It's been known that the first iterations of the Symbian Foundation's platform releases are basically going to amount to
S60 5th Edition Feature Packs, but what comes after that?
TamsS60 recently had a chat with David Wood -- who has the rather fantastical-sounding title of "Catalyst and Futurist" at the Foundation -- and he's managed to set the record straight about how S60 as we know it will be phased out over the next few years to make way for a new (well, mostly new) development stack. Most notably, UI toolkit Qt will replace S60's legacy Avkon API around Symbian^4, which is expected to solidify in the latter half of 2010; this means that most current S60 applications will break except for low-level things that aren't using Avkon UI elements. That's a big deal and a bit of an issue considering the huge installed based of S60 users and apps -- but just like tearing off a bandage, it's gotta be done quickly and correctly for the health of the platform going forward.
posted Aug 4th 2009 10:36PM
What does this mean for new buyers of S60 phones? Future apps will not work on my phone? I already seem to run into that. The apps I want to use are available for the other major smartphone operating systems, but not for S60.
I suppose by the time this happens I'll have purchased one or two new phones to replace my current lineup.
I think it's important to note that while s60v3 apps will load on s60v5, it's pretty much useless because buttons are either non-existant (i8910 or 5800) or they are placed in different locations entirely (N97).
My i8910 seriously needs a much better UI and web browser.
hearing good things bout the development. though saddened my long time apps will no longer work. i only hope joiku spot will be available soon after these iterations. its one i simply cant live without it.
Don't worry, Symbian and Nokia will bounce back with this OS. Also, there are many enthusiastic developers out there, who will develop applications for the new OS as well as the current OS.
Those who think there are not many apps for S60v5, then i guess, you are wrong. There are hundreds of apps made
for S60v5, which ofcourse many of them are also available for S60v3.
But S60v5 has more apps than Palm Pre and may be android i guess. There is no point in having large quantity and less quality apps, like Apple app store.
I imagine they could include some sort of compatability mode or emulator for the older apps. Honestly by that stage I think we'll be thinking "good riddance" to many of them.
The headline could also be
"Symbian to receive a complete UI overhaul and new application suite in Symbian^4"
I personally find this aspect much more interesting than than the break of compatibility with previous versions. The new QT UI will be designed from ground up for touchscreen and hybrid devices. Open-sourcing of the OS, the new UI and better tools for application developers are exactly what Symbian needs and I'm glad they have noticed this. It's time to drop a decade of legacy and move on..
But there are some apps, I absolutely can't do without. Of course, these developers will come out with upgrades compatible to symbian^4, right? So if I have my license today, it should be upgraded as well.
I think paid apps will be upgraded and I will not miss out on my profimail, handy taskman, joikuspot premium, IM+ and gravity. My must haves
Since this will be a whole new OS, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that the 3rd parties will feel obliged to upgrade the licenses. If that happens, it will definitely not be for free.
My view on that is that a lot of those apps are required because S60's own interface is so outmoded. If there wasn't Handy Shell and a few other apps, I'd have sold my E71 long time ago. All these apps are so nice only to the extent that the OS is so clumsy to use without them. If Symbian manages to craft a decent user experience, these apps won't be needed. In fact, this will be the success criteria for Symbian^4 -- how many 3rd party apps are needed to provide a most basically acceptable user experience.
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