m getting the feeling that X-Series will see Maemo adaptation as well.

Personally, I would like to see Nokia do something similar to HTC and allow users to upgrade their OS as they see fit via ROM files. And in an ideal world a single phone wouldn’t be constrained to a single OS either, but would have the ability to work with Symbian, Maemo, Android, etc. with little effort. (maybe we could even get dual/triple boots going with a shared memory!) But I’m afraid at this point its just wishful thinking, even if there is nothing technological stopping this from happening.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)
and: my twisted imagination

So I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. I’ve used my Android-based HTC Magic for about a month’s time, and I’ve posted up what I felt about it in comparison to my Symbian-based Nokia N95 8GB. But now I went back to my N95 8GB and have for about a month’s time.

My first impression going back to the Symbian phone was really more of a “It’s good to be home” feeling. But after using it for a while I realised just how much more thought out the OS really is. Not only does it allow for some customization not available on the Android, but it runs better. Its much more stable, running for days, if not weeks, without crashing or having to reboot. There are no major memory leaks, and multi-tasking on it is a joy!

Besides that OS, the hardware is much more impressive. I rarely used my Magic’s camera, but the camera on my N95 8GB has such impressive quality that I never have to think whether I will need a camera wherever I am going. Text messaging on this phone is much more pleasant due to the addition of a hardware keyboard.

I must say, however, that Android does have its pluses, and so does the Magic. For one, the Android market is easier to use than the Ovi Store, even considering that the Android market has a terrible search. Also the applications available on the market are better – I downloaded some music players and, while they didn’t improve audio quality/support, they did add some interesting functionality such as immediate lyrics or song suggestions. At the same time, I really liked how HTC allows you to upgrade the OS via a ROM file. Different OS versions out there come with their ups and their quirks. While I didn’t like the fact that the quirks seemed to be quite large and annoying, I did enjoy being able to install a new firmware when it came out because I know someone had ported it (I am referring to my v20 N95-4 when N95-2 is on v30+).

Since I’ve been using my N95 8GB, Mike has been using my Magic and has found some even more fascinating programs. For example, he found a spectrometer that kept us amused for an hour, playing different songs into it and seeing the visual representation – it was quite interesting to see how much richer a voice is compared to an instrument.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction that Symbian is going in, and whether Nokia should consider other OS’s. To be honest, I think that there is a lot of potential in Symbian, and I hope that Nokia draws that potential out. But operating systems such as Android have already built on that potential and are already available, which will make things much more difficult for Nokia. I think that Nokia is doing well to stand by its operating system, especially considering how stable and efficient it really is, but it won’t be easy to win against the new hot shots on the block.

Also, things I would like to see on Nokia devices:

• Easily and safely exchangeable OS versions (a la HTC phones)
• Much higher support for applicatoins, more so those centered around entertainment
• Smaller, lighter, sexier touch screens (X6 is definitely an improvement)

Well these are my thoughts for a Saturday afternoon,

-Nokia FanBoy

Alright, so Nokia 8800 is a series of phones which I would love to have but for their lacking of a smartphone OS, never will. Or at least that was the case up until now. Out comes the Nokia 8800 Erdos – the newest addition to 8800 line which includes the Sirocco, Arte, Sapphire Arte, Carbon Arte, and Golden Arte.

Up until this point, these phones have been functionally simplistic, outdated even, but designed with elegance and grace. This gave them a very high price and made them rather exclusive. Well I’ve always likened the phones with, for example, the Smart car – something interesting to look at, but I would never own one. And for me, the breaking point has always been the lack of a smartphone operating system since I need to connect to MS Exchange.

The 8800 line so far has seen little in the way of redesign – physically and functionally. But the Nokia 8800 Erdos comes with a completely new design and improved functionality:

• Symbian S60 (looks like 5th ed)
• 2.4″, 16M color, OLED, QVGA display
• Touch area on display
• GSM/WCDMA + WLAN
• Bluetooth 2.0 (with A2DP)
• AGPS
• 5MP AF camera with Carl Zeiss optics + LED flash
• VGA @ 15fps video
• 8GB internal memory
• Slide and lift T9 keypad

While the overall specs are not that big of an improvement, the biggest, most important improvement is the operating system. Not only does this open the handset to a wider market, but it improves overall user experience. This is also the first 8800, or Nokia for that matter, to feature a touch area on the display (different from touch-screen), which could signal the introduction of gestures. The phone, like other 8800’s before, features a T9 keypad, however this one slides up when the phone opens, making it easier to type, and if the OS really is S60 5th, then it will be the first to match that keyboard type with the OS.

Anyway, enough out of me, take a look at the sleek and sexy design of the 8800 Erdos in the video below:

-Nokia FanBoy

via: CellPassion (read)

Ok, so its been a busy week and its not looking like today is going to be any quieter. Thus, I will only update on the important things, and only mention the main points.

Qt, the development suite that Nokia acquired a while back, has added multitouch and gesture support for its 4.6 release. This applies to Nokia’s Symbian and Maemo powered devices. Actually this precludes aa interesting point, namely, this means that there will be Symbian and Maemo powered devices with multitouch capable screens. This can be achieved either by using a capacitive screen, or by using Stantum’s technology on resistive screens. Now we already know that Nokia is using capacitive screens, the Nokia X6 is an example, however I do hope that Stantum’s technology gets incorporated as that would still allow for use of a stylus.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Symbian-Freak (read)

This is an interesting bit of news. While we’re all used to seeing manufacturer specific UI, I don’t recall any of them ever having a standardized SDK, especially not one that works cross-platform (Java doesn’t count). This is an especially impressive feat since Samsung offers TouchWiz across the board: starting from Symbian-based Omnia HD (i8910), to Windows Mobile-based Omnia II (i8000), to the dumbphone Solstice (A887).

And to top it all off, they’re launching a competition. The overall top prize is $20,000, while the top prize for each category is $5,000. Of course, this has become quite standard for the industry with both Nokia and Google doing the same thing upon releasing Symbian v9.5 and Android, respectively. Take a look at the read links below for more details on the competition.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)
and: Symbian-Freak (read)

So a little while ago I’ve written about Nokia Surge that was destined for AT&T, and it seems that Rogers is about to snatch it up as well. The only exception is that Rogers is giving it the standard 4-digit Nokia branding, unlike AT&T that felt it was “too cool” for that.
The phone will be available for $89.99 on a 3-year contract, and $279.99 outright. Of course any common sense would quickly dictate that the 3-year contract alone costs $400, which is $120 more than the phone itself. In other words, if you like the phone, just buy it. Of course a little online snooping will show that WElectronics is selling it for $500, and eBay is only slightly cheaper.

Otherwise, the phone runs on Symbian S60 rel. 3.2, and supports HSDPA 850 / 1900, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, microUSB 2.0, 2MP Camera, and GPS with A-GPS. See GSMArena for full specs.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: MobileSyrup (read)

We all know software evolves, and operating systems are no stranger to this. From dealing with our own computer operating systems we also know that often times this evolution means that older programs no longer work with the newer operating systems. However computer programs are different from mobile programs in that they generally cost more money, much more. And computer operating systems have the luxury of very powerful processors and virtually unlimited storage to include libraries or pieces of code to maintain backwards compatibility with older programs. This saves the consumer money and hassle; and means programmers don’t have to worry about writing software for a dozen different operating systems. When we consider that the market for computer programs is many times larger than that of mobile programs, we see the problem.

Of course the problem is not the evolving operating system, or even the breaking compatibility. The main problem, in my opinion, is the timing of this happening. Symbian broke many programs going from v3.0 to v3.1 to v3.2 in the past several years, however these breaks have been somewhat small, and were easy to fix. Then Symbian came out with S60 9.5, adding touch functionality and removing the need for a hardware keyboard – and this was a major break in the very paradigm that many programs were working. However this was a necessary evil as the very shift to touch screens was going to cause this anyway. Now Symbian is planning on replacing the UI toolkit altogether.

For many years they have been using Avkon API, and will now replace it with Qt’s UI toolkit. On the one hand this will make the very development process easier, but on the other hand this is a major change that will require a lot of work. I cannot say that I disagree with this – evolution is necessary for any platform to survive, but what puzzles me is why they didn’t do it before, during the release of the 5800 or even the N97. I guess the answer is much more complex than I can imagine, so I won’t blame them for it. I’m just happy they continue to innovate and do what they can to stay ahead of the curve.

-Nokia FanBoy

PS: I am, however, glad that they chose this particular toolkit, take a look at the Qt website for benefits if you want to know why.

How ironic that the same day I wrote my post on the state of Mobile Operating Systems, Entelligence released a very similar post. Must be something in the inter-webs.

Of course this article has a different take on the entire state, one which is quite interesting and totally worth a read.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)

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