S60 Summit Day 2: The show floor, presentations and good bye

Very long post, lots of pictures too. In order to conserve bandwidth I am not showing the complete article on the Ring Nokia (NYSE: NOK) homepage.

Please click on "Continue reading" below to enjoy the full blog post.

If you have been directly linked then please ignore this message!

S60 Summit Day 0 coverage

S60 Summit Day 1 coverage

Day 2 couldn’t have started out any better, I had breakfast with Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-Review. We chatted about everything, with topics ranging from what was currently happening in our industry, what we wanted to see in the future and my curiosity of the dark side: Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) phones, the K800i to be exact. The main topic of our discussion centered around music phones, in particular how Nokia hasn’t made anything that really competes with Sony’s Walkman line and how nothing on the market is even close to matching the iPod experience. He is a very intelligent writer and I hope I run into him again in the future.

After that it was time to go back to my hotel room, put on my suit, slap my game face on and hit the conference.

I got to the auditorium about 10 minutes early. They haven’t finished setting up yet, so I snapped some pictures:

Matti Vänskä began with a keynote welcoming us to the event and a summary of what we were going to be hearing today:

Ilari Nurmi (link to PDF of complete presentation) gave the first presentation, he had to take Lee Williams’ spot on a moments notice due to the birth of his son! Congratulations Lee!

Ilari was the first to tell us that over 100 million S60 devices have shipped at which point the crowd gave him a round of applause. Next we went thru all the technologies that let developers bring their ideas over to S60. Open C was enabling companies like Oracle to port their database application in no time. The open source G Streamer solution would enable plugin support for the multimedia player and future development tools will be built on eclipse.

Now it was time to bring widgets onto the stage:

Ilari did a great job explaining what widgets are and how they will impact our industry, but I would have been more impressed if the torch was passed to Ganesh Silverman. His presentation at the press lunch was priceless and really made a lot of people understand what Nokia is really trying to push. I even told Ganesh and Phil that they should get together and shoot a video, it was honestly that good. My sideways N95 video is of poor quality, but if you just listen to the audio you can understand why I’ve come to this conclusion:

Click To Play

I’m upset that as a S60 3rd Edition user I can’t try out widgets the day they are released as they are only meant for FP2 and above devices. It feels like a little bit of a slap in the face to the 100 million S60 users out there.

I also think that widgets should be hosted in a centralized repository to make finding and downloading them much easier for the end user. It would be even better if a program sat on the users phone which enabled him to search the complete S60 widget database, see what the most popular ones are, search, etc. Ganesh assured me we would get more information about this as we get closer to the release of Feature Pack 2 devices.

Next up was José Antonio Moujadami (link to PDF of complete presentation) from Telefónica:

He probably got in trouble for calling S60 "Series S60," but his presentation was truly an eye opener for someone like me who is used to operators in America putting your testicles in a vice once you sign a contract; Telefónica really gets it. They want to be open and are using the power of Open C to port projects from SourceForge and Freshmeat to their platform.

He mentioned the power of the web run time that will be in Feature Pack 2. This is the engine that will enable widgets, but it would also be wise if other mobile operating system adopted it. AJAX, CSS and Java script are all standards based technologies and the faster our industry can agree on standards the faster operators can get devices out to you.

He used the word "openess" to describe the shift that is currently happening in our industry when it comes to data, but I’m still going to tell my readers: only buy unlocked, unbranded devices!

Operators play a huge role in Nokia’s bottom line, but I strongly subscribe to the philosophy that they should only be offering services, not devices. They are merely pipes.

The next speaker is one that gave me such a strong epiphany that I pretty much ignored his presentation and spent the next 30 minutes thinking. Kamran Kordi (link to PDF of complete presentation) from T-Mobile:

What started out as a simple question, got my mind racing:

"We love the S60 browser, but S60 isn’t modular enough for us to replace it with our own solution. Can you help us S60?"

Think about that for a second. S60 powers Nokia’s Multimedia Computers, a marketing term I loathe with every bone in my body, and Kamran just proved it to be false once again.

Windows XP will let me use any application I want for web browsing, any application I want for viewing txt files, any application for accessing [insert file type]. As open as S60 is, it is not modular enough. Number 3 on my list of 20 Nokia New Year’s Resolutions states:

S60 needs to become componentized
in order to offer the best experience for users. One shouldn’t need an
entire firmware upgrade just to upgrade the music player application,
or the web browser. The core of S60 should remain the core and all
other peripheral applications should be made into components; similar
to what Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) does with Windows XP embedded. I use Opera for Mobile
because I’ll never be able to use the web browser you have locked in to
S60v3FP1.

I want to take this concept even further. Symbian OS 9.5 brings us a SQL database, how can S60 use this to their advantage? Modularize everything!

If there is a developer out there who thinks that they can write a better PIM application than the one in S60 (shouldn’t be too hard, zing!) then why not store all the users data in this new SQL database and give them the API’s they need to write an application that will become the S60 default handler for those tasks?

I can tell Windows XP to play my MP3 files with Winamp and not with Windows Media Player.

I can tell Windows XP to view my JPG files with Irfanview and not with … whatever their image viewing application is.

Same concept can be said about the phone book application, if a developer out there thinks they can write a better phone book then why not let them replace the one in S60?

Store all the users data inside this SQL database and give developers the proper mechanisms to access and modify this data. Build applications that ship with the phone by default, but can easily be replaced if the user or operator so chooses.

I have Opera installed on my E61i because I can’t enjoy the features that the later version of the S60 browser brings. Opera on the other hand is just a sis file I can install whenever they come out with an update. The problem is Opera will never handle links sent to me in emails or text messages, S60 is not smart enough for that.

Thank you Kamran for opening up my eyes to yet another complaint I can relay to all my Nokia friends. I bet what you want will mean another code break.

At this point we had a lunch break and it was time to hit the expo hall. The first picture I took was of the latest S60 devices of course!

I was quick to make the observation that one of the products was mislabeled and they had the problem resolved in less than 5 seconds. The 5700 was the 3250 for only a few minutes

Here is the recently announced 6120 Classic:

Damn, left the flash on! I need to get a camera with image stabilization because I just end up getting blurry shots like this:

Here is a quick video running thru the dimensions of the device:

The E90, the very reason why men around the world will start donating plasma, selling sperm and getting a second job was on display:

For those who want to know, it was running this firmware:

Next up was Sysopendigia, the same people who are responsible for the Remote Device Access service that makes developers lives easer:

Forum Nokia was showing off the PC version of the Download! client that we all have on our phones. I wish I could have received more information, but the lines were so long I didn’t want to stand around aimlessly. If there is one complaint about the S60 Summit is that it isn’t long enough. Tying the speakers into a cramped schedule and then giving the audience less than 3 hours to view 60+ booths views results in utter chaos!

Who came up with the idea that lunch and drinks should be served in the expo hall too? It was complete madness and the room was poorly ventilated to handle all that traffic. Me and Michael from My-Symbian had to get out of there for some fresh air.

Back to the show, I got to stand next to the all powerful TI OMAP 3420. This little guy could boot S60 in 5 seconds. Yes, 5 bloody seconds!

Don’t believe me about that 5 second claim? Check out the video below; I apologize for the sideways angle, there was literally no room to stand at the booth so I just propped my N95 in front of the motherboard, hit record, and asked the guy if he could reboot. We seriously needed more showroom floor at the expo:

If the TI guys could do me favor, could you record S60 booting up in your labs? You certainly have a ton of people who care about this very topic. I doubt anyone at TI reads my blog, but I may as well ask

Next to TI was STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) showing off their Nomadik StN 8815 chip. The presenter got upset when I asked him what the cost of his chip was in comparison to the competition, I don’t know why:

All the reference board designers right next to each other, I wonder if they were friends or foes. Here is Samsung’s S3C6400:

The TI OMAP was running around 444 MHz, this Samsung chip was running at 533 MHz and the guy at STM looked pissed off at me so I didn’t bother asking him.

The future is clear however, video will be a huge reason why the processing power of our devices will increase. Everyone was showing off VC1 and h.264 encoded videos playing at 720p! The processing power is there, but what about LCD manufactures? We definitely need more DPI!

Coffee break is over, time to go back to the speakers!

I felt really bad for Chengmin Liu (link to full PDF presentation) of Tencent. I lived in NYC for a decade so broken English is nothing new to me. This guy however … not a single word made sense. The company is worth over $6 Billion USD and if it wasn’t for the powerpoint slides I would have no clue what they do: Tencent created QQ, one of the most popular IM clients in China:

Shaun Collins of CCS Insights was next, link to full PDF of presentation:

He did a great job of explaining where we have come from in the mobile industry and the steps operators need to take to succeed in the future. His entire speech could be summed up in this one amusing slide:

In order for operators to win they need to create compelling services, deliver a lot of bandwidth, make things cheap and most importantly gain the customers trust.

Easier said than done, but it’s good that someone was there to deliver this message to the operators attending.

Next up (link to presentation) was someone who I’ve been eager to see since having a round of drinks with him at the NYC Evening with S60 event, ladies and gentlemen I present to you Mikko Röntynen:

His job was to tell people how FP2 is enabling S60 to be embraced by the masses with easier features such as the unified messaging client, third soft key and the fact that it requires less horsepower to run which in turn allows cheaper devices to be made. His talk was obviously targeted to executives, but don’t be fooled! He gave a demo of FP2 in NYC that resulted in a massive crowd circling around him and asking questions every 5 seconds. Mikko is pure geek, pure Finn and metal as hell. He even let me use his FP2 running 6290 at the NYC after party, shame I didn’t run into him at the fiesta.

After he was finished it was time for lunch, but before going their Eldar wanted to show me this really slick Samsung device. The built in "mega search" application was much more impressive than Nokia’s search solution:

While eating lunch Ganesh took the stage and gave a presentation about widgets. The best part was when he built one right in front of our eyes! I don’t know how successful widgets on the mobile will be in the future, but after this talk I was definitely rooting for them. He made a very valid point that AJAX, Java script and HTML are much easier than Symbian.c++ and that the second phase of widgets will interface with the S60 API’s:

After lunch was finished we were split up into groups and given guided tours around the S60 exhibition halls. It was nice to skip the lines and get a group of people working together to ask someone a question. I know some people think "group think" is a bad idea, but that is only true when the people participating are poor listeners. Questions are equally important, if not more so, than the answers. Rafe or Matthew could have asked something that I would have never thought of bringing up and in turn it would cause me to build on top of their inquires.

Ganesh (Head of Marketing for the S60 Browser) was leading my group so don’t worry folks, I reminded him several times that the web browser needs to be ripped out of the OS and made into a separate SIS file so we can all enjoy the fine work the browser team has put into one of the best mobile browsers on the planet.

After our tour was over there were two three more speeches to be heard, I didn’t take proper notes or pictures of the "New Services Enabling New Revenues" by Doug Ortega of Handango presentation nor the "Location-based Service Mash-ups Using Maps" by Michael Halbherr of Nokia, but I can do my best from memory:

The Handango presentation was hands down the funniest due to a disgruntled person during the Q&A session who was quite pissed off about the fact that "you guys lump everything written on top of Symbian into one category called … Symbian." He then added: "How do you feel about the fact that you sell applications that will simply not work to customers?"

My whole row was nearly in tears and trying to cover it up.

Michael, the next presenter, mentioned Nokia’s effort into becoming the leader of GPS based services. I can tell you this right now, the $300 Samsung devices that my fellow employees sell for Helio have GPS that takes less than 15 seconds to lock on. Does it use A-GPS? Probably. We use a custom version of Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Maps that interfaces with the GPS chip built in. That is the sole feature in those phones that makes me wonder why Nokia couldn’t have built something a little more competent than the 2 minute lock on solution that is the N95.

The last speech (link to full presentation) was given by Nokia employee Heikki Norta. He highlighted where Nokia is going with S60 and which devices will be the main drivers of growth for the operating system:

He indirectly said that Nokia Mobile Phones division, also known as the people who make S60 devices that are not apart of the E or N series, would come out with 8 phones next year.

In 2008 Nokia wants to make GPS mainstream and in 2009 television in your hand. These are some pretty hard goals to achieve, but if anyone can do it, it has got to be Nokia!

After the speeches ended Nokia gave away a N95 and everyone pretty much retired to their hotel rooms after a long and exhausting day.

A few hours later we had our last dinner together: Matthew and his wife, Rafe, Michael, Phil, Sara (recently joined the S60 Online Marketing Team; congrats!) and I had an epic meal and conversation. Half of our party couldn’t take being awake any longer but Phil, Michael, Sara and I stayed awake until 04:30.

Waking up three hours later to catch a cab to the airport was probably the most challenging task I was given at the S60 summit, luckily I caught my plane and now I’m sitting here wondering what new devices I’m going to be seeing in the future.

Thank you Nokia for inviting me and paying for the hotel and airfare.