Symbian Blasts Google's Phone Initiative 276
nowhere.elysium writes "Symbian has suggested that Google is not experienced enough or capable of fully developing a workable mobile platform. Symbian's vice president, John Forsyth inferred that Google's interest in the field will also wane due to it being 'deeply unsexy', and that development is not likely for such a platform because "You have [...] a lot of zeroes in your sales figures before a developer gets out of bed."
In the same series of statements, Linux is likened to the common cold: "About every three months this year there has been a mobile Linux initiative of some sort launched. It's a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round and then we go back to business.""
They have to say something like this. (Score:5, Informative)
Symbian was formed and supported out of one single reason: Microsoft
The mobile phone makers, that used to hold a stake in Symbian (Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson each a quarter with Psion having the last quarter IIRC) bought the IP of Epoc from Psion and founded Symbian, because they were scared that Microsoft (with Windows Mobile) would attain the same dominance in the mobile phone market that it held in the PC market.
That danger is over and Symbian ownership has shifted around a bit. Also Microsoft did not yet become such a threat. I suppose that in the mobile phone market there is enough space for everyone. The numbers of units is much higher than in the PC market and it is still growing much faster. Apple just joined it btw. And even if they were to capture only 1% of the world market, they would make a huge profit from the huge amount of sales that this would mean in numbers.
Same with Google.
Re:A lot of /what/, before /who/ gets out of bed? (Score:5, Informative)
It will cost to buy a certificate to certify the app as non-malicious and fit for purpose, and without that the user will get a warning when installing that the app is unsigned. But that is a quite reasonable security step given that phone malware could cost serious money on a phone bill. But the lack of such a cert doesn't stop you from using or distributing free apps.
Re:A lot of /what/, before /who/ gets out of bed? (Score:3, Informative)
You pay for the certificate if you want to start distributing commercial apps. That's no more cost than you would pay for a signing certificate on Windows for example and if you can't recover that cost how are you paying your devs in the first place? You do *not* have to submit the app for testing once your company has a certificate, as the signing application is part of the SDK. We actually have one, although the project that was going to be used for it got shelved.. the cert. is there though and I could use it if I wanted.
Even many independent applications distribute signed because it's easier on their customers. At the free end the more common model is to distribute unsigned and sign it yourself using a dev. cert. - and that's just a tedious extra step (pity they made it mandatory.. optional was far better).
That hardly counts as 'hostile'. Windows mobile needs signed apps, you can bet the google OS will have similar requirements and the iphone definately will (if they ever release the SDK to non-approved developers, which is looking doubtful).
bunk (Score:2, Informative)
And no! Standard C++ is not supported! It's Symbianized C++, with a stupid proprietary try/catch model that forced the developer to push object onto a cleanup stack, which COMPLETELY destroys the possibility of clean, platform-independent code.
Worst of all, many API's are proprietary Nokia information, and require some kind of business deal with Nokia.
Nokia would do well to continue down their current path of supporting C++ exceptions, POSIX threads, and BSD sockets. But - hey now - wouldn't Symbian be like Linux?
Re:First step for symbian. (Score:3, Informative)
You're clutching at straws here. It works as a WiFi AP, and that's what matters.
What is this "their code"? An access point that runs Linux has a kernel and software the vast percentage of which weren't written by Cisco. At best Cisco added a driver for the chipset and some code for the web interface. Hardly a huge sacrifice compared to the amount of code they got for free. Not to mention that nothing stops them from using a closed source kernel module and writing the CGI scripts in some compiled language.
No, the reason the new versions don't run Linux is that vxworks can be made to work using less RAM and Flash space, which costs less to manufacture.
Re:In that case... (Score:1, Informative)
But I think it's more than a question of someone finding an original project that you've missed. Google's use of the AJAX framework is making very powerful applications available over the web in a way that Java clients never got simultaneouly "right" and "fast".
Have you used the Google maps feature where you ask for directions between two points, then drag the route across an interim destination and let it plot it for you? Have you tried to do this with other mapping software? Google takes good concepts and invests enormous engineering effort in making them more "useful" not just adding pretty features that look good on the box.
I'm sorry you "can't work with" Gmail. Perhaps the online instructions are lacking. I spend all day at a keyboard and find Gmail to be the online mail system I least hate, by a large margin.
Have you used Google Earth? Does any other mapping software hold a candle to Google Maps? The Garmin stuff I spent a lot of money on with my GPS ain't bad, but it "ain't free." either.
And it's also worth noticing, that because the Javascript portion of AJAX is exposed, Google is sharing a great deal of their innovation with the world just by their choice of tools. If you're not part of web development it may not be easy to see, but many companies get a forward tug from their draft, and the web would be a much less interesting place without them.