Symbian Future
With headlines like ‘Nokia to cull Symbian in 2012′ and ‘Nokia says it will replace Symbian with its Maemo Linux by 2012′ The Register could have us believe it’s the start of the end of Symbian.
Reading deeper, it’s only the N-Series that is going to be replaced with Maemo. However, despite the sensational headlines, I believe there’s some truth in what The Register says is ‘Nokia’s inept record of developing UIs’.
Yes, Symbian was and still is a very capable OS. Yes, the failure has been the UI. Some might say the problems started in 2002 when Symbian decided that it didn’t want to be responsible for UIs and devolved responsibility to UIQ and Nokia. Symbian gave away control of the part of the OS that was to matter most to consumers.
UIQ became ahead of its time with its touch UI while Nokia soon became behind the times with it’s keypad-centric UI. I believe UIQ died because there’s no money in being a UI vendor. Nokia’s S60 UI stagnated.
What I don’t understand is why Nokia didn’t see the signs. The iPhone was announced in January 2007. That’s nearly three years ago and Nokia still doesn’t have a better product. What has Nokia been doing? It had the underlying OS (Symbian), lots of money and it had many talented engineers. What happened?
I am starting to believe that with the iPhone and now Android, Nokia has already lost this particular UI battle. Symbian (and S60) needs a new UI now, not in a year or two’s time. Symbian and S60 will continue to live on and will probably take one or more new UIs but I suspect it will all be too late and will continue see slowly declining market share.
Maybe Nokia and others now need to think beyond phones to next generation devices and UIs. Devices such as tablets that are connected and portable yet also replacements for our fat PCs and Macs. Devices we can take home and plug into a larger screen to do desktop-type activities. Maybe even devices with new input mechanisms. Nokia could do this with Symbian, Maemo, Windows or even Android. Maybe the underlying OS really is increasingly irrelevant.
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