Another day
another nail in the Symbian coffin. Nokia need Android more than Android needs Nokia..
Nokia is to lay off 1,800 people even as it reports increasing earnings and good profits. Net sales, for the last quarter, are up to €10.3bn, with profit jumping to €403m compared to a loss of €426m in the same period last year. But that's not good enough, so the company is shaking down its smartphone business by axing 1,800 …
Has the best phone camera bar none (Don't believe some sites that say otherwise - the camera really is extraordinary considering it's such a small sensor), but might be too expensive - no torch mode I don't think as it's a zenon flash. Sorry. Selling like hot cakes as well. Robust, loads of features. GUI not quite up to iOS or Android but certainly good enough to use. Also works as a PHONE.
"really really good camera" and "torch" tend to be mutually exclusive on phones because the ones with LED flash double that up as a torch facility. A really really good camera however implies a xenon flash which will not work as a torch - such as the one in my Nokia 6220 Classic ("as recommended by El Reg" in one of the Nokia stories recently.) In many ways a bit of a basic phone but I can't find another reasonably-priced one with superior camera.
Those two words in the same sentence just make me laugh...
Having just battled with the latest "update" to my Nokia breaking a vast array of features, then the frustration of having to deal with their website which contains a plethora of bugs, lets just say my next phone won't be Nokia regardless of whether they adopt Andriod or not.
In my day job i also have the unfortunate "pleasure" of dealing with Siemens PABX's on an almost daily basis, along with their badly designed configuration interfaces and poorly implemented TCP/IP stack.
A decade ago, they were the bee's knees, today in communications they are a shadow of their former selves...
Everyone knows Nokia has grown to big, so this is really a positive step to help get them a little leaner. The exodus of key execs is also very cathartic, since it was on their watch when things went bad for Nokia.
Keep going Nokia. Go balls to the wall as if your life depends on it, because it does.
I wouldn't view this as definite negative, maybe its the removal of developers that are not developing in Qt in favour of ones that are. To me it looks like a simple move to make everyone sing from the same song sheet (Qt), allowing faster development.
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How to spin the good news about Qt and Symbian so that it looks bad! Apart from the 1800 job losses, although if that includes execs then at least some good will come of it, todays announcements are all good.
Smartphones sales are up, average selling price is up, profits are up, Qt is going to be used everywhere (both UIs and apps, Symbian and MeeGo) and Symbian^4 is no more as there will now just be "Symbian" which will receive continuous incremental updates rather than big-bang release updates which should mean longer term support for owners of current devices.
Other than the job losses, I find it incredible that you've managed to turn todays positive announcement into something negative. Maybe reporting the news impartially would be a good idea in future?
What are you talking about? Symbian OS? It is still more than 10 years Psion OS. Have a look at the SDK. You will see the same \EPOC32 and epoc.exe
It's gathered with the AVKON(or S60) - the most madness UI framework in the world. I guess Nokia had spent a lot of time to fix all defects in their new phone UI or Symblabla^3.
Now about QT??
Qt can work without any Symblabla OS. Just add water - create Qt OS HW adaptation.
Are they going to merge S60(or AVKON) and Qt frameworks together?
If YES, Who is this “clever man”? It is definitely “chief” “Sym-Nok” Architect. I wonder it will take now more than 200 years to fix all problems and ship NOKIA N9.
Nokia is to give up of Symbian stuff ~1800. It is definitely more than all Symbian OS developers in the world.
... but what Neil7 said, sounds about right.
Symbian^4 (as on the Foundation website) was always going to be a Qt UI replacing the current Symbian^3 one, and with new apps developed in Qt (so you could develop an app and have it run on Symbian or Meego) ... but that Symbian^3 apps would not run on Symbian^4 phones ... so why would anyone want to write apps that won't run on next year's phones (without a lot of changes).
The news this week is that Symbian^3 will now evolve to have even more Qt stuff (it already has Qt but not as the UI) so software written for the N8/E7 etc. will run on whatever phone comes out next year, and the year after, and that the N8 will be able to run new UI when it is ready.
Sure this is catching up with what the iPhone did, in terms of how you could upgrade the phone's OS ... but then you've got Nokia hardware (12Mp camera, HDMI output and all the rest) plus features such as video calling other 3G phones (and not just limited to other iPhone 4 phones on wifi) which Nokia has had for years.
Finally I feel safe to buy an N8 or E7 now and know that the apps I get this year will run on whatever Nokia phone I get next year (well, I hope that to be true anyway!)
Symbian^4 is it real?
Foundation does not have developers and Nokia cut 1800 of them. The most of them will be in the UK London Nokia (ex-Symbian) site.
Nokia developers, who are “have to go”, would not ever fix any defects of N*, because of zero redundancy package.
The other part will be frustrated, by tripling their work because:
- Nothing doing "Developers to go";
- Nokia would consider, securing job is high privilege to work hard;
At the end they will defect too, because there will not be bonuses and pay rise. To be honest there is no future, because at least for the half year they will do a little.
I think this the real fact “the end of the end”.
98% customers can distinguish phone by a brand and shape of Phone User Interface, but not by OS.