Michael Hsu: Nokia Taiwan: Symbian 2 is garbage, we're going straight to Symbian 3

Digitimes doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to rumours, so take this with a grain of salt, but they say that they’ve spoken to Michael Hsu, General Manager of Nokia Taiwan, and have learned that Nokia isn’t going to make any Symbian 2 handsets and instead is going to jump straight to Symbian 3. For those unfamiliar with how Symbian development works, there are 5 versions of the operating system being built at the same time. I shit you not. One is getting bug fixes since it’s already out on the market, the other is getting polished because it’s soon going to be released to market, one is in alpha testing, and I can’t remember the last two, it’s that much of a pain in the ass.

Nokia obviously wants to catch up to Apple, so they’re jumping a version and going straight to Symbian 3. What does that mean for you? Well you’re probably going to be buying a handset that will cause you to pull your hair out since it’s going to have more bugs than Windows ME, but at least you’ll be using the latest technology! No, in all seriousness we don’t know what this will mean until the second half of 2010. According to the Symbian 3 developer page, features of the new OS include:

Multiple home screens, each supporting widgets; basically a clone of Android and Maemo 5
2D and 3D accelerated graphics; why do you think the iPhone is so smooth?
Totally rewritten networking architecture; Symbian devices already have some of the best call handling and data connectivity, so I’m curious to see what this will do
Support for HDMI out and support for files over 2 GB in size
Support for multicore processors
Multitouch support

Sources have also told Digitimes that in 2011 Nokia’s portfolio will be 55% Symbian powered, 35% S40 powered and 10% Maemo powered. That’s only a year away, so expect to see American media continue to continue to ignore Symbian’s growing market share because to them a “smart phone” is a device that is running either iPhone OS or is a BlackBerry.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

Brendan

Your headline is garbage Stefan – many Symbian^2 features have been backported into S60 5th edition devices through firmware updates (kinetic scrolling for example) so I’m sure the Nokia man has been taken out of context.

You also missed a very tasty feature from Symbian^3 (and yes, other platforms do have something similar), which is Writable Data Paging. It’s like virtual memory, but better suited to mobile devices using flash file systems (which wear down with each access). There should be fewer issues with out of memory errors from now on.
dd

I have a theory how Nokia can conquer the US. They just have to launch them under a brand that reminds the Americans about food. I wonder how something unhealthy would do if even apples and blackberries sell that well.
Brendan

Well the Droid is based on Eclair, and that did okay

Next stop, the Nokia ChiliDog
Stefan Constantinescu

Symbian Foundation employee doesn’t like headline mocking Symbian. Shock of the century.

But in all seriousness, while data paging is a brilliant feature, it’s just so Nokia can continue penny pinching and continue to put half, or in some cases a quarter, of the amount of RAM that everyone else is putting in their smartphones.
mirmit

Symbian^2 was more or less targeting keypad usage over Symbian^1 – i.e. migrating from lastest version touchscreen based to a platform suitable for a ITU 12 keys keypad. Symbian^3 should bring the best of both world (screen and key) to allow a refresh of part of the range.
Brendan

Well, while I’m not required to like your headline, that’s not why I commented. If in fact the Nokia exec did say that they were ‘skipping’ Symbian^2 then that’s surprising, because they certainly contributed a lot of code for it.

Also, I suspect you may be right about Nokia’s intended usage for data paging. I think a large portion of the negative views towards Symbian would be countered if Nokia would be slightly less stingy with the hardware specs these days. That doesn’t mean that the feature itself won’t provide benefits.
Stefan Constantinescu

“they certainly contributed a lot of code”

Nokia writes practically all of Symbian. The Symbian Foundation is just a new marketing campaign to get others to hopefully contribute code, and to make Symbian look fresh again in the eyes of consumers, developers, and partners in the ecosystem.

They do package management too, but that’s not saying much.
Brendan

Hmmm, probably should have wrapped that in sarcasm…

It is saying much that Symbian do package management, as you put it, because a lot of fine people work their asses off doing it.

Obviously next to all of the code comes from Nokia to start with, but that’s changing. There are already several new packages with non-Nokia package owners lined up, as well as some that have been handed off by Nokia to others.
Andre

I’ve spoken to symbian employees myself and there are a number of weblogs mentioning the same nokia executive saying the same things. Unfortunately the symbian foundation realeased to the manufacturers and they have a choice of which features they wish to implement. The V20 update that the nokia n97 received late last year contained a great deal of elements from the symbian^2 release from that august. It should also be noted that symbian^3 is slated for a Q1 date of completion.
Stefan Constantinescu

Does a list of the non Nokia contributed packages exist somewhere? I’d be more than happy to see it.

As you said above: “next to all of the code comes from Nokia to start with”
Damien Ward

I agree that in then US its not a smartphone unless its a blackberry or an apple. I live in Minneapolis, and nobody here understands my love for nokia and symbian. I wish the US would give nokia and symbian the proper respect they deserve, in my opinion.
robarino

I have a NOKIA 5800. Aside from the atrocious build quality there is the atrocious Symbian operating system. I don´t live in American and I wish I had bought an Iphone. All my friends did and their screens don´t look like cutting boards, their camera (though lower resolution) seems to take better pics, and they are not bogged down by the big heaping pile of OS called SYMBIAN. I would NEVER EVER EVER EVER buy a phone with Symbian again.

No wait tell me how you really feel?

Let me say this I have been tempted to replace my phone with random dog droppings I see on the sidewalk. SYMBIAN IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE THE WORST OS. The only reason any American would think it was cool was because their friends don´t have it and they somehow think if their friends don’t = they are cool.

My två kronor!

Rob i Sundsvall….