msmobiles.com/f

msmobiles.com_robot · Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 16777215

We usually don't publish information about Symbian mobiles, but since Symbian Ltd was established (mainly by Nokia and Sony Ericsson) to prevent Microsoft from succeeding in cell phone industry, this story is not i...

Read more at http://www.msmobiles.com/news.php/4408.html

phut60 · Joined: 19 May 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Southern California

You put so much effort into trashing phones with the Symbian OS, I recently took delivery of my K-JAM, following a year of using my JAM. The MS OS is full of holes, software functionality which does not work and a need to add on software for important efforts (like back-up). The MS OS is certainly a long way from where it should be. I have owned two Symbian phones which had all of the important functions completely in order and ready to go when the phones arrived, I do believe returning to a Symbian phone will be in order quite soon. Perhaps you should evaluate you dislike of the Symbian OS, it does do what it needs to do when you buy it.

EJR · Joined: 18 Mar 2004 Posts: 2629

veletron · Joined: 10 Feb 2005 Posts: 44

P990 looks nice!

I just ordered an XDA Exec, but will flog it if P990 lives up to claims. Contacts and Schedule on symbian is far superior to WM. Hell, the apps on the P5 were far better than what MS is doing 6 years later!!

MS had the oportunity to fix the contacts and schedule apps on WM2005, but they never took it. MS really do need to buy a ruddy phone company in order to sort out some of the usability issues in WM2005.

On top of that, pocket informant (which I have on XDA IIs) does not work on WM2005... Why on earth MS did not just buy the company behind PI and use that as the standard app in WM2005 I will never know.

Nigel

kieranEire · Joined: 12 Oct 2005 Posts: 281

I almost laughed out loud at this post,

josephbyrns · Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 9

I also write a lot of software on MS .NET CF and find it invaluable, when I first started writing software for devices I looked at other devices such as the symbian OS, but soon realised that .NET was the way to go. If nothing else MS are the best when it comes to developers, they really make it practical to develop on devices (and for that matter desktops and servers).

It may be a reduced version of the full framework (skeleton you say), but there is more than enough functionality there to develop very useful and full applications.

kieranEire · Joined: 12 Oct 2005 Posts: 281

.net CF has so many holes most serious application developers use it for nothing more than some UI and maybe web services. The backwards compatability is extremely hard work as .net framework does not provide inteop support. Windows CE is well documented, however phone specific features, such as sms etc are largely undocumented and largely unsupported.

AppForge Crossfire for instance does build .net cf applications for the palm and symbian platforms. Again showing the original post is incorrect. Booster which executes AppForge Crossfires bytecode is supported on more plateforms than the CLR from the CF. Booster will also be backwards compatible while we will see if the .net CF 2.0 will be. Infact AppForge Crossfire supports a larger part of the CLR than .net CF.

Microsoft may produce good support for desktop developers but as for mobile developers we have always been an after thought.

Arisme2 · Joined: 24 Mar 2005 Posts: 23 Location: Paris, France

tehdarkstar · Joined: 22 Jul 2004 Posts: 31

caranthir · Joined: 03 Oct 2005 Posts: 21

Of course Symbian is a joke. Nokia had the option to go with Microsoft but choose confrontation. They want to fight Microsoft. hi hi

All this bashing is not going to work MS always win in the end with their superior software. I will not waist time to remind of all of the similar discussions of crappy products in the past from OS2 and forward. Usually a beta MS product is better than a released product from the competition.

To make one mistake is human, to make the same mistake not only twice, but a dozen times - what shall we call it? "Idiotic" some how feels to lame..
The .NET Mobile framework is a good way to make money right now, in enterprise business. Java/Symbian is a joke, use it only if you want to give away the results of your efforts to hobbyist users of small games and trivia.

josephbyrns · Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 9

gilesjuk · Joined: 22 Jan 2005 Posts: 312

MichaelElfial · Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 7

Well, I am a developer too and I dislike .NET, but this would not make me dislike Windows. Looking from the user-end you may see symbian as a better OS, but this is superficial and not only because of what the article says.

The fragmentation is a problem ok, but the real problem is the strategy behind the OS development. MS did terrible mistakes when they published the Smartphone OS for the first time. Things like removing some features which would not have taken too much place (most ridiculous example is perhaps the stubbed open/save file common dialog), The way the menu bars are handled (it would not have been too difficult to devise a way that will not render the pocket pc apps helpless on smartphone - I can think of a several such wayws). But these were mistakes and they are fixing them in the newest versions.

Windows has its roots and is the same on all the devices, thus giving the developer the opportunity to get to the work without need to spend considerable time for preparation. When it comes to porting PC apps to CE it is almost automatic for the non-visual parts and simple for the visual part. And I am talking about C/C++ code not Java or .NET. I personally ported some of my ActiveX-s without need of even a single conditional compilation directive! But here is the catch - ActiveX, COM. This is not spoken aloud but the truth is that the in-process COM is the backbone of the Windows OS. This is one of the most important things that makes it better than anything else we have today.

What use is porting an application if it remains a separate entity compared to a component porting. The latter serves more than one application, gives many people way to save efforts and interoperate with other applications/features on the fly. COM serves also .NET so those who use it extensively also benefit - indirectly.

Back to the topic. All this is just a small part of the technical backing of a single strategy that covers all the Windows OS-es. This makes Windows the best environment for various softwares, no matter if you use something like .NET or Java, C or something else. This is not the case withe Symbian or Linux.

The strategy in Symbian is dicateted not by the software company behind the OS, but by the phone manufacturers and indirectly by the operators. Who, by the way, prefer to sell you simple images for desktop backgrounds or ring tones than leave you equip your device with everything you want on your own. If you read carefuly you will see that Symbian moves in a direction that gradually rises the restrictions over the applications. Instead of opening the platform for everyone the symbian closes it - not in a single step, of course, but read between the lines, talk with a friend that works in a communication company and you will see it. So, Symbian develops to fulfill the dreams of the telecommunication companies, but are these dreams your dreams too? There are catches that make you like it, but use it extensively and for pusposes they have never imagined and you will hit the fence - I did. I had 2 symbian smartphones and I sold them out after noticing that having a Pocket PC in the other pocket made me use them as phones only.

It will be a long road, I am not telling you that Windows is perfect, but in the long run Symbian has no chance - at least not in the hands of companies that prefer to serve the needs of the sellers and not the consummers. MS may be a shark (a big one), but their feeding ground suits the resonable man better than the feeding ground of the telecommunication companies.

caranthir · Joined: 03 Oct 2005 Posts: 21

Thank you for your well written and insightful post. I assume you are a C/C++ programmer and of course you are right in that it is the windows consistent platform that is important and not the language(s). For all of us that are not C/C++ stars however .NET/C# gives us a chance to stay in the game and don't forget the upcoming Avalon/Winfx.

In a very short time the mobile devices will be as powerful as our desktop computers are today. Then the great battle will be between Windows and Linux.

(On a side note I hope the upcoming D language from Digital Mars will soon be available for WM5)

Stinger · Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 156