Submitted by “From time to time over the last few months, I’ve heard an argument along the following lines, often from people who should know better. ‘Operating systems are commodities. There’s no special value in them. Operating system A may have a small technical advantage in one area, and operating system B may have a small technical advantage in another area, but there’s little to choose between them.’ But there are many, many things wrong this argument.”
That is certainly right on the money. As a developer
I am irritated that after knowing Linux and QT I am not able to write a niche application on any of these phones.
Does anybody know of a phone I can write application for with Linux+QT skills.
Ramana
OS vendor claims that OSes matter, and bashes the competition while he’s at it. Film at 11.
Symbian+UIQ is a really nice OS; they must be feeling threatened if they’re stooping to trash Linux.
It might have been nice if you had noted that this article is hosted on the Symbian site.
This piece is, by and large, a lot of hot air. Let’s look at some of his arguments.
1) He claims that Linux and Windows are designed for desktop computers, whereas Symbian is designed for phones.
Response: Windows Mobile is a phone-targeted OS that started out as a PDA platform (Windows CE), then underwent a major facelift in order to target phones. Hmm… this story begins to sound familiar… because it is exactly the same as Symbian’s story! Symbian began as a PDA OS (developed by Psion and called EPOC), and was then turned into a phone OS. Admittedly, Symbian’s been in the smartphone OS market for more years, but it’s a somewhat moot point since smartphones have only just begun hitting mainstream price points and moving beyond niche roles in enterprise settings…
Meanwhile, Linux has been used in embedded devices for a long time, and has already proven itself capable of working on PDAs, phones and other low-powered devices. Just because the forms it takes today are fragmented does not mean it is unsuitable in the long-run; consolidation will probably happen over time. Also, the diversity of solutions based off Linux today means the phone manufacturer can probably find one that they can license for cheaper than Symbian’s solution.
2) The APIs used in Linux phones are not actually open standards.
Response: Last time I checked (correct me if I’m wrong), neither was Symbian’s API. Last I heard if you wanted to publish an app for Symbian you had to pay them to “certify” it and give you a unique software identifier (“UID”) that allowed other people to run it. Compare this to Nokia’s Maemo project, Trolltech’s Qtopia, or Sharp’s OpenZaurus, all of which allow third-party apps to be developed and distributed for free. Admittedly, I don’t think any of these have been put on phones yet, but I’d be surprised if at least one of them didn’t make it onto a phone in the near future.
On the other hand, Windows Mobile lets developers distribute apps without getting them certified, except they first have to pay for the development tools. But you know what, that STILL sounds more “open” to me than Symbian’s solution.
2) The quality of Linux software is variable.
Response: This is true, but the fact that anyone can develop Linux software for free, without buying an SDK and getting certification from the OS manufacturer, means that more applications are likely to be developed overall. As the desktop Linux ecosystem has shown, diversity of free software often results in one best-of-breed app coming out on top, effectively establishing an optimal “de facto” standard that is continually being improved upon.
Also, I’d argue that MORE eyeballs end up inspecting open-source software than proprietary software, especially when the proprietary software’s “quality certification” is determined by who has the money to pay for it rather than how many people have actually tested it.
Ultimately, this is a debate about who gets to have control over what apps are created for and run on the phone: the user, or the phone manufacturer. Which would you prefer?
3) Linux doesn’t make it as easy for the network manufacturers to dictate what color schemes and other customizable components the phone can be branded with.
Response: Again, would you rather THEY control these things, or YOU?
………………………………………………
That basically sums up what he says in the article; the rest of it is largely redundant. He concludes by saying that Symbian has more experience in the phone market, so they should be the choice.
Response: The market will decide. Experience means jack squat if you’re sitting on your product without innovating while everyone around you has moved on. Symbian’s lack of openness will ultimately be its downfall.
>Response: Last time I checked (correct me if I’m wrong), neither was Symbian’s API. Last I heard if you wanted to publish an app for Symbian you had to pay them to “certify” it and give you a unique software identifier (“UID”) that allowed other people to run it.
False. No Symbian phone has ever required programmers to go through such steps. Though the new Symbian 9.1 requires people to get certification if their program access files not belonging to the program or try to access bluetooth or sms/mms but yet anybody is allowed to programs which interact with user and download stuff off Internet.
Actually, according to this page:
https://www.symbiansigned.com/developerguidetoSymbianSigned.pdf
it costs $400 (330 Euro) for a 12-month VeriSign publisher ID, and then approx. 560 Euro ($680) for the certification. Those are the prices as of May 2004, so they may have gone up since then. And this page:
https://www.symbiansigned.com/app/page/process
confirms that this process is still the way they go about things. Apparently you can ask for a waiver for the second non-VeriSign part of the equation, but as far as I can tell there’s no guarantee of getting it, or being fully covered if you do.
Again, correct me if you know better, I’ve never actually gone through this process.
Hmm, this is interesting… from
https://www.symbiansigned.com/app/page/faq
“Q. Why has Symbian Signed appeared now?
A. Symbian began working on Symbian Signed in early 2003 in response to market requirements. Operators and phone manufacturers recognize the value open phones bring to the market and openness is an important aspect of Symbian OS. However, with openness comes responsibility. Operators and manufacturers have concerns that add-on software can lead to higher support costs, increased phone returns, unauthorized network billing and, at worst, malware. Application signing is something which is becoming a requirement from these industry leaders. Symbian has worked hard to ensure all major players have had input to the development of Symbian Signed in order to produce a best-in-breed program which satisfies their concerns whilst making it as easy and cost-effective as possible for developers to use.
…
Q. Do all Symbian OS applications need to go through Symbian Signed before they can be deployed to a phone?
A. Today, unsigned applications can also be installed on Symbian OS phones. However, some operators and distribution channels have indicated they will increasingly only distribute applications that have been Symbian Signed. As signing becomes easier and even more cost-effective, we expect that the market will move progressively to a model in which application signing is a normal part of the development process.
…
…
Q. Will Symbian Signed replace similar schemes from the phone manufacturers and operators?
A. This will depend on the individual company but we expect that many organizations will prefer to use a single Symbian program than to run parallel activities. Nokia and Sony Ericsson have both made statements indicating that from July 1, 2004, all new Symbian applications submitted for commercial distribution through their application shops will be required to have passed through Symbian Signed. As of January 1, 2005, all Symbian applications distributed through these consumer channels must be Symbian Signed. Orange also requires that applications are Symbian Signed. They will also be providing signed applications with preferential positioning on their portal.”
And from this page:
https://www.symbiansigned.com/How_has_Symbian_Signed_evolved_with_Sy…
“Around 60% of the APIs that are in Symbian OS don’t have any capabilities associated with them and are freely accessible to all applications – just as with earlier releases of Symbian OS. Applications using only these APIs can be deployed to a phone without signing (subject to the phone manufacturer’s implemented security policy). As previously, the user will see various install-time warnings.
…
The phone user may authorize programs with user-understandable capabilities; it is at the discretion of the phone manufacturer to which of these user-understandable capabilities this applies. This policy may vary between phone manufacturers, phones and also locales depending on the market requirements.”
So basically, if the operator or phone manufacturer decide not to let you run unsigned apps, you can’t, and this is becoming more and more the trend. Or even if they do let users run such apps, they’ll never tell their users that these apps exists. Plus the types of apps you can create without getting them signed is limited, and the user will get a warning that will probably make them not want to install it anyway.
So it turns out you’re right about non-commercial apps not needing certification, it’s just that very few people will be able to find or run such apps.
big mouth, small brain – when’s the last time he said or did anything that mattered?
And by the way, the certification process is free for non-commercial software.
See my response above
Again there are problems with editing…
If you don’t believe me, see page 7 of http://sw.nokia.com/id/f2aafba7-34bc-4764-95bc-c9c00b2c1314/Series_…‘s_New_for_Developers_v1_0.pdf
Ok. Here is a shorter link. I hope it works better. http://tinyurl.com/qcobj
Actually, if you look here:
https://www.symbiansigned.com/app/page/freeware
and
https://www.symbiansigned.com/app/page/freewareFaq
There is a process for getting a UID for non-commercial software for free.
The second link contains the following text:
Open source software is included and encouraged by this route to market – provided it is licensed under at least one widely-accepted open source licence such as GNU General Public License (GPL), and more importantly, no charge is made for the resulting application binary as outlined above.
That is a truly wonderful piece of news. It would be nice if it were easier to find, though.
Okay, actually it was a link right there on the main page of symbiansigned.com, and I missed it.
For independent shareware developers, though, $680 per application signed (plus the $400 annual fee) still seems like a steep price to pay. Even larger companies might balk at the per-application pricing model.
>For independent shareware developers, though, $680 per application signed (plus the $400 annual fee) still seems like a steep price to pay. Even larger companies might balk at the per-application pricing model.
1. No current phone requires certification to run programs.
2. The upcoming Symbian 9.1 phones only require certification for programs which try to access files not belonging to them or try to access bluetooth or other ways of communicating. Though internet works for non-signed programs too.
This page:
https://www.symbiansigned.com/app/page/uidfaq
states that the operator may prevent certain types of programs from accessing certain resources if they don’t have a Vendor ID (VID). Although this is not a problem if you buy the phone vanilla, it could potentially be used (and may already be in use) to prevent internet access from any program except those that the operator supplies. Depending on how far the operator wanted to take it, they might even be able to create custom SIS files with VIDs for all programs they offer, and prevent anything else from running. Many operators (Verizon especially comes to mind) have already set the precedent for severely crippling their phones.
Also, as I mentioned in my post above (the one with all the quotes in it), uncertified apps have a few other problems:
-No matter what the phone is, it will pop up a warning notification when you try to install an uncertified program, which could deter the user.
-Sony Ericsson and Nokia have both stated that they will not list unsigned apps in their software shops.
-Operators are likely to take their cues from the manufacturers, so they’re not likely to list or support unsigned apps, either. For instance, “Orange…requires that applications are Symbian Signed. They will also be providing signed applications with preferential positioning on their portal.” That’s a pretty vague set of statements, but you basically get the picture that they don’t like unsigned apps.
Given the amount of work Symbian, Nokia and Sony Ericsson are doing to direct end users away from unsigned apps and toward signed ones, shareware developers may have no choice but to get their apps signed or face irrelevance. Unless of course some independent repository of unsigned Symbian shareware pops up and becomes popular overnight.
They are more likely to keeps things “simple” with Symbian. Otherwise every phone will have same features, there will be no point in buying expensive model if it has same features as inexpensive ones. Besides they don’t want VoIP or chat tools to become dominant way to comunicate, it will kill their earnings, much like “static” VoIP did cut into expensive phone calls. Next step is to cut into overpriced mobile call prices and operators are prepared to do everything possible to prevent it.
Yeah whatever. The only reason Symbian is still around is because Nokia picked it. Let’s break down the Symbian market shall we?
1. Nokia. Biggest user of Symbian by far, if it weren’t for Nokia there’d be no Symbian. In fact you might argue that Symbian is Nokia’s operating system and that S60 is the de-facto platform on it.
2. DoCoMoNTT. FOMA phones using Symbian are available from different manufacturers but these are CLOSED phones. MoApp, the FOMA Symbian platform, is a closed platform and couldn’t really be considered part of the Symbian ecosystem.
3. SonyEricsson. SonyEricsson’s UIQ platform is actually developed by a Symbian affiliate called UIQ. It’s now only used by SonyEricsson on their higher end phones which are selling in small quantities. It is not compatible with S60 in except the most basic of functionality, akin to what Linux provides for you too…
4. Samsung. Samsung has made a whopping three Symbian S60 phones, not exactly a firm commitment.
As you can see S60 and Nokia is the de-facto Symbian market which more or less exactly the reason why other manufacturers aren’t very interested in investing in Symbian. It is seen as NOS part deux. And it is silly that Symbian doesn’t provide their own user interface and application stack to use on a cellphone. Symbian doesn’t provide that complete application stack the opinion piece goes on about, for that you either need to go to Nokia or UIQ.
This is just propaganda and I suspect Symbian will soon start to feel the squeeze as more manufacturers start to bail. I mean look at the trend, they started out with Panasonic, Nokia, SE, Samsung, Motorola, FOMA and Siemens. Panasonic, Motorola and Siemens have dropped. BenQ made one phone and has gone to WinMo, Lenovo has gone to Linux. Of all these manufacturers only Nokia, FOMA and SE has any firm commitment to Symbian.