Confused by Nokia's dual-platform,
Maemo 5 and
S60 5th Edition smartphone choices? You're not alone. Fortunately, things are starting to become a bit more clear thanks to some loose-lipped members of Maemo's marketing team attending an official
N900 meet-up in London last night. According to
The Really Mobile Project, Nokia will drop S60 from all of its flagship N-series consumer devices in favor of Maemo. Apparently, Nokia has been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic response to the N900 OS even though the enthusiast package is not quite ready for mass-market appeal. Mind you, the transition won't be instantaneous as anyone with an N900 (and a clear mind) can attest -- the OS, services, and apps just can't compare to the mature S60 platform regardless of Maemo 5's superior user experience. As such, we'll continue to see N-Series handsets already in development pop with S60 on board alongside mass-market Maemo devices as
the platform matures to the point that Nokia can make the full switch by 2012. Assuming, of course, Nokia doesn't end up
adding webOS to its portfolio somewhere along the way.
Update: The
Nokia Blog has what it claims is an
official response from Nokia on this delicate matter. As you'd expect, Nokia says it remains "firmly committed to Symbian as our smartphone platform of choice." It then added this little gem: "Maemo is our software of choice for devices based on technology that you'd typically find inside a desktop computer. It delivers a different user experience and enables us to widen the market we can address." Perhaps you're even reading this on an ARM Cortex-A8 desktop PC right now?
[Thanks, Sockatume]
posted November 18th 2009 5:22AM
wow , I just gave the tip and refreshed the page.. its already post.. :(
I'm not sure if the author got the message right. They are abonding S60 of course, but it's not the same thing as Symbian Foundation OS. S60 is Nokias own version of Symbian. It has been speculated that Nokia would keep S60 alive, but seems not. It has already been hinted many times from Nokia that Symbian Foundation OS will be new mid end platform and Maemo the new high end.
I can assure you that Symbian will keep going, but in a form of Symbian^2, Symbian^3 and Symbian^4. While we can all agree that Symbian is far from it's glory days it still did put Nokias smartphone market share back to 40% and rised average smartphone price by 4% last quarter.
I know how Symbian might look with it's market share in USA, BUT they will not kill a platform that will still have at least 15% market share in 2010 and is just getting to the very important strategic point where Maemo 6 and Symbian^4 will share their app base because they both are fully Qt based.
Pdexter, At no point do we even mention Symbian -- Thomas
To elaborate further: Nokia will transition Maemo to its high end N series devices. Symbian will be retained for E and X series devices although S60 will be revamped.
Kind of like we all knew already.
interesting
the transition will complete on 21st December 2012 ;)
can't wait until maemo matures a bit. with nokia's hardware this could be very promising ....
what does Nokia have that keeps them at #1?
My last Nokia was 6360 and 8290 and I loved it, but ever since Samsung came out with the S105 color screen there was no going back.
nonetheless, I've peeked at Nokia section continuously hoping to catch a top-quality phone but all I've seen was complete garbage. Fact that I'm now on vzw and not GSM could be a reason, still, Nokia phones have always been underpowered than competitors and their quality has been slipping off...
I hope they drop the S and go with google. Open source will garnish more power as more companies jump in.
Q - what does Nokia have that keeps them at #1?
A - A massive fan base that any company would kill to have.
Q: what keeps Nokia at the top of the pack?
A: awareness of markets outside the fucking US.
The N series offers A LOT of features for the money. You can get a Nokia smartphone with pretty much everything in terms of features for like 150€ with a cheap contract. Beat that.
Sure, they are also a known brand and that helps them sell more, even tho the quality/price might not always be the best. (Kinda like Logitech for mice..)
Massive market penetration in the world's two most populous countries - 59% in India, 37% in China.
@larc: "Fact that I'm now on vzw and not GSM could be a reason," -- well, yes, that would have something to do with it, because at least some of the Nokia phones on Verizon are actually rebrands of crapware from companies like LG.
Great News !!!
Well I think Engadget after this platform has matured you should do a review of Apple, RIM, Maemo, Pre, Android (current version) and any other major platform and point out flexibilty, future proofness, developer platform, user experience, speed and flow, common aspects(GPS, Video/Media handeling. You may have already done this but I think a yearly or bi-yearly post would greatly keep it all in perspective :)
Just a thought
Cheerio
I read something similar on Nokia maemo web site yesterday that Nokia will soon offer N-Series users the choice of OS when updating using NSU and I thought it's a very good idea.
S60 is a great platform and I wish Nokia spends a little more time developing it to compete with other OS in the market.
Next-gen apps shouldn't be a problem.
Nokia developers would shortly switch to qt, which means that they can develop one single app and deploy it to both S60 and Maemo simultaneously. Let's hope that Nokia improves the Ovi store to provide a user experience on par with the competition.
"Confused by Nokia's dual-platform, Maemo 5 and S60 5th Edition smartphone choices?"
No. I don't think anyone with an IQ higher than that of a gerbil really is.
I'm sorry I forgot to divide it into paragraphs but I got a little too excited bragging about all the 1337 shit I do with my phone and was afraid to take up an entire page if I did divided it. :P
I didn't even mention turning your phone into a media server with DLNA or UPNP since the E71 doesnt support it but u can stream your data from most N series devices to your ps3 wirelessly, hook up bluetooth game controls or hook it up directly to the t.v and get a wireless keyboard and use it just like a computer. etc... Also the fact that Nokia makes it's own hardware and software is a plus which means there will be that software hardware "synergy" apple brags so much about in their computers. I'm no apple hater I have an iMac but even though Apple makes their own phone I don't like all that proprietary lock down crap. I like my regular usb cable that just about every other device I have uses and if I pay frickin $500 for a phone I expect to be able to do whatever the hell I want with it and anybody to be able to develop for it instead of stifling innovation and competition. Don't even get me started on what you can do with the software Nokia phones come with to install on the computer.
Oh crap wrong thread..... /facepalm
This makes sense to you?
This is the *official response* from Nokia’s corporate communications,
“While it is our policy not to disclose details of our product roadmap, we’d like to explicitly communicate that we remain firmly committed to Symbian as our smartphone platform of choice. Any speculation on what our 2012 roadmap, including operating systems and product branding, are completely premature.
As we have stated earlier, Nokia has multiple platforms to serve different purposes and address different markets. Symbian is more successful than ever in bringing smartphones to the masses. Maemo is our software of choice for devices based on technology that you’d typically find inside a desktop computer. It delivers a different user experience and enables us to widen the market we can address.”
http://thenokiablog.com/2009/11/18/nokias-response-dropping-symbian-nseries-2012/
Since when is the ARM Cortex-A8 found in desktop computers?
The only reason that Nokia is still number one is because the sheer number of new models of phones that they crap out on a regular basis saturate the market. I've had no less than 4 S60 devices and everyone has had not enough RAM, terrible battery life, software that feels like it's from 2005 and general all round poor usability and stability. Keep in mind that I didn't really install any new software on my S60 phones (because let's face it, who really wants to play games/surf the web/chat on a screen that small?) so that can't be blamed for the slowness/stability issues.
The best thing that they can do is move to Maemo, S60 should have been abandoned the day after the iPhone's announcement.
cool story bro !
One might even say it's a super cool story, bro!
Tranlation: I'm an iPhone fanboy whose last S60 device was released in 2004.
Clearly nothing has changed over five years and three and a half versions, and as such, cannot hope compete with a modern OS.
Translation: I'm a S60 user who was using S60 phones up until last December when I bought an iPhone because it blows everything Nokia can even conceive, let alone produce, out of the water.
I don't "get" Nokia fan boys, can someone please explain to me what there is to like about Nokia phones over say Android devices, the Palm Pre or yes, the iPhone?
"The best thing that they can do is move to Maemo, S60 should have been abandoned the day after the iPhone's announcement."
Because that solves the lack of RAM, poor battery life and small screen how? If anything, moving to Maemo makes all those problems *worse*.
It's kinda sad to see fanboys for a stupid phone brand. (Either Nokia or something else.)
I own a Nokia right now, but I will still admit that it fails in some aspects and it really seems Nokia didn't put enough care in making it. But it still has more value for me than an iPhone, for example, because I want specific features and I want a phone with a decent camera and music playback more than a gaming/app device. YMMV, of course.
S60 is not a bad OS for a non-touchscreen phone. But the app delivery could be better, much better. Apple is exemplary on this (save for the apps that they don't allow) and Nokia -and others- got that and now we have Ovi Store and whatnot.
@ Tres things I have been doing with my E71 for over a year now:
playing gba at full speed while downloading a torrent, downloading an mp3 through the Gnutella network, browsing the web, and playing back music. If some1 steals my phone I can track them via gps and get it back, once a new sim is popped in I get a text automatically to any number of my choice so I can track down who has my phone, I can record phone conversations as long as my memory card can hold and upload them automatically to the internet or send them via bluetooth,mms, email. Perfect for customer service calls in case they try to screw you) when I walk into my room all my contacts get synced automatically with my imac wirelessly, when I leave my house the computer goes to sleep, VPN support, I control my computer mouse and keyboard with my phone, control vlc, presentations, itunes playlist on it etc.... I have dropped it a million times and even showered with it at the beach (long story) still runs like a champ. The Gui is wicked fast except it doesnt do well with the media Gallery but i prefer the file manager, transfer my files via wifi instead of bluetooth or usb with my computer, I turn my phone into a wifi hotspot instead of dealing with that messy tethering stuff, I sync my calendar, contacts, notes, address book to OVI.com through my 3G connection complete with picture thumbnails I have assigned to my contacts for free, fresh out the box it has subtle things like a notes application, dictionary supporting multiple languages and translator, settings wizard, help app teaching u how to do just about anything on the phone, built in free REAL GPS that doesnt need data, and unit/currency converter etc... you can tell Nokia puts great attention to detail in their products, I get 10gb of free online storage at OVI.com to share my files while on the go with my iMac or I can acccess my computer's files through anything with a web browser in any OS. It has a backup feature that I can use to backup my phone settings, software, and data into my memory card directly through the phone gui without a p.c, memory card encryption, took highest capacity SDHC cards, I played metal gear solid and quake on it, I save my webpages for offline viewing with the default browser that also shows the web in its full glory, little details like seeing your browsing history in thumbnails and when i enter a form in a program or website I can just enter letters and it will show the results instead of me having to scroll through everything, a "mini map" when you are zoomed out of a website, the default gui is ugly but it is entirely customizable with very nice themes that alter the icons, wallpaper and color scheme, you can create your own menu by moving around the icons and deleting and making folders, text to speech and voice commands fresh out of the box, video ringtones, "3d tones", MMS, to do list, push to talk, a single search app that scowers your entire phone and the internet, edit powerpoint,excel,word, an app called activenotes that comes stock allowing me create notes using text,audio,video and pictures and like all other files on it I have options of sending via mms, bluetooth, or email. I control my home theater with it, Installing and uninstalling apps is a breeze even easier than any desktop OS, there is a huge amount of apps out there for just about everything but there is no dedicated apps store with all of them, my phone isn't crippled so I can use bluetooth, wifi, file sharing and all kinds of files to my heart's content (mp3's), it supported bluetooth wireless headphones when that was rare, ambient light sensor for auto adjusting brightness and backlight on keys, I hook up my apple wireless keyboard to it to take notes in class, Nokia sports tracker to track my jogging, there's a complete money management suite, native VOIP SIP support so I can make calls without needing a third party app like skype over wifi, Nimbuzz for all my chatting needs, very detailed phone book, I print over wifi without needing a computer, when i buy any other S60 device it has a feature to transfer all my settings to the new phone with a migration feature, I have only touched the tip of the iceberg this phone can do so much and I have yet to need to do a full factory reset in over a year of ownership. I'm a power user and run many apps at once and have yet to notice any lag or crashing or hanging. This is only the tip of the iceberg... now alot of this may not seem so "wow" now but much of this has been done on s60 before the iphone or android and much of it on stock factory OS without additional software. Multi tasking is crazy on this thing too. I just wish it had a bigger screen but that's why I'm getting the N900. Some of these things Maemo can't do yet but knowing linux there will be support for everything by next year.
Someone's Enter key is broken.
Spot on, Ibelike. That's my ONLY gripe with Nokia (and WinMo). You gotta venture out into the internet and look under every rock for an app. But when you find that app, you're more than guaranteed to love it.
And Shaka, PARAGRAPHS! I got slapped in the face with your wall of text and it hurts!! =(. But hey man, I definitely get your point. There's a lot of things that S60 could do that nobody knew about. When you found those applications, your device would be just as comparable or maybe better than the iPhone. It's just that the one advantage the iPhone has over everyone is the App Store.
The iPhone makes finding a needle in a haystack easier: by blowing up the haystack. The App Store brings everything you'd ever need to the forefront, and you don't ever have to search. The sad thing is that fanboys then proceed to say Symbian has "only 20 apps lololol", when really if you look, gather all the apps up and put them in one place, you'll be amazed on how much the gap is closed between the number of apps the iPhone has.
Despite the wall of barely legible text no one has managed to describe why anyone would choose a Symbian device over an iPhone, Android device or a WebOS device. All three platforms are superior to S60 in every way.
I love my iPhone but I'm open to those other two platforms and I would probably go for one of them if I stopped liking my iPhone.
"can someone please explain to me what there is to like about Nokia phones over say Android devices, the Palm Pre or yes, the iPhone?"
1. You don't have to build your Nokia phone by buying 3rd party applications, functions you need arte already shipped within the device. Any 3rd party application you install creates a new usage dimension for the phone or offers an improvement over what is existing, they don't fill the gaps which are left conciously.
2. Hardware is mostly (except some latest devices, I'm not blind trust me) superior compared to rivals. That's why with Nokia you don't buy software (as you do with Apple), you buy hardware (and software created by Nokia is either free or already bundled) That's why others offer free OS upgrades but Nokia doesn't, keep that in mind.
Enough?
"Despite the wall of barely legible text no one has managed to describe why anyone would choose a Symbian device over an iPhone, Android device or a WebOS device."
LOL! What do you want? TWO explanations? GTFO.
@Tres: Maybe you're just trolling, but I'll reply anyway.
Maybe the iPhone/Android/Palm OSs are all better than Symbian. Maybe. I won't even argue that with you, let's just assume -to keep it simple- that they are. What you seem to have missed is, that there's still the HARDWARE part to a phone. The iPhone OS might be amazing, but if I don't like the iPhone hardware specs I won't take it. Then there's also the price, the integration with the PC/TV/other devices and so on... it's not just the OS.
No news.
N900 == flagship device.
Maemo for high end, Symbian for everything else. That's something that in the Maemo roadmap for like an year, at least.
Good news indeed!
Engadget confuses me sometimes. If the phone has s60 "OMFGWTFBBQ it R s0 h@rd 2 uze nd outdaterd". If it has Maemo "It R pretty but OMFGWTF M8T it can't haz mainstream iPhone pplz, 2 much quirkz". SO judging by this, you guys probably think they should buy Palm or something and use web OS until Memo is ready for the "masses"? Personally, I prefer advanced functionality, control and rock solid stability over an over the top Gui.
Thank Goodness. That Symbian interface was a pile of crap. Its time to move on! Now, perhaps an app emulator can be created for Maemo to run those lousy apps to make the people happy who still have those asshole devices.
LOL.
Yeah, I know!
Read the article again.
FINALLY!!! WOHO!
You got it ALL wrong engadget.
Or at least you make it sound like you don't understand what's going on and you misslead people.
Nokia abandons S60, not Symbian. The Symbian Foundation will realease a brand new open-source version of Symbian (a Symbian 2.0 if you will) and nokia is 100% behind that !
Um, please explain how we get this wrong since we don't mention "Symbian" once in the article -- Thomas
Whenever I hear the word "Maemo", I hear Chief Wiggum singing.
Me ma my mo
Mo ma my mee.
The year of the Linux deskt.... errr device is near.
S60 is amazing OS for devices with keyboard than touch screens.
heck even on E series devices...
As long as I can install the new stuff on my old 5800 I don't care, be it S60v6, Symbian^2, or whatever. >_>
"the OS, services, and apps just can't compare to the mature S60 platform regardless of Maemo 5's superior user experience"
Blabladibla? The thing that is so vastly superior, it's the Maemo OS!
Less apps (of course, device out right now), but Flash and real browser.
Just a stupid question.
How did you make the "MEAMO 5" 3D Typography?
I tried it in Blender but I fail at "obscuring" the background/world so everything looks blue instead of giving off and reflecting a nice glass/metal effect.