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Symbian, the Biggest Mobile OS No One Talks About

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-death-grip-or-kill-switch-stories dept.

blackbearnh writes "The iPhone vs. Android wars are in full swing, but no one talks about the mobile operating system that most of the world uses: Symbian. Part of the reason, perhaps, is that the Symbian developer infrastructure is so different from the Wild West approach that Apple and Google take. Over at O'Reilly Answers, Paul Beusterien, who is the Head of Developer Tools for the Symbian Foundation, talks about why Symbian gets ignored as a platform despite the huge number of handsets it runs on. Quoting: 'Another dimension is the type of developer community. [Historically, Symbian's type of developers] were working for consulting houses or working at phone operator places or specifically doing consulting jobs for enterprise customers who wanted mobile apps. So there's a set of consulting companies around the world that have specialized in creating apps for Symbian devices. It's a different kind of dynamic than where iPhone has really been successful at attracting just the hobbyist, or the one- or two-person company, or the person who just wants to go onto the web and start developing.'"

5 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. They may not talk about it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    But there always seems to be quite the buzz around this product.

  2. The real reason nobody talks about Symbian.. by multipartmixed · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...is they keep forgetting if it's Symbian or Sybian that's "work safe"

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  3. Re:Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Tiny arse screens really sounds like a dead-end display tech.

  4. Re:Nothing to see here. by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've got a Nokia N95, which is a decent enough phone I guess, but the symbian OS is easily the 2nd clumsiest one I have ever used (first being windows mobile).

    Obviously, you've never used a Motorola phone with... what the hell do you call that operating system? Besides offensive?

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  5. Re:It's a pain in the ass to develop for by moonbender · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's those places you go to to get books about C/C++ which help you reinvent the wheel, right?

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