A few quick remarks about Symbian Exchange and Expo
by Volker Weber
I am very tired but I still want to write down a few remarks about Symbian Exchange and Expo 2009.
- People who have been there last year say that it wasn't as vibrant this year. I can't say that because the event clocked 3000 registrations. To me it seemed that there were fewer people there, but it was an impressive crowd anyway. What I did not know before the fact was that the event is completely free to attend.
- Nokia is shoring up all the good news they have to make the impression that everything is nice and dandy. In private conversations they do admit that the picture isn't as rosy. For instance: Nokia says they have hundreds of millions of devices that can download software from the Ovi store. However, only very few people actually do that. Many Nseries and Eseries customers just use what they have. There is no "there is an app for that" awareness.
- Nokia knows that they suck. And they are hard at work, very hard at work to change that. The future for Nokia apps rests on two pillars: WRT (web runtime, webkit) and Qt. And that is not exclusive. You can run webkit code in Qt. By Symbian^4 at the end of next year, all Symbian apps will be rewritten in Qt. And you can run Qt apps on a hundred different Nokia devices today.
- The other thing that Nokia needs to fix is to keep existing devices up-to-date on the supporting libraries. There is no place where a developer can find out what runs on which hardware, and how many of those are out there. Very hard to make informed decisions.
- Ovi Maps kinda worked for me in London. However, finding your own location with an E71 GPS in a city takes a while. My old iPhone 2G does that in a split second. And it does not even have a GPS (hint: Skyhook). Mark my words: Google is going to wipe the floor with Ovi Maps. I think that Nokia's business model of selling turn-by-turn nav just went down the drain.
Comments
Thanks for your impressions, Volker! Interesting read, I very much agree.
In case google is serious with their navigation, not only Nokia is going to feel the pressure.
Hubert Stettner, 2009-10-29
