karym6
DW Regular
I am not sure if everyone (or anyone) will be interested to read this thread, I thought it may be a source of some interesting discussion.
Over the last 4 years, Nokia has pretty much held dominance over the smartphone world with its vice like grip (and fanatisism) over Symbian. It has pretty much defined how the market views the smartphone and has been a constant source of design genius and innovation. Up untill now.
Recently, more and more phone makers are adopting Windows Mobile 6, which over the last three years has been developed into a very attractive and viable platform for smartphones. I think one of the key benfits to manufacturers wanting to put a smartphone out using this OS is the fact they dont need to pay for and develop the software, Microsoft is doing that for them. I guess that leaves them to concentrate on making the actual phones. It also leave Microsoft to develop and innovate the product without having to spend too much time on hardware design.
However, poor Nokia and SE have to design, test and build both software and hardware - is this taking its toll on smartphone makers? The recent N-Series and SE's favourite the P-Series have taken a turn for the worse. Over the last two years, the geeks favourite smartphone (SE P9XX) has gone from being a dream toy, to something in between a pDA and a media player - along the way losing some of the features that made this such a great phone such as the huge touch screen, great messaging and wonderful UIQ interface.
On the other hand, perrenial business mans favourite, the Nokia Communicator, has been recently crippled with the halfway house S60 interface (communicators before this were Series 80) and now kind of draw a parralell with the SE P9XX series. Nokia has also been hit with its N-series phones, nearly all of these have met with some issue on launch. The N70 being too tightly locked to the network, the N73 restarting, the N80 being crap at letting you call people, the N92 never making it out (I dont think in the UK), the N91 no one really cared about and the N95 with its fantastic useless GPS.
These slips in QA seem to be really hitting makers like Nokia and SE, while Nokia has the bulk to roll with the punches SE doesnt, as such they told the world they would not support the crippled P990i and M600i (they relented after a week and promised to provide some support). However in the originial statement, they insisted that by removing support they would be able to work towards the next versions to make sure such mistakes would not happen again...
In the mean time, Windows Mobile goes from strength to strength...
Again, I am not sure how many people use a smartphone as a smartphone here - some may not even realise they have one. And whilst it may not be an issue to you not being able to connect to the Blackberry Enterprise Server, it may bother you to have problems with the camera (a la N93 tking crap shots). This is all part an parcel of the same QA problems..
How come our smartphones dont seem to be so smart any more?
I have just been given a brand new pair of N95's the GPS works fine on one and not on the other - go figure
Over the last 4 years, Nokia has pretty much held dominance over the smartphone world with its vice like grip (and fanatisism) over Symbian. It has pretty much defined how the market views the smartphone and has been a constant source of design genius and innovation. Up untill now.
Recently, more and more phone makers are adopting Windows Mobile 6, which over the last three years has been developed into a very attractive and viable platform for smartphones. I think one of the key benfits to manufacturers wanting to put a smartphone out using this OS is the fact they dont need to pay for and develop the software, Microsoft is doing that for them. I guess that leaves them to concentrate on making the actual phones. It also leave Microsoft to develop and innovate the product without having to spend too much time on hardware design.
However, poor Nokia and SE have to design, test and build both software and hardware - is this taking its toll on smartphone makers? The recent N-Series and SE's favourite the P-Series have taken a turn for the worse. Over the last two years, the geeks favourite smartphone (SE P9XX) has gone from being a dream toy, to something in between a pDA and a media player - along the way losing some of the features that made this such a great phone such as the huge touch screen, great messaging and wonderful UIQ interface.
On the other hand, perrenial business mans favourite, the Nokia Communicator, has been recently crippled with the halfway house S60 interface (communicators before this were Series 80) and now kind of draw a parralell with the SE P9XX series. Nokia has also been hit with its N-series phones, nearly all of these have met with some issue on launch. The N70 being too tightly locked to the network, the N73 restarting, the N80 being crap at letting you call people, the N92 never making it out (I dont think in the UK), the N91 no one really cared about and the N95 with its fantastic useless GPS.
These slips in QA seem to be really hitting makers like Nokia and SE, while Nokia has the bulk to roll with the punches SE doesnt, as such they told the world they would not support the crippled P990i and M600i (they relented after a week and promised to provide some support). However in the originial statement, they insisted that by removing support they would be able to work towards the next versions to make sure such mistakes would not happen again...
In the mean time, Windows Mobile goes from strength to strength...
Again, I am not sure how many people use a smartphone as a smartphone here - some may not even realise they have one. And whilst it may not be an issue to you not being able to connect to the Blackberry Enterprise Server, it may bother you to have problems with the camera (a la N93 tking crap shots). This is all part an parcel of the same QA problems..
How come our smartphones dont seem to be so smart any more?
I have just been given a brand new pair of N95's the GPS works fine on one and not on the other - go figure
