Software architect working in Symbian/S60 area since 2000 and still being enthusiastic about mobility. Please visit my introduction page on Forum Nokia Champions web page.
Time of competition - a peaceful summer?
tote_b5 | 26 July, 2007 17:01
Summer is hot, silent and peaceful in Hungary. I can just sit back and watch/read what's happening around the world. And in mobile space, of course.
Well, it's not that silent as I expected. In the past few days I have noticed new signs of a tough competition between mobile- and consumer electronics device manufacturers, internet service providers, mobile operating systems. Let me go into the details!
Although Nokia is clearly a market leader, they have to listen carefully to users' demand. On smartphone market, for example, there's a new challenger who demands everyone's attention. There's been a lot of discussion over whether iPhone is a smartphone or not, but that's not my point now. They clearly showed people how easy to use a user interface (UI) can be (I also happen to know how an iPhone blends, but that's a different topic:). However, the UI is not everything: there must be great (and well-implemented) features in the phone, too. You know, just in order to make a phone smart - if that's Apple's intention at all. It's not obvious as the mass market (=biggest revenue) of mobile phones is NOT smartphones.
These times everyone is trying to imitate iPhone's behavior on their phone; even one of my friends has put a new "iPhone shell" on his Windows CE phone - just for the feeling's sake. :)
Other people, on the other hand, wonder if iPhone is really selling at the same pace how Apple claims to be. You know, it's just one thing, they say, how many phones Apple and AT&T could sell so far (not to mention how many have actually been activated), it's just the hype that keeps selling at this level. Sooner or later, however, everything (and everybody) will calm down and we'll see how successful Apple is. Let's see!
Another company is also trying to expand into this new area - at least new to them. It's been announced several days ago that Google invested in cellular technology. No surprise, we already knew they're interested in this technology area (i.e. mobile), too. What might be a sign of a new aggressive campaign is that Google makes the conditions to FCC for a wireless spectrum auction. You know, I pretty much sympathize with Google in this case and hope that not only will the rules change (free download of any applications, services or content), but the list of operators will be refreshed, too.
By the way, Russell Beattie is back. In case his name doesn't sound familiar to you, he's an American blogger (one of my favorites) from the Silicon Valley full of great ideas. This time he shared his opinion with us how he sees the future of Nokia S60 UI. He's not alone with the vision that Nokia will change to Linux from Symbian, what he adds, though, is that he expects (or rather suggests) Nokia to revolutionize their UI, too. Neither would be an easy change just a side-note.
On the Linux issue, it's been already told that royalty-free doesn't mean entirely free at all. There must be (lots of) people who customize Linux to the needs of manufacturers, operators, follow market demands, adds features to Linux that have never been implemented since Linux originally has not been a mobile OS. The interest of all the possible players is very fractioned, there're already several interest groups who are doing their own design, following their own desires, etc.
On the other hand, there're lots of things Symbian (Nokia, UIQ, etc.) could learn from Linux, especially from their developer community. For example, I'm not sure if you've heard about the service outage of Symbian Signed that happened recently. For example, one of my fellow Forum Nokia Champions, Antony Pranata, was in trouble due to this. There are other people, too, who are not too happy with the current situation and think Nokia and Symbian could make it better.
Finally, as to the UI revolution: I'm pretty sure that everybody at Nokia has already drawn the conclusion from iPhone's success. I bet they've even already started to design the new approach of a touch-based model from Nokia. I'm really looking forward to it. And finally, a side-note to Russell: not as if it was a trivial step for Nokia to get rid of their "old" UI design in a jiffy. The UI (believe it or not:) is one of the core features people love the most in their Nokia phone. They might interpret a radical change in the user interface in a way that would make Nokia, khmm, unhappy.
That's it for now, I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts!
Original from http://mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com.
Tote
Well, it's not that silent as I expected. In the past few days I have noticed new signs of a tough competition between mobile- and consumer electronics device manufacturers, internet service providers, mobile operating systems. Let me go into the details!
Although Nokia is clearly a market leader, they have to listen carefully to users' demand. On smartphone market, for example, there's a new challenger who demands everyone's attention. There's been a lot of discussion over whether iPhone is a smartphone or not, but that's not my point now. They clearly showed people how easy to use a user interface (UI) can be (I also happen to know how an iPhone blends, but that's a different topic:). However, the UI is not everything: there must be great (and well-implemented) features in the phone, too. You know, just in order to make a phone smart - if that's Apple's intention at all. It's not obvious as the mass market (=biggest revenue) of mobile phones is NOT smartphones.
These times everyone is trying to imitate iPhone's behavior on their phone; even one of my friends has put a new "iPhone shell" on his Windows CE phone - just for the feeling's sake. :)
Other people, on the other hand, wonder if iPhone is really selling at the same pace how Apple claims to be. You know, it's just one thing, they say, how many phones Apple and AT&T could sell so far (not to mention how many have actually been activated), it's just the hype that keeps selling at this level. Sooner or later, however, everything (and everybody) will calm down and we'll see how successful Apple is. Let's see!
Another company is also trying to expand into this new area - at least new to them. It's been announced several days ago that Google invested in cellular technology. No surprise, we already knew they're interested in this technology area (i.e. mobile), too. What might be a sign of a new aggressive campaign is that Google makes the conditions to FCC for a wireless spectrum auction. You know, I pretty much sympathize with Google in this case and hope that not only will the rules change (free download of any applications, services or content), but the list of operators will be refreshed, too.
By the way, Russell Beattie is back. In case his name doesn't sound familiar to you, he's an American blogger (one of my favorites) from the Silicon Valley full of great ideas. This time he shared his opinion with us how he sees the future of Nokia S60 UI. He's not alone with the vision that Nokia will change to Linux from Symbian, what he adds, though, is that he expects (or rather suggests) Nokia to revolutionize their UI, too. Neither would be an easy change just a side-note.
On the Linux issue, it's been already told that royalty-free doesn't mean entirely free at all. There must be (lots of) people who customize Linux to the needs of manufacturers, operators, follow market demands, adds features to Linux that have never been implemented since Linux originally has not been a mobile OS. The interest of all the possible players is very fractioned, there're already several interest groups who are doing their own design, following their own desires, etc.
On the other hand, there're lots of things Symbian (Nokia, UIQ, etc.) could learn from Linux, especially from their developer community. For example, I'm not sure if you've heard about the service outage of Symbian Signed that happened recently. For example, one of my fellow Forum Nokia Champions, Antony Pranata, was in trouble due to this. There are other people, too, who are not too happy with the current situation and think Nokia and Symbian could make it better.
Finally, as to the UI revolution: I'm pretty sure that everybody at Nokia has already drawn the conclusion from iPhone's success. I bet they've even already started to design the new approach of a touch-based model from Nokia. I'm really looking forward to it. And finally, a side-note to Russell: not as if it was a trivial step for Nokia to get rid of their "old" UI design in a jiffy. The UI (believe it or not:) is one of the core features people love the most in their Nokia phone. They might interpret a radical change in the user interface in a way that would make Nokia, khmm, unhappy.
That's it for now, I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts!
Original from http://mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com.
Tote
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Re: Time of competition - a peaceful summer?
tote_b5 | 26/07/2007, 23:33
Thanks, Gurpreet . Actually, I have read it somewhere that iPhone is not a closed model: it supports widgets in their Safari browser. :) Which is true, but it's very limited what those widgets can do in practice.Your comparison of Nokia and Google is interesting (I haven't thought of it like that so far), but reasonable: Nokia's latest devices are so converged that they don't even call them smartphones, but rather multimedia computers. They're internet-oriented, thus no surprise to see Nokia venturing into internet. On the other hand, it's also very clear why Google is interested in mobile market: it's the biggest, even bigger than the internet. At least in terms of user base, but that has strong relationship with revenue as well. And after all, both companies are interested in as big revenue as possible. :)
Tote
Re: Time of competition - a peaceful summer?
ptrmn | 31/07/2007, 20:19
There are completely closed systems, like microwave ovens, and pretty open systems, like a PC running an open source OS. Then there are degrees of openness between them. Some people seem to consider Symbian to be open with a capital o because you can install and run native code, but they should remember that there's a lot of things that you can't do, and also that it used to be more open than it is now (before Symbian OS v9). Your average Linux hacker might consider an S60 phone to be closer to the microwave oven than his PC in openness.
The term "smartphone" is quite vague, so discussing whether a given phone is a smartphone or not is quite pointless. The iPhone is a highend phone with a fully featured OS. That makes it a smartphone in my eyes, but I can see why people would disagree.
The term "smartphone" is quite vague, so discussing whether a given phone is a smartphone or not is quite pointless. The iPhone is a highend phone with a fully featured OS. That makes it a smartphone in my eyes, but I can see why people would disagree.
Re: Time of competition - a peaceful summer?
cyke64 | 27/07/2007, 17:44
No Gurpreet , iPhone is not a closed model but Apple doesn't want to release their SDK tools :)
But some smart hackers try to unlock it and have some success so programming on iPhone is possible : Python , Apache etc ... :)
Look here for their successful attempts on wiki : http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
and also read this on hacking the iPhone http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2007/07/27/tasty-bits-24/
BR
Cyke64
But some smart hackers try to unlock it and have some success so programming on iPhone is possible : Python , Apache etc ... :)
Look here for their successful attempts on wiki : http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
and also read this on hacking the iPhone http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2007/07/27/tasty-bits-24/
BR
Cyke64
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Software architect working in Symbian/S60 area since 2000 and still being enthusiastic about mobility. Please visit my introduction page on Forum Nokia Champions web page.
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Re: Time of competition - a peaceful summer?
singhgupi | 26/07/2007, 21:20
Well..
>>There's been a lot of discussion over whether iPhone is a smartphone or not, but that's not my point now.
Yupp, thats a BIG question. If IPhone is a smartphone, then it's a closed one. Too smart to program.:)
Two things Nokia can take from IPhone ... one you have already mentioned, and thats jazzy touch based model.
Other one would be a strong browser(Safari Counterpart). Well Nokia has choosen a right direction by Open Sourcing WebKit browser, but somehow, Open Sourced Webkit codebase is totally messed up. The release versions can't be compiled. Hope Nokia Open source guys will take notice, as Mobile Web is the future according to me.
Even Nokia's CEO says so:
http://www.betanews.com/article/Nokia_CEO_The_Internet_is_the_Future/1164821802
Nokia's venturing into internet, and google venturing into mobile. Interesting!!!
Gurpreet
Cofounder Mobisy
http://mobisyblog.blogspot.com