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The good old symbian myths:

- No c++ exceptions, below the rebuttal:
http://developer.symbian.com/main/downloads/papers/Exception_Handling_in_Symbian_OS-v1.02.pdf

- Descriptors: yes, they are weird, but they do make sense:
http://descriptors.blogspot.com/

- Standards: Open C, pips (posix compliancy), S60Python. Is hard to build an OS on a language which was not standard when it was being designed.

- there are more runtimes than symbian c++ (if that is too hard for you):
http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/hartti-suomelas-forum-nokia-blog/2007/05/17/slides-for-the-s60-runtimes-presentation-on-svsig

plus: QT for s60 is around the corner and will remove some of the pain for developers.

http://www.qtsoftware.com/developer/technical-preview-qt-for-s60

about the debugger: I still don't see the problem with carbide.c++ 2.0 and trk to debug symbian phones. You can also go fancy an use lauterbach or any other ICE that you like. Also you can use the emulator for 90% of app developement, so unless you are making something tied to the HW your target debugging should be a breeze (if you know what you are doing).

and about android: Please go on an read the code, run a grep for "fixme", then another for "??" and another for "hack". I specially like the TI AT command workarounds in the their telephony RIL reference implementation. This guys have put it together with gum and tape, product quality my ass.

Yes, they have good ideas, they are not reinventing the wheel and is easier to use (sometimes), but feature wise, production quality wise, android is not just there...yet.

See here for evidence of binary compatibility across S60 3rd edition releases. Specifically, post number 9 confirms what I say.

Heck, on AllAboutSymbian they claim you can even install S60 3rd edition binaries on devices running S60 5th edition (only the Nokia 5800 at the moment, IINM) - here's one such quote, which is in a discussion about freeware for the Nokia 5800 :

"
Use this install file, the version for S60 3rd Edition FP1 phones, until such time as Nokia get round to doing a formal S60 5th Edition release.
"

See here for evidence of binary compatibility across S60 3rd edition releases. Specifically, post number 9 confirms what I say.

Heck, on AllAboutSymbian they claim you can even install S60 3rd edition binaries on devices running S60 5th edition (only the Nokia 5800 at the moment, IINM) - here's one such quote, which is in a discussion about freeware for the Nokia 5800 :

"
Use this install file, the version for S60 3rd Edition FP1 phones, until such time as Nokia get round to doing a formal S60 5th Edition release.
"

Mod parent up. Symbian is a truly horrible OS to develop for.

True, but if you don't like its core c++ api, you can develop applications for it in Python or (soon) Qt both of which have a much nicer api.

And there's the PIPS API allowing you to port POSIX C apps and libraries to Symbian (most recent S60 apps use it).

Starting with 5th edition, you can also use Flash Lite. And, of course, there's still Java, too.

  Not only that, but there are many different versions (V9, V9.1, S60 3rd Ed, S60 FP1, S60 FP2, 9.4, 9.5 and that's just the recent ones) and they are mostly binary and source incompatible.

You're making confusion between Symbian and S60.
As a developer, you only care about the S60 version. Since 2004, we've seen only two major S60 releases, 3rd edition and 5th edition.

Software written for plain S60 3rd edition should work on any 3rd edition device. Feature packs add, well, new features, so if you want to take advantage of these features, of course you'll be able to do so only on those devices which provide them.

http://www.nokia.com/A4879144

Nokia's Morph Concept was announced in February 2008, over a year ago.

The video on that site, which has illustrated use-case demos (unlike the Intel video) is also available through youtube for those of you who want direct access:

YouTube - Nokia Morph Concept.
Amazing stuff.

There has been so much focus on iPhone, Android and Windows application development in the media the last few years. And yet no one as far as I can remember has ever mentioned that Nokia has a great open source development platform for their phones which runs on newer Symbian 60 called PyS60(Python for Symbian 60) http://wiki.opensource.nokia.com/projects/Installing_PyS60

With PyS60you have access to about every feature in the phone. Everything from SMS, to the accelerometer. Not to mention that programming in Python is fun, and if speed is an issue, you still have access to several Python C++ Extensions http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/C%2B%2B_Python_Extensions and there is support for developing your own c++ extensions. On the Nokia wiki there are several small easy to read examples of how to use all the technology in their phones http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Category:Python

Yet I don't understand why developers and media ignore this development platform. Isn't powerful applications that can be coded in less than hundred lines pure joy for a developer? There is a lot of people with Symbian 60 phones out there, more than Android and iPhone together(not sure about Windows though).

There has been so much focus on iPhone, Android and Windows application development in the media the last few years. And yet no one as far as I can remember has ever mentioned that Nokia has a great open source development platform for their phones which runs on newer Symbian 60 called PyS60(Python for Symbian 60) http://wiki.opensource.nokia.com/projects/Installing_PyS60

With PyS60you have access to about every feature in the phone. Everything from SMS, to the accelerometer. Not to mention that programming in Python is fun, and if speed is an issue, you still have access to several Python C++ Extensions http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/C%2B%2B_Python_Extensions and there is support for developing your own c++ extensions. On the Nokia wiki there are several small easy to read examples of how to use all the technology in their phones http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Category:Python

Yet I don't understand why developers and media ignore this development platform. Isn't powerful applications that can be coded in less than hundred lines pure joy for a developer? There is a lot of people with Symbian 60 phones out there, more than Android and iPhone together(not sure about Windows though).

There has been so much focus on iPhone, Android and Windows application development in the media the last few years. And yet no one as far as I can remember has ever mentioned that Nokia has a great open source development platform for their phones which runs on newer Symbian 60 called PyS60(Python for Symbian 60) http://wiki.opensource.nokia.com/projects/Installing_PyS60

With PyS60you have access to about every feature in the phone. Everything from SMS, to the accelerometer. Not to mention that programming in Python is fun, and if speed is an issue, you still have access to several Python C++ Extensions http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/C%2B%2B_Python_Extensions and there is support for developing your own c++ extensions. On the Nokia wiki there are several small easy to read examples of how to use all the technology in their phones http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Category:Python

Yet I don't understand why developers and media ignore this development platform. Isn't powerful applications that can be coded in less than hundred lines pure joy for a developer? There is a lot of people with Symbian 60 phones out there, more than Android and iPhone together(not sure about Windows though).

Those are actually Micro-USB connectors.

For example Nokia E71.

You can read more about those types of usb connectors here.

lolwut?

Nokia has an Exchange connector for most of its S60 models and has had it for ages. It also has a Blackberry connector for those people with BES as well.

Or just buy one of the Nokia phones which already have an RFID/NFC reader in them (yes, it can read passports).

http://europe.nokia.com/A4991361

Nokia 6131nfc and Nokia 6212 already contain the necessary hardware. Both are on market, the former has been around for over a year. They are not carried by any US operators, but they are available in some European countries, like Austria.

Check out http://europe.nokia.com/A41197323?&loc=use_nfc or search Youtube for "Near Field Communications".

Oyster phones (=the Nokia phone with an Oyster card on board) also exist in the UK, but still in pilot usage.

Nokia have had something similar for ages, but the adoption hasn't been all that quick: http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/ However Microsoft do seem to be making it more obvious to the observer that you need a phone to decode these mysterious images.

erm.. remember that the low-level Android API is entirely written in C++. And the whole thing runs on Linux.

So your "cross platform" problems are immediately concerned with the APIs Android and Linux gives you, so your C++ apps will be as cross platform as Java. (ie its not the same as running a desktop app on Linux, Windows and Mac - here you're running solely on the Android platform).

Symbian is irrelevant, its the huge amounts of code those Symbian developers have that they want to reuse that matters. If they now have to write the same stuff all over again for Android, they're less likely to do so. Why would any of them bother to port to Android if they already have a huge market for Noika phones? If they could port easily (or semi-easily) then I'm sure they would - the market for Android suddenly increases dramatically. To rewrite in Java means they won't until they see a large market already, and that won't happen if they're not developing for it.

Don't forget that a Java implementation (on mobile) is not as cross platform as you'd think, and mobile phone development is never "it just runs" simply because of the different resources available like screen sizes.

See the link here where he describes one mobile java developer who had to make 100 versions of his java app to make it run on lots of phone models.

I think Android on Linux is a good idea, a common platform and a common API means all the hard porting work is done by the manufacturer. Putting Java on just doesn't make sense when you've got that niceness; and you have a large developer base waiting to port their apps and suddenly finding they can't.

PS. the java used on Android isn't really JavaME, due to Sun licensing. I suppose its a possibility that Google could develop a c++ compiler that turns c++ code into dalvik bytecode, or perhaps (more likely) a C# or VB.NET one. Wouldn't that be fun?.....

Depends a bit on how compilicated the software will be. If it's very simple and a slow interface is not a problem, WAP + server-side PHP would be nice and the customers could choose any phone that supports WAP and GPRS (or whatever 3rd generation tech is used in the US) - which is practicaly any new phone in the market.

If you want to write the bulk software to run on the phone, I'd say Nokia's Symbian S60 line on Java, C/C++ or Python is a very good choice. It seems the C++ they use is a bit non-standard, but they also support Java ME which is much easier to learn. And Python.

Nokia has a pretty clean company portfolio, their SDK is based on Eclipse and all the relevant APIs are open, seem to be well-documented and full with developers manuals and code examples. forum.nokia.com is their the developer's site. Personally I have never developed mobile software, but I know some people who do mobile game development, and at least their employers seem to prefer Nokia S60. S60 has a very extensive range of phones, including touch-screen phones, and there's also a free emulator available. Sounds good, but I have no first-hands experience what so ever.

I'll stick with my Nokia E90, thanks...whilst Symbian based rather than Linux, it is also a fully functional mobile telephone.

[Happosai]

You could touch-type on it, if you had really small hands.

(A comment that could be made about most netbooks, incidentally.)

I can't comment on the E61i, but the E61's keyboard is really horrible to type on. The E71's keyboard is a massive improvement.

You could touch-type on it, if you had really small hands.

(A comment that could be made about most netbooks, incidentally.)

I can't comment on the E61i, but the E61's keyboard is really horrible to type on. The E71's keyboard is a massive improvement.

You could touch-type on it, if you had really small hands.

(A comment that could be made about most netbooks, incidentally.)

I can't comment on the E61i, but the E61's keyboard is really horrible to type on. The E71's keyboard is a massive improvement.

If you looked a bit further than the N810, you'd have seen that Nokia offers Python for S60. I've played around with it a bit on my N95 and it works as advertised, the S60-specific modules work great. You even have a shell for hacking python on the go (if you enjoy coding with a mobile phone, which I can't imagine).

Now I'd really like to have the S60 python module work over multiple platforms, I'd love to target both the N8x0 and S60, for instance.

Hell, I'd love not having to rewrite stuff for every new phone on the market, regardless of the programming language. All those different platforms are just making it harder and harder for third-party developers to develop software for any large portion of the smartphone market. But that's a whole different topic.

Finland most certainly does have product liability and tort damages, and claims are not limited to 100% refund of purchase price.

Yes, in case a commercial product causes unexpected damage. Warranty (the thing doesn't work as promised) is limited to refund.

Liability does extend to free products. See e.g., http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/1990/en19900694.pdf.

Yes, but that only applies to businesses (section 7 (1)). Most or at least not all free software is not business.

Where Finland does differ from many other countries is that product liability cannot be disclaimed. At all.

Yes. It would be interesting to know which countries have what kind of rules here. In general Finland follows EU in this kind of things, but in some areas Finland (along with other Scandinavian countries) have been ahead, in particular in consumer rights.

This whole business of disclaimers is more or less entirely US invention, as far as I know.

It is not. Unfortunately, due to billing issues, I do not subscribe to international databases through Westlaw and cannot quickly or cheaply produce a list of cases. However, given that the law of contract in virtually all UN member states is such that terminology is presumed legal, here are a few from a cursory Google search:

England: http://www.solartronanalytical.com/legal/disclaimers.htm Finland: http://europe.nokia.com/A4164022

At least that Nokia EULA is for foreign consumption (mostly American, I suspect). In Finland it's mostly irrelevant (and if it were only readable after download, it would be entirely unenforceable). An interesting observation: I've never seen anything like that in Finnish, except where it's been directly translated from English.

I would be interested to see any Finnish law that specifies that an agreement with a warranty disclaimer, operative as specified under the laws of Finland, is not enforceable.

That sounds selfcontradictory. Finnish law does not talk about warranty disclaimers, but Consumer Protection Act, 38/1978, which in effect provides implicit warranty, states that "A contract term differing from the provisions of this chapter to the detriment of the buyer shall be void unless otherwise provided below." In a few cases defaults can be changed to seller's benefit, but even then only with a valid contract. And there have been court decisions declaring in-the-box contracts invalid.

Surely Nokia has been sued over a warranty claim; this issue would no doubt arise, and I have never heard of a Finnish citizen suing Nokia over a warranty claim such that the warranty disclaimer was held to be invalid.

I don't think Nokia or anyone else in Finland for that matter has ever even tried to use a warranty disclaimer in court. Indeed warranties generally only come to court when the interpretation of provisions that go beyond what Consumer Protection Act provides, which is rather rare nowadays. In general the law is enough, warranty statements are irrelevant.

excludes acts "done privately and for purposes which are not commercial

This covers private AND noncommercial. It does not specify that noncommercial use alone is non-infringing, particularly in light of the fact that "commercial" is broadly construed.

Could be. English patent law is notoriously most "US-like" in Europe. But even it provides such a limitation (even if limited), so your claim there are no such limitations is incorrect.

In Finland, accepting your translation, such a section would be enforceable

I vaguely r

I do not have time at the moment to address these comments fully, but I will make some initial responses.

Nor am I generally liable for what others' do with my product

Again, you are talking of a different situation entirely. Finland most certainly does have product liability and tort damages, and claims are not limited to 100% refund of purchase price. Liability does extend to free products. See e.g., http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/1990/en19900694.pdf.

Where Finland does differ from many other countries is that product liability cannot be disclaimed. At all. Thus that provision of the GPL is unenforceable, and in turn engages another miscellaneous provision: the litigation section. It specifies interpretation in the event of countervailing local law.

This whole business of disclaimers is more or less entirely US invention, as far as I know.

It is not. Unfortunately, due to billing issues, I do not subscribe to international databases through Westlaw and cannot quickly or cheaply produce a list of cases. However, given that the law of contract in virtually all UN member states is such that terminology is presumed legal, here are a few from a cursory Google search:

England: http://www.solartronanalytical.com/legal/disclaimers.htm
Finland: http://europe.nokia.com/A4164022

I would be interested to see any Finnish law that specifies that an agreement with a warranty disclaimer, operative as specified under the laws of Finland, is not enforceable. Surely Nokia has been sued over a warranty claim; this issue would no doubt arise, and I have never heard of a Finnish citizen suing Nokia over a warranty claim such that the warranty disclaimer was held to be invalid.

excludes acts "done privately and for purposes which are not commercial

This covers private AND noncommercial. It does not specify that noncommercial use alone is non-infringing, particularly in light of the fact that "commercial" is broadly construed.

In Finland, accepting your translation, such a section would be enforceable, but mooted by the offering of what appears to be a statutory license for private use.

The overall issue remains that there are conflicting laws in some of the places that GPL software is used. None of those places flatly prohibits the wide range of disclaimers, limits, notices, and limitations as a whole. The fact also remains that the GPL, should it wish to have a distribution license, should have one as a separate entity, apart from those terms which are effective and binding at acquisition. Rights of reproduction, modification, and distribution change the character of the entire instrument from a notice to a license agreement. One simply cannot create a document with binding notices and the licensure of protected rights, along with restrictions on their use, that is presented to everyone, and subsequently specify that it may be ignored.

They may feel free to distribute their work with a simple copyright notice, which would indeed permit use in any way not inconsistent with copyright law. But they cannot add any non-notice, non-scope restrictions without becoming a license agreement, regardless of whether the rights being conveyed are done by statutory license or by express license. All recipients of GPL software receive the rights to use, modify, reproduce, and distribute. All recipients are bound to honor the various restrictions and conditions of exercising said set of rights. That there is no restriction on use simply signifies a nonexistent burden, not that the remaining 99% of the text may be ignored.

If they wish to make a distinction, then they should make a separate grant.

This could just as easily be connecting a hip-mounted sensor to your Nokia.

There is actually a beta app from Nokia that allows doing this with the built-in accelerometer in some of their phones(N95 and N82): http://www.nokia.com/A41033364.

I've used it for a while, and it seems to work fine, and keeps track of your workouts. It seemed to use a little too much battery, though.

About the patent system, it's clearly doing more harm than good at this point...

This could just as easily be connecting a hip-mounted sensor to your Nokia.

Why? It's already integrated into the latest phones... here you go: http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/2008/05/09/nokia-step-counter-beta-launched-track-how-much-you-walk-or-run-during-the-day/

And on the plus side being DRM free it works with all the brands of shoes. Don't be afraid it won't work with your Puma or Adidas or Lotto...

A Nokia S60 phone (I have an E61) + Nokia S60 Python interpreter have been enough for my personal development needs. The nice thing is, I can develop Python applications on the road only using the phone itself.

Information about the interpreter: http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/pythonfors60/

The latest version is available at the Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pys60

Check this for instance http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/64a34a8d-e65b-4a42-b9ae-dfcf5fe00426/S60_Platform_Bluetooth_API_Developers_Guide_v2_0_en.pdf.html

> Only a handful of Nokias do last time I went to look at developing things that work over Bluetooth.

A handful? If I see it correctly all Symbian mobiles after S60 2nd Ed FP1 (without OBEX) and Nokia OS S40 3rd Ed seem to have JSR-82.The support must have been there from around 2004-2005, so I guess you looked to early.

A search today revealed a handful of pages with mobiles supporting JSR-82

You are wrong. Most mid to high-end handsets released in the last two years do support JSR-82. Find out for yourself at Nokia's site or at Sony Ericsson's site or search for yourself.

Me, I'm looking at a Nokia E71 instead.

It's not the same browser, but it is the same rendering engine.

This was already ancient news when a nearly identical story came my way nine months ago.

Here is Nokia's statement from 2006 (one of many companies to establish a policy regarding tantalum sourcing as a result of the Congo conflict), sitting in plain sight on their website:

http://www.nokia.com/A4230065

"Our position: Tantalum / Coltan

"Nokia is not buying tantalum or other raw materials but processed components and assemblies from suppliers around the world. Suppliers' activities account for a substantial part of the life-cycle environmental impact of Nokia products. Nokia has a comprehensive set of global Nokia Supplier Requirements. These requirements also include environmental requirements. It is an integral part of Nokia's supply chain management to ensure that the suppliers comply with the requirements. To ensure compliance, trained Nokia personnel conduct regular assessments as part of normal supplier assessment.

"Nokia does not use any endangered species for any business purpose and furthermore requests that its suppliers avoid raw material procurement from an origin where there are clear human or animal rights abuse, or the method of procurement or distribution is illegal. In marketing and other company activities, Nokia will depict animals in a dignified manner.

"Nokia has sent a notification of the Congo situation to its suppliers using Tantalum asking them to follow the situation, and to avoid purchasing tantalum from Congo. Nokia is also reducing the use of tantalum in its products."

I rather have more driver hardware support from vendors in Linux first. Apps will follow soon after.

I rather have more driver hardware support from vendors in Linux first. Apps will follow soon after.

Do you write to them and tell them that? Here are some addresses, write to one or two:

Creative (Webcams) http://asia.creative.com/contactus/presales/

Logitech (Webcams) http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/logitech_en_amr.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

Lexmark (Printers) http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/sequentialem/home/0,6959,204816596_689444666_0_en,00.html

Nokia (PIM sync software with OpenSync) http://www.nokia.com/A4126575

Epson (Printers) http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/AboutContactUs.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes

Gigabyte (New motherboards should ship with Linux drivers) http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Company/ContactUs.aspx?CompanyWebPageID=6

Linksys (Networking equipment) http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Content_C1&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1114037291276&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

SIS http://www.sis.com/support/support_tech.htm

ASUS http://usa.asus.com/aboutasus.aspx?show=3

According to this press release, "Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO announced today their intent to unite Symbian OS(TM), S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform." So actually they're not just contributing the separate code bases but actively attempting to create a new unified platform:

The python for S60 documentation is here.

It is very well documented, and they have bindings for pretty well everything the camera does, including stuff like GPS and OpenGL support on fancier phones like the E90 communicator.

Nokia has been known for experimenting with open source in the recent years. This surely was a way to test the waters in community-driven development, to learn how to go along and specially what not to do.

Write to the hardware vendors and let them know that we want to buy and use their products on Linux. Here are the addresses of some other hardware vendors. Copy the list and write to one every week:

Creative (Webcams) http://asia.creative.com/contactus/presales/

Logitech (Webcams) http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/logitech_en_amr.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

Nokia (PIM sync software with OpenSync) http://www.nokia.com/A4126575

Epson (Printers) http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/AboutContactUs.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes

Gigabyte (New motherboards should ship with Linux drivers) http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Company/ContactUs.aspx?CompanyWebPageID=6

Linksys (Networking equipment) http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Content_C1&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1114037291276&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

The Nokia E90 is almost like a N810 with phone functions. It has Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, bluethooth, big screen, full qwwerty-keyboard (with number-row) actually everything you expect from a top-notch phone. On downside it's not Linux, it uses symbian 9.2. But you can install putty ssh on it so you can then connect to your linux box ;)

For full qwerty-keyboard with number-row and excellent wide-screen there is Nokia E90 and the older (but cheaper) Nokia 9300i too.

For full qwerty-keyboard with number-row and excellent wide-screen there is Nokia E90 and the older (but cheaper) Nokia 9300i too.

Here is the current version.

I call prior art on the profile switching. There were many more apps similar to this back around '06 when I had my last S60 device.
(Yeah, I know the SoC project didn't involve trying to patent it - just sayin' it ain't all that new and fancy).

No platform that incorporates the need for the vendor (or someone equally expensive) to "bless" your application by signing it will ever, ever enjoy the wide-spread adoption that common PCs do.

Surprisingly little people know this, but to deploy an application in J2ME, Symbian or iPhone, that does anything outside the trivial ("hello, world"), the application needs to be digitally signed (think SSL certificates) by a company the phone firmware "trusts". If you're lucky, this is one of the big authorities like Thawte, if you're unlucky this means every single mobile provider that sells phones as a part of their contracts or service.

What this means in practice is a significant monetary barrier to entry, at least compared to the Windows and Linux platforms, because every company that wants to deploy mobile phone applications needs to buy expensive certificates every couple of years (because they expire). This is also the reason why the open-source and freeware smartphone applications are a) few and far between and b) mostly very simple and crappy since they can't use the advanced APIs.

The official reason for the signing requirement is to protect users from viruses, etc. - which is completely wrong since it's obviously a failure (as demonstrated by the appearance of anti-virus software for smartphones). The real reason is the greed of phone companies and manufacturers. In the very unlucky case, an application developer needs to have his application signed by every single operator on whose phones he wants to deploy the application.

References:

• How midlet signing is killing j2me
• How j2me signing kills mobile innovation
• Problems with signing...
• Which certificates are valid on which handsets?

There's a large number of similar rants if you Google them.

This!

The Nokia n95 GPS with voice guided navigation, wireless via bluetooth headphones, that calmly lowers the MP3 volume ...well that GPS is great for getting me out on my bicycle, and off into unexplored territories. I just love it. Except when it dies because it sucks too much juice, which is most of the time. (so I have learned to carry spares)

Hey, it is great to be using the GPS/MP3/bluetooth/GSm functions, but I shut them all down to save energy for priority GPS tracking using the Sports Tracker web service, on known courses: Nokia SportsTracker Web Services. But even that lone power-misered GPS application died after a handful of hours when I really wanted data from a special ride recently!

I understand power is the main drawback to cycling GPS units; this technology can't come into place fast enough IMHO. Google maps and GPS is enough to get me out moving fast when the weather is good. That presents a real challenge to GPS power usage for cycling use. Having to stop and re-orient according to paper maps suckz, so I stick with known cycling routes when I get time to ride.

Nokia shipped E90 , actual Symbian S60 running Laptop phone (I can easily say).

http://europe.nokia.com/e90

BTW, a device upgrade doesn't mean they don't give a heck to older product. Especially Symbian devices keep on getting supported/ software updated. Even my 9300 works very fine except the fact that it runs a rare Symbian version (S80) so third party is a bit problematic.

As a side note, every Symbian device made recently (not sure about year) supports Bluetooth keyboards. There are some very nice bluetooth keyboards which are very small. E.g. Logitech stuff. Another option is to use the sci-fi http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/ laser keyboard.

Also if iPhone user friends talk too much, you just use the keyboard asking them how many jailbreak hacks they need for it. Good iPhone muter as bonus ;)

E90 is big but it has everything.