No more talks of Symbian^4 as Symbian will be upgradable

I think this was the other piece of the news, paired with yesterday's Qt announcement, that seemed to be missing.

It now looks like Nokia is folding Symbian back in house, as a 'nameless' OS that's overshadowed by Qt and Meego,. So essentially you won't be buying a Symbian phone, per se, in the future. It'll be a 'Nokia', like an iPhone. Consumers don't call iPhones iOS devices. You say 'iPhone' and everybody gets an image of the UI, App Store, etc.

Nokia is (ducks) aping the Cupertino strategy.
 
I'm not sure what to make of it; to me it sounds like half a story, as if there's another shoe to drop. I wouldn't be surprised if there's also some other major announcement soon.

And it does kind of sound like they've canceled Symbian 4, but again, there's information missing.
 
Have you also noticed that mobile phones which include series 30 and 40 devices dropped by about 10 million, that can more than account for the 10 million increase in smartphone sales. since nokia smart phones are in the low end to mid range.
 
I say Nokia would be pretty stupid to ignore the tablet market. If Blackberry is bold enough to introduce Playbook with a brand new OS nobody ever heard of, submitting a tablet with Meego is far less a risk and one that would have Intel's backing if you use a Moorehouse in it.
 
If Qt can unite the platforms, then perhaps MeeGo and Symbian will be... both sort of nameless. They will just be UI differentiators.

I vote Nokia call the MeeGo with their UI, Maemo.. haha! I liked the name Maemo.

I wouldn't mind Dev Builds, packaged and readily deployable, for Symbian (or MeeGo). I wouldn't mind testing out their stuff. Hell, we do it now, we can just get rid of the pretense.

I still want Nokia to operate as an Open company, but Open doesn't mean no control. Just be transparent in your code and how you operate and communicate to your community on the direction.
 
First impression for me is this is good... makes me eager to buy the E7 cause I know the OS may no necessarily be EOL quickly. New features come as they come. Old hardware can run the OS pending the hardware's capability. Kinda like (winxp, vista, win7)

how far it goes in terms on new features we won't know until we get there I guess.
 
What might be happening is that Nokia could be ending Symbian as an open source OS and pulling it in-house, like iOS. It could be what the departure of Lee Williams signifies at the SF, who was replaced by their money guy, the CFO, which was bizarre in itself.
 
Galaxy S lag problem has nothing to do with Android. Seriously, all my HTC phones do not exhibit this behavior. Nor does the Motorola phones. Its unique to the Samsung phones because Samsung persists on using their own proprietary secure data file system, which can be very slow and CPU demanding when it starts to cache, but becomes extremely fast once everything is cached. This file system is the reason why generic PC USB drivers don't work on the Galaxy S while they do on the other Androids.

This file system is the reason the phone can act like a paradox, stutteringly slow at times, then slippery super smooth moments later.
 
Yeah, I agree with you, is not a fair comparison, is not apples vs apples :-)

No, seriously comparing Apple that has only a model (and a very expensive one) and Nokia that has tons of smartphones (from 100 to 600 dollars) I think that the good news are for Apple, not for Nokia.
 
Yes my friend, this is why I posted them.

IMO there were a lot of signals since Elop?s announcement, and the situation of symbian right now seems very compromised.

First, as other posters I think that the Symbian Foundation is dead, second all of this no more S^3 and S^4 only S with QT is smoke to try that people still buy the recent wave of S^3 devices.

There are a lot of problems with this, just to name a couple:

* The UI is a real complex change, leaving the menu based paradigm will for sure break compatibility with older apps, developers will need to recode their apps to switch from a menu driven UI to who knows what.

* Nokia is talking about QT portability across Meego/Symbian, but there is a very big problem that they are not telling, the new S^3 devices are almost supported by an ARM11 680mhz processor and 256mb ram, for sure Meego devices will run on 1ghz processors and 512mb ram, I am not a developer, but for sure even using a common enviroment as QT is not the same to code for a device with 256 mb to code for 512mb/1ghz processor, so even in QT I think that not all Meego apps will run on Symbian.

IMO S^3 devices will have a few updates (maybe the browser for instance) but no major updates or UI revamp, Nokia announcement was made to ensure that people buy N8s, C7s, etc because these devices will be funding Meego developement.

IMO what we will see is that in 18-24 months symbian will be dead and Nokia?s OS portfolio will be Meego (high/medium), S40 (medium/low), S30 (low).

If Elop is in his mind, he need to cut the smartphone madness, they can?t continue to support and develop for more than 20 current S60 smartphones, in the N95 golden age there were only three major smartphones (N95 and variants, N82, N73 and later N78), I am not saying hey just leave one like Apple, but 30 or 50 is madness.

At the end of the day the info is out there, but if you are now planning to buy a Nokia smartphone the best advice is wait 3 or 4 months (if you can, 6 better) and see how the things are going, if they really are launching updates, if developers are comming, how is Meego evolving, etc.

At the present time, puting your money on a S^3 device is a risk.
 
I could not agree more. As enamoured as I was with the flawed N97 and looking forward to the N8.......well I expected and required the N97 replacement to be much more than a Symbian "fix" and some more mega pixels.

And Now the truth comes out and they bait the N8 buyers with the "promise" of Symbian 4 when in reality there will be no Symbian 4. and upgrades will likely be slow tedious ans filled with bugs from a less than motivated group of developers.

I see a lot of very angry N8 owners in early 2011 who are expecting wonderful things and will be getting crumbs.

I have not crossed Nokia off my list for the future but there has to be a major OS upgrade and CONSISTENCY as well as an App market that is supported, (or simply get on the Android train and market their strength ... GREAT hardware....WIN WIN..)

Nokia is at least a year behind nearly everyone else which is an eternity in technology. They really need a HOMERUN device.......So far the N900 and the N8 have not rounded second. Die hard Nokia fans are slipping away in the night along with Symbioan Guru,,,,
 
@TBong OK that was probably the most neutral post that you have made in a while (by your standards). Please stay more down this path.


Most of the noobs that forget to disable the lag on their phones are former Apple users and then go crying for help, but the test score before the fix and after the fix and the real world usage are night and day better. This should have been fixed from the beginning.


Symbian is not dead, it looks bad because of the rise of Android and the major dry spell that Nokia had this year but it's not dead. However let's see where it's at after the launch of the e7/c7 and the major upgrades that all three phones are planning to implement.

^ Better yet let's see where Symbian is at the end of 2011, because IMO 2011 will be the most critical year for both Symbian and Nokia (along with Meego's initial reviews).



As for Hacks/Mods obviously Symbian cannot compete with Android's open source which is why Meego is being developed. However there will be hacks/mods for the N8 just there were for the N97 (Like the video Below):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB9bT5AM1JM



Finally there is nothing wrong with being a fan of an OS. I enjoy using BOTH Symbian and Android, but at the same time they are both far from perfect which is why one will be the right solution for one person and not another. I totally get that you are upset with Nokia (especially with the N97 experience) but I also know that if you gave an Android device to a N8 user, it's not going to mean that they are going to embrace it like you did because their needs are different than yours... :)
 
You're 100% right about the lag. I used to have a Milestone. Currently I have a Telus Desire and a i9000M, which I will pit against each other after they get the Froyo update and sell the one that doesn't make the cut. My point was that "Android" phones in general have their issues too and used Samsung as an example since that's the phone TBong has that's all. I could name some of the Desire's flaws too, but I am trying to stay Android in general...
 
At first I think that today announcment was good news for symbian users, but reading between lines sadly I agree with you, what we are seeing here is the beginning of the end of symbian.

S^3 will see a couple of updates (browser, etc) and nothing more, after that we will see a limited and focused high and medium end Meego devices and S40 phones. (I don?t agree with the Android part).

Elop understand very well investors, and the current Nokia portfolio is a mess, just think about the symbian golden age, only with the N95 (and variants), N82 and N73 they were at the top, they don?t need a hundred models to be successful.

Sadly (as a Symbian fan) I think that between the 12/18 months period Symbian will be history, for sure these are bad news for symbian fans, for Nokia fans well time will tell.

Personally I pass the N8, let?s see how good the N9 will be.
 
I am far from an iPhone and Apple fan...but I don't see Nokia beating iPhone anytime soon.they have to overtake Android first which is nipping at Apple's tail ....causing Jobs to go on a 5 minute rant explaining why a closed system is "better" Yeah Jobs knows whats best for me...right. Steve had a great idea and groundbreaking device which was not only copied but in the spirit of Kaizan made better and more open by his new nemesis.....Google. Verizon getting the iPhoen could not come soon enough for him (or those ATT customers who ported out of Verizon for the iPhone.)
 
I think what we can ALL agree on is that, I wouldn't recommend buying any more S60v3 (or even v5) devices going forward. They essentially just became EOF (End Of Life), like Windows Mobile 6.x.
 
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