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Nokia Offers Glimpse of Symbian Facelift

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the don't-give-up-the-ghost dept.

Barence writes to mention that Nokia is giving users a first glimpse at what promises to be a completely overhauled Symbian user experience this coming year. Nokia's chief exec blamed the user interface — as opposed to the OS itself — as the root problem. "The company will roll out a completely re-engineered user interface in 2010, aimed at addressing many of the criticisms associated with the OS. 'We will reduce the clutter and improve the input methods including multi-touch and single tap,' Kallasvuo told delegates. 'It should be just two taps to get to your favorite music or videos, rather than eight. We'll improve browser experience so that it's a quicker, flash improved, media experience with pinch-to-zoom and so on.' And, Kallasvuo wasn't stopping there. Aside from completely redesigning the interface, he also suggested that future Symbian OSes would be much faster."

14 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. I love the iPhone by adamwright · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not only because of what it does, but because of the competition it's created in an industry that hadn't really moved in a decade. Free markets do work, sometimes!

    1. Re:I love the iPhone by Dan541 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I love my nokia, it comes with all the basic features that the iphone lacks.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    2. Re:I love the iPhone by vakuona · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Like what feature?

  2. Nokia... by faragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... please, let Symbian die. The N900 is so much better than any Symbian aberration...

    1. Re:Nokia... by kwalker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not every Nokia phone is going to have a 600MHz ARM and half a gig of RAM behind the screen. Not every phone user is going to shell out the prices higher-end components are going to require. Nokia has the market share they have because of the diversity of their products. They need to cover the high-end as well as the low-end. I could easily see Nokia moving from S40 on the low end and S60 on the high end to S40 for low-end and pre-paid phones (If they don't drop it altogether), S60 in the low-to-medium phones (I think their E63 is a step in that direction), and Maemo 5 on their high-end phones that compete with Androids and iPhones.

      --
      ... And so it comes to this.
    2. Re:Nokia... by BasilBrush · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Symbian is a pain, underperformer, without possibility of matching Linux or OS X.

      Symbian is a pain to program in C++ (But the same as any other phone OS in Java). But it uses far less memory and battery power than any *nix. So it isn't the easy call you imagine. OS X is far superior for top end smartphones. But for lower cost phones, Symbian has a lot of positives.

  3. I have an N97 and an N900 by kurt555gs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Symbian is a pig. QT on Symbian is lipstick on a pig. There is no other good way to say this. I had an N95 8GB, and Symbian 3 was actually fine on that, buttons and all. Symbian 5, ala N97 is just pushing Symbians limits to far. The best technical terms I can use to describe Symbian 5 (N97) is it's a "steaming pile of shit".

    The N900 on the other hand is just phuquing unbelievable. Once they put QT on top of Maemo Linux, it will be so far away from any othe the other phone OS's, that there just will be no contest. (I say phone, but the N900 is really more of a mobile computer with cell capabilities than a phone).

    The N900 rox!

    --
    * Carthago Delenda Est *
  4. Re:My Question Is by ZackSchil · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because they didn't have an example interface from Apple to crib off of at that point.

    No, really.

  5. Apple... by mrops · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...That is the real answer. For the longest time, Nokia had phones that everyone bought. They were expensive, but so were Mercedes and BMW.

    Then came the iPhone. Like it or not, it changed the whole mobile market. Nokia was complacent and was caught off guard.

    I recall Nokia was so full of themselves that they dismissed Android claiming writing a phone OS is no joke.

    Having said all that, I have been for the last 10 years and still am a Nokia fanboy.

    I love Nokia philosophy of phone first, everything else later. I hope that stays.

    1. Re:Apple... by sznupi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think you're looking at this solely from the point of view of western, possibly US, market...

      Nokia had always vast spectrum of phones, from very cheap to expensive. Heck, their cheapest phone now costs 20 Euro, without contract (the stated goal of Nokia, supposedly not tongue-in-cheek, is to have 5 Euro phone in a few years). Also, they launched Maemo before iPhone announcement. And reality is that Android has yet to prove itself...

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    2. Re:Apple... by jandrese · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nokia has always had a vast spectrum of phones with crappy UIs. That's what the parent was talking about. Now that Apple and Google are starting to make a noticable dent in their marketshare they've been forced to actually try to build a UI that doesn't stab you in the face every time you try to look up someone's name by their phone number or attempt to change the order of the icons on the screen.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    3. Re:Apple... by sznupi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Define "crappy". Majority of their phones are used only for phonecalls and text messages. Sometimes quick photo. Given that people across the spectrum manage to do it just fine (and I can't imagine non-trivial portion of them using anything with a touchscreen, for example), I'd suspect S30 and S40 are better than you give them credit.

      Plus...please, how exactly a low-end (TRUE low-end, not what American would call like that but what is in reality high middle segment) phone can be much different at this point? Noticeable dent? Are you kidding? Nokia is the only hugely profitable phone manufacturer (other either are out of the market, struggling for a long time, or phones aren't their primary product; with the possible exception of RIM, though they basically sell a corporate service, not phones). Nokia marketshare: ~40% of global market, over 50% of smartphones. You just don't see it because your carriers were blocking Nokia from entering for a long time, for Nokia refusal to castrate their devices.

      Now that Symbian will improve when devices with it are becoming really affordable, nearing $100 mark without contract, you should probably get used to the thought of bright future for Nokia.

      PS. "look up someone's name by their phone number"? You mean when you have a number, but don't know to who it belongs to? That's trivial even on the cheapest, 20 Euro Nokia phone... (also, realize that most of the market doesn't care and doesn't want to change the order of icons; plus it speeds up navigation, lets you use numpad to spatially associated to icons on a grid)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    4. Re:Apple... by ozmanjusri · · Score: 2, Insightful
      last I checked, writing a phone OS isn't a joke.

      Oh yeah?

      How do you explain this then?

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  6. Re:My Question Is by fbjon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Progress is the end result of competition.

    --
    True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.