Elop: No to Fragmentation, Yes to Nokia Maps on more devices!
The people over at pocket-lint.com had a chance to interview S. Elop during CES ; although the full interview is up yet here are a couple of interesting points:
1- ‘Nokia Maps’ will accompany ‘Bing Maps’ on all devices, not just WP devices.
“You’ll starting seeing the word ‘Nokia’ on a map that you get from Microsoft properties over a period of time,”
“Even if you are on a BlackBerry device, who recently said they were going to start using Bing Maps.”
According to Mr. Elop this was part of their initial agreement with Microsoft, a way to make their agreement more two-way than only one-sided; basically all and any device/OS that will run Bing Maps will also have ‘Nokia Maps’ branded onto the maps app, including RIM/Blackberry who will start using Bing Maps soon. It’s no secret that Nokia maps are quite superior when it comes to location related services, be it ‘Drive’, ‘Nearby’ or just ‘Offline maps’:
“We did that for important reasons as we had the better mapping assets so it made sense. But it also creates some balance in the relationship with Microsoft,”
This makes sense if you think of it as an infiltration of Nokia into other devices, giving them a taste of what Nokia can do; and of course it also proves that Nokia has a extremely Potent Software division besides its hardware section; meaning that it has more to offer users besides a nice design (which some companies can’t even offer *stern look at HTC* ).
2- Another topic worth mentioning is ‘Fragmentation’ which is a sort of yes/no opinion when it comes to WP, Android fans claim that fragmentation is a beautiful thing; Mr. Elop begs to differ:
“We don’t want fragmentation being introduced into Windows Phone because we are beginning to see how in a certain other eco-system that fragmentation becomes a problem.”
Of course that doesn’t mean Nokia isn’t going to take advantage of it’s exclusive rights from Microsoft, simply put the plan on making the Lumia range special without destroying shared apps between the different Manufacturers, while helping differentiate WP from Android and Apple.
“We have to help them understand that and we have to get the devices in their hands. Everything we are doing is focused on reducing the friction in that process. The point is, we are educating consumers about the tiles, about that experience; because what is out there in the industry today, people are most familiar with a grid of applications icons that don’t do anything. They aren’t used to things that are scrolling, that are alive, that are presenting information. So as we introduce them to that we are confident that we will see some good momentum.”
Pocket-Lint have promised to post the full interview on friday, till then check out the source links:
Fragmentation, Bing/Nokia Maps thanks to Prashant and Just visiting for the tips.
Category: Android, aPPLE, Nokia, Windows Phone
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Your first point was my favorite. I definitely am happy to see that Nokia is getting a bit of a mindshare to the BlackBerry users like, “Oh hey, I love Nokia Maps. Might as well give ‘em a try the next time I purchase a smartphone.”
I thinking getting BB users off them to some other phones would be very hard unless services like BBM, BIS\BES can be somehow licensed to other platforms (I have read articles which mentioned BBM will be available on iOS\Android devices – but no timelines yet).. The reason why many of BB users stick to BB is because of these facilities..
Won’t be that hard. I use WhatsApp on my BB more than BBM. BBM is only used to complain about BBOS with other BB users.
I know people who are so into BBs. They won’t move to WP or any other OS from their BBs..
Good to no fragmentation. It’s tough right now but it should be better in the long run. Fragmentation is what got Symbian into the mess it was in that in 2009 we could have something that looked like the N900 with Maemo and S^1 with N97. Two completely different devices, one modern, the other from the stone age. So much work by 6000+ Symbian engineers just to iron out bugs of several models of several variants with few compatibilities because of this thing called fragmentation and thus delay, SEVERELY delay progress. I think incognito (reader) said it best when he mentioned fragmentation on Android compared to Symbian and on that regard, Symbian is King.
Fragmentation is coming to WP7 whether Elop likes it or not Is Nokia prepared to manage it or are they going to pretend it doesn’t exist?
With Tango and then Apollo coming out, we’ll have 3 distinct classes of WP7 devices in the market, not all of which will be capable of doing the same things as one another. A super phone has different capabilities from a value phone.
We’ve already seen that HTC has broken the bounds of Microsoft’s specified hardware platform because it’s either/both too antiquated or/and restrictive to be allow them to compete in the market. We can be sure that more of this sort of thing will happen.
As a result, manufacturers and app developers will have to consider different devices/drivers plus the various specifications of various classes of device. Fragmentation.
If competition in WP7 increases, then you can be sure that OEMs will also start to push for customizations and features that will serve differentiate them in the software sense, and that will cause further fragmentation.
You cannot compete simply by making a different case for the same device. That will only get you so far and then the Chinese will decimate the market by undercutting everyone.
The bottom line is that fragmentation is a natural consequence of evolving software, hardware and consumer demands. You can’t put your head in the sand and pretend it won’t happen. You have to manage it.
You’re not right at all. Tango will come to all Windows Phones as well. There won’t be 3 distinct classes, there will be one.
Apollo will probably change things up a bit as it’ll be a major version release, but having an older device that doesn’t upgrade to the latest anymore isn’t fragmentation.
Tango’s aim is to relax hardware specifications so that manufacturers can use cheaper hardware to sell phones to emerging markets. These phones are going to be less capable than the current lineup of devices. When Apollo comes, those devices will be more capable than current devices.
Devices with varying hardware specifications and capabilities means inevitable fragmentation.
Every program will be made Tango compatible, so it’ll run on all the hardware that’s out there, whether it’s higher or lower specced than the launch lineup. They’re relaxing specs due to more efficient processors and more efficient coding.
Apollo will likely run on all the hardware as well, just it’ll support higher end hardware as well, so guaranteed no fragmentation for 3 OS versions, and high likelihood of none for 4 or 5 versions (as Apollo’s successor will likely be a tune up of Apollo).
Windows Phone will only be fragmented in the same way iOS is, which only counts as fragmentation if you’re splitting hairs.
Symbian is indeed the king of fragmentation amongst the mobile OSes, Android doesn’t come even close (unless you count the non-certified Android spin-offs like the ArchOS, DianXin, Grid OS, the one from Amazon for the Kindle Fire, etc.), but there are different kinds of fragmentation and Mr. Elop is not talking about the fragmentation which choked the Symbian to death – he’s talking about the fragmentation in user experience which is maybe the only area where Symbian was not really that much fragmented (a Symbian user will easily find his way around other Symbian devices and feel right at home) and where Android takes the crown with all those vanilla UI, TouchWiz, Sense… nonsense.
What choked Symbian (and is still valid to a good measure) is the code base fragmentation – i.e. the main code base would often not receive bug fixes and features from the upstream – either due to reasons of added incompatibility for specific device versions, or just plain laziness and bad programming practices – so those bug fixes/features were not shared amongst all Symbian devices, and what’s more they weren’t available for the new devices to come with Symbian. So there was a lot of reinventing the wheel across all of the devices. It especially got ugly with those so-called Feature Packs where they were transplanted from other devices and tailor-made for the new devices completely omitting the main code base so nothing but a said device would benefit from those. In that regard, Symbian was a bitch to both utilize and maintain, and its fragmentation would be pretty hard to match by any other mobile OS out there. That’s why the Symbian devs were in such big numbers and yet they achieved very little progress. And those Nokia – Symbian Foundation – open-source – not-open-source transitions along the line just made the problem worse. The sad thing is that it really didn’t need much work – I’ve said it before – Symbian actually has quite a versatile structure and with just a couple of well-thought-of API layers and modular injections to the kernel – for which it has all predispositions – the problem could be almost non-existant, tho at this point it would take hell-a-lot of time to do it and to unify everything back together, but S^3 was a chance to do things right.
Then there is the next level of fragmentation which is the UI/UX. In that regard, Symbian is quite solid and its UI/UX paradigms were quite well followed on all Symbian devices of the same series even if utilizing different graphic frameworks. Now, the UI is dated, and it does have a lot of inconsistencies, but it says nothing about fragmentation – it looks dated on all Symbian devices. The first real UI/UX fragmentation in the Symbian world is actually the transition to Symbian/Nokia Belle – all prior to that were pretty much the same give or take a couple of things. Everything up to this point was pretty much consistent between the versions. I’d dare to claim that Symbian is one of the least fragmented OSes in that area, too bad that it is the same area where Symbian is traditionally lacking.
Third fragmentation steams from the application layer compatibility – that is can the same application target multiple devices with multiple versions of the OS. Symbian here is a mixed bag – first there is a fragmentation between the graphic frameworks across versions (Eikon, Uikon, Avkon, Qikon…) so the apps using one of those are incompatible with devices based on the other. Then there is that Symbian-signed nonsense that changed the way it functions at least a couple of time making the apps incompatible with other versions even if they didn’t need to be. Then there are various screen resolutions – and that started off big time with the Nokia N80, IIRC – and none of the Nokia’s graphic frameworks provided a good layouting engine to make your app functional across various resolutions. Yes, there were teams of 3rd party developers that created their own layouting solutions to remedy the situation and target the broader user base, but the most deemed it not worth to bother. And, of course, there were hardware access problems where you’d use a completely different set of APIs to access the same hardware part on different devices. The SDK was quite a bit archaic, but it wasn’t all that bad (at that time the competition had it even worse), it’s the aforementioned parts that really pissed the devs off. But that was all to be rectified with one of the rare brilliant moves for Nokia – push of the Qt (unfortunately, in the beginning they almost fragmented the Qt as well to suit the existing Symbian base). Qt is without a doubt one of the best approaches to avoid this kind of fragmentation, and then some more – they’ve been at it for more than a decade and all the childhood illnesses were gone by the time Nokia bought out Trolltech… If only Nokia acted faster…
And the fourth fragmentation comes from hardware differences. The architectural fragmentation (e.g. ARM versions, x86…) can be quite a bit solved by Qt (except for the lowest level) and the aforementioned changes needed for Symbian (a full modular approach to drivers, linkers, libraries…). The rest of it is not really fragmentation and know that whoever claims that the OS will get fragmented if one device has a camera and the other one doesn’t – is flat out lying. That’s like saying that the desktop Windows will get fragmented if you don’t have a web cam and somebody else has. You don’t need to bake those features in the OS itself, you can add them as modules/drivers for the devices that posses them. Of course, if the UI/UX paradigm of your OS relies on some hardware capability (i.e. accelerometer, proximity sensor, touch screen etc.) those would have to be mandatory least you want to fragment that layer, but everything else doesn’t cause fragmentation for a well thought-out OS. And, of course, some apps might not work due to the lack of hardware features, but that really isn’t OS fragmentation – again, the parallel is with the desktop world, is your OS fragmented if you can’t run on it an app that controls a CAT scanner where some other user that actually has a CAT scanner can?
What I hate with Elop’s (and many others’) cry against fragmentation is that they are trying to mix all the types of fragmentation in the same bag, and then use it as an excuse not to change anything. That strategy is bad for any given OS as much as the fragmentation they are so fighting against. Fragmentation in the WP world will not occur if Nokia puts far better camera than the competition – only if Microsoft would let them to change the needed parts of WP, provided of course that they adhere to the good programming practices and that the WP was conceived around them. Fragmentation will not occur if they put NFC, or any other new hardware in their devices that is not available for the whole of WP ‘elopystem’ – again, provided that the WP is conceived around good programming practices (and IIRC Windows CE provides a good amount of modularity). Fragmentation will not occur if Nokia creates some apps that can work only with their hardware. Fragmentation will not occur if you have a different resolution on your device, provided that the graphics framework is based on a good layouting engine. And fragmentation will not occur if you use different toolkits that integrate properly with the native APIs (tho WP doesn’t allow native code, for now, at all).
Nokia needs all that if they want to differentiate. Otherwise they are creating just me-too devices. And that will bring them nowhere. Making excuses and touting the word ‘fragmentation’ to the uneducated masses might fool some people, but even a widely accepted excuse doesn’t make it any better. From Mr. Elop’s interviews I find it hard to distinguish whether he has a clue what he’s talking about when he spouts the word/excuse ‘fragmentation’, or is he just playing a marketing card completely aware that he’s full of BS.
Spot on..
“What choked Symbian (and is still valid to a good measure) is the code base fragmentation – i.e. the main code base would often not receive bug fixes and features from the upstream”
- One of the reasons I came to know when working on some project at Nokia few years back is because of the well known bureaucracy and competing natures between different product-managers. Product managers wouldn’t promote fixes to main branch as they didn’t want other products to get those fixes. I was shocked when I came across this reasoning for the first time. Tried reasoning but to no avail.
Excellent insight to the fragmentation topic! What you say about Symbian is very much the same that a friend of mine, who worked on Symbian already in 2005 – said already back then.
How do you see WP regarding the graphic framework in WP, how far / close is it to Qt? I dont know exactly what is the role of Silverlight, but isnt MS thinking about ditching it in the future?
What you said about, how Nokia should differentiate, I agree fully. If they are not able to integrate technologies into the platform so that the competition does not get them at least within reasonable delay, Nokia is doomed. The superior “Industrial design” is BS in the long run as competitive advantage. Also, if Elop says that there is too much innovation left in the labs, I dont see how they could benefit from it unless they can modify WP through the modularity/drivers.
Oh, the fragmentation was only starting in 2005 – it was mainly due to different series (s60, s80, s90…) and general qualms with other manufacturers using Symbian on their devices (Siemens, Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo etc.) From there it moved on at an accelerated pace, especially when the internal competition between the teams kicked in – Maemo (almost) died in the process without even being related to it. I do hope somebody from the higher management of Nokia releases his memoirs from that time – it would probably outmatch old Greek tragedies…
As for the WP’s graphic framework – they’re utilizing either Silverlight or XNA (quite limited when targeting the WP, tho), both rooted in the .NET. XNA is basically useless for anything but games, so one can say that the Silverlight is its official graphics framework. It cannot really be compared to Qt both structurally and feature-wise as they stand quite apart from each other. Qt is not just a framework, it’s a toolkit that encompasses that framework with additional libraries, compilation targets etc. In a sense, Qt in the Microsoft world could be looked as a Silverlight framework + .NET framework + .NET interpreter, all in one.
Silverlight does provide some facilities for layouting (not even close to Adobe Flex’s ones, which was its main competitor for years prior to WP, but adequate nonetheless), and thus one could make resolution-independent apps (tho the linking would not be as easy as it is in the Qt), but the question is not about the 3rd party apps, but about the Metro UI itself – can it scale gracefully across various resolutions? And, at least from what we see in the WP’s implementation of it so far – it’s quite away from that. So, until Microsoft finds a way to bring the same experience on multiple resolutions, I wouldn’t hold my hopes high. I wouldn’t be surprised that even Apollo remains at the fixed limit of 800×480 resolution.
Also, keep in mind that Microsoft, not even in their introductory documents, never encouraged the WP devs to properly use the layouting facilities of Silverlight for the off-chance their apps will get available on different resolutions. That means that once Microsoft jumps to a new resolution a load of apps will either have to be loaded in a smaller screen, pixel-scaled or will plain not work. Bad planning ahead if you ask me, but then again I wouldn’t encourage devs to do dynamic layout in their apps either given that all of it runs in an interpreted environment and you don’t want to spend more CPU/GPU cycles than you need. It’s a very real possibility of breaking the backward compatibility when moving to a different screen res, quite like it happened (and still happens) in the Symbian world.
As for ditching Silverlight – even if they do, for the reasons I’ve already stated multiple times, rest assured that they won’t be embracing Qt. Microsoft would rather kill the whole WP lineage than having it compatible with a framework/toolkit they cannot control, especially when that framework (in theory) can provide far better performance and a decent cross-platform compatibility. With Qt they’d be facing a danger of people and developers easily migrating from their platforms to the competition if they try to pull off some shenanigans. Imagine Qt being mature as it is now 10 years ago, and having Adobe, Autodesk, Blizzard, EA etc. develop their software and games in the Qt framework – it would be instantly available for MacOS X and Linux with little to no effort, and users could easily jump ship at the first sign of Microsoft blunders. How many times you’ve heard that somebody would switch to Linux/MacOS X/other but he cannot because there is no software that he needs on those platforms. Microsoft, for the obvious reasons, will do everything to prevent that – after all, why do you think there is no official and feature complete interpreter for non-Microsoft platforms? They wouldn’t want even their own solution to cross the platform barrier, let alone some solution they have no control over.
+1
QT is a big threat to Windows 7 and Wp7. Microsoft knows that and Elop knows it too.
HTC doesn’t do good design? I respectfully disagree: HTC’s devices, design-wise, are way more attractive than Samsung’s anonymous, slabs of black plastic.
Yeah, and they’ve got a distinctive design language that’s their own. They’re really only viable for people who live in areas with really solid cell phone coverage and don’t spend a lot of time talking on the phone though.
So let me get this straight. They don’t want to fragment the WP ecosystem, but Nokia’s is just fine…
Lol.
So the only differentiators for Nokia devices is the hardware… and not really the hardware since Microsoft controls all of that.
So really, the only thing Nokia is doing different is the outer shell.
Seems like a winning strategy to me. What do you say Jay?
Sigh, why buy a company when you can just co-op it. Kudos Microsoft.
@jonnyl…For some people such as myself, Nokia differenting on the outer shell would be enough for me. When the market is flooded with the same ‘sea of drab’ from HTC and Samsung, a device with some unique aesthetic design and style is more than welcome.
Case in point: I most certainly did not purchase the N8 because of Symbian; as a matter of fact, had the promise of new iconography(ala Anna/Belle) wasn’t in the picture for the N8, there really is no way that I would have purchased this device even with the perk of free offline navigation.
The N8′s outershell is truly unique and it is quite nice to carry a device that, from a distance, people notice it’s design. I’m proud to show it off, but I never turn on the screen to reveal the Symbian UI
Nokia does offer WP more than just differentiating on style; they offer services that HTC/Samsung will never be able to match.
They don’t want to fragment the WP ecosystem because they saw what fragmenting Symbian did. WP is designed from the ground up to avoid fragmentation, and that’s a really good thing.
Nokia will start taking advantage of their customisation deals later on, once WP has significant marketshare, and differentiation becomes more important than unity.
Once WP has significant marketshare?
I don’t know what your definition of significant is but for me that’s about 25% and Nokia doesn’t have the time to wait that long.
Nokia doesn’t have a choice.
… Android, MeeGo, Symbian …
(and using all of them along WP)
Agreed – Nokia have leg shackled themselves to an OS which only has (according to Nielson Q$ data) 1.4% market share in it’s home territory and has only grown marginally in the last 12 months. Nokia’s duty is to their shareholders and therefore to secure its future using whatever platforms are available and are succeeding. Not helping Microsoft’s shareholders by embarking on a crusade to prop up Microsoft’s struggling mobile OS initiative. It may well work in the end for MS (I think it will) but Nokia don’t have the luxury of time to muck around whilst an OS that isn’t fully ready at the moment is slowly developed without having other strategies as a hedge.
In fact WP7′s US market share hasn’t grown in the last 12 months at all. Quite the opposite. It has shrunk 0.6% from 2% in Q4/2010 to 1.4% in Q4/2011.
Android would be a bad choice, Symbian already went badly for them, and MeeGo was a bad idea the moment it stopped being Maemo.
Ah, Mr. Elopystem has spoken… He’s getting more annoying with his ecosystem mantra than the late Mr. Jobs with his `HTML5 will save the world`. In both instances those were/are just buzzwords that somehow make the speaker more of a visionary while not having the slightest idea what they are talking about – and, of course, they serve to provide an ammunition for the sheeple to repeat those words in the lack of real arguments and understanding of what they are defending.
I’ll eat my ascii hat when I see a post Feb’11 interview with Mr. Elop in which there’s not a single mention of the word `ecosystem`.
Hahaha.. Well said.. Many have said that Elop talks more like a MS guy than a Nokia one when interviewed. . If I read the following quote without knowing who it was from, I can bet everything I have that this would be from a product manager of WP at MS..
“We have to help them understand that and we have to get the devices in their hands. Everything we are doing is focused on reducing the friction in that process. The point is, we are educating consumers about the tiles, about that experience; because what is out there in the industry today, people are most familiar with a grid of applications icons that don’t do anything. They aren’t used to things that are scrolling, that are alive, that are presenting information. So as we introduce them to that we are confident that we will see some good momentum.”
When samsung first came on stage with the Galaxy S android phones, all they talked about was all the stuff all the other androids did. We were like “but the other androids do this”. But consumers didn’t know this. Just like consumers don’t really know what WP does. So it is up to Nokia to educate them on the tiles.
HOWEVER, I wish he would lessen saying Windows Phones but more on Lumia. I actively try and not mention the word windows phones as Lumia is the unique thing to Nokia. e.g. lUMIAPPADAY, daily apps for lumia. There could be a bigger audience if I put it out as windows phone apps, but I’d prefer if people thought of them as apps for Nokia Lumia
The biggest difference with Android and WP promotions is Android is customised by every OEM and if noted, they promote their skin more than the Android OS. Check HTC’s and Samsung’s (you can include SE & Moto to this list) promotions. They talk more about Sense & Touchwiz UIs than the Android OS. The only point where they stress about the Android OS is for the Apps count and to tell the version of OS it is based on..
While on WP, there is no such differentiator.. The UI\UX is same accross all OEMS. The only place where they can differentiate is either apps (Nokia Drive etc) or hubs (HTC’s Sense hub). In these situation, the hardware should be promoted like you mention. I don’t see any mention of Lumia or Nokia WP devices anywhere. It is all about WP & ecosystem. That is my main problem with Elop’s WP strategy. Your WP app promotion is spot on in this regard as you stress on Lumia in the hashtags and I’m happy with it. I only wish Elop follows this and uses either Lumia or atleast Nokia when he mentions WP.
they can’t Jay cause it’s the OS they fucked up on a picked so nothing new will be talked about except the design and Nokia Maps nothing else …..sorry to say but this OS is gonna get stale like the rest of them in a few months…..I really Hope Carla and Donna’s UI Changes that cause Meego was a Fresh Look but then they killed it and even BBOS is boring
and the fact that WP7s UI can’t even be edited nor changes fucks alot of things up
like the ANNA to Belle UI change is Drastic and if they Combind that with Some new Unique way of interacting with the Phone itself then Nokia will surely WIN OVER EVERYONE
BBOS 10 (QNX) looks quite awesome imo and will probably be the way I will be going if Nokia doesn’t make anymore high-end Meego/Symbian phones in the future. TAT (The Astonishing Tribe) is helping them with building the UI (and SDK) which is just awesome (like in the calculator or Scrapbook app on the Blackberry Playbook tablet).
It’s just sad that it won’t be out before 2H2012. But on the other hand it’s nice that they also use and support Qt on BBOS 10 and the Playbook.
I’m actually waiting for BBOS 10 to come out. It will support both Qt & Alien Dalvik VM. I’m just want to see how RIM implements BBM on BB10..
but but but…
http://bit.ly/xP2U29
+1 LOL
“Nokia has a extremely Potent Software division besides its hardware section”. Since when??? The only thing I have been hearing for the last few years is that Nokia had a bad software division.. That they couldn’t write software to save their lives..
No fragmentation?? That means no Qt and Swipe any time soon on WP.
Glad to hear that Nokia maps will soon replace Bing maps (Will it be named “Nokia Maps” or “Bing Maps – powered by Nokia”. Hope for the former). I really want to see the cash flow from MS to Nokia because until now it has all been the other way (MS hasn’t paid Nokia anything yet. The only thing they did was\will be to contribute for promoting Nokia WP devices like 900). Wonder how much Nokia will get once Nokia maps is used across all MS services..
No-fragmentation means that No 720p displays to Windows phones. They are stuck in 800×480 as Nokia is stuck with Symbian to nHD.
Apps just don’t scale nicely to high-resolution and this is main reason why new camera phone might actually still be nHD and not same resolution as Nokia N9.
Well MS can provide support for 800X1280 screen which basically scales the App screen from the usual 480X800 res. Also, if I remember the Tango release details, one of the major change is the support of lower resolution screens (like 320X480) and lower-spec hardware to allow WP to run on cheaper hardwares. Even though this will not create fragmentation in the real sense, it’ll create issues with the scaling unless MS does a workaround to support this internally or asking all its developers to resubmit their apps for Tango after testing for new supported resolutions..
Really? Tango will go lower res? I remember someone at microsoft say that even with Tango they won’t compromise on resolution as WVGA is already cheap enough. Hope they don’t. WVGA should be bare minimum now for 2012.
The thing I remember talking to couple of Nokia guys is that Nokia has put support-for-lower-resolution and less-powerful-cpu-gpu as one of their major concerns for 2012 as they look to release devices across all price-points and different form-factors.. And they said that Tango may well be the release with that change (They used to call Tango as the Nokia release – from what I remember about my discussion 4-5 months back).. I’m not sure if MS has included this into their product development cycle or not..
Regarding the prices of WVGA screens, it hasn’t come down as much as MS had hoped for. They still cost a lot more than the 320X480 res screens we see on the lower priced Androids.. And the assumed predictions is that the price levels of WVGA screens will be that low either in 2013 or 14 which would be very late for Nokia to start pushing cheaper-priced devices.
windows phone is 16:10. 720p will be on android phones as default and it’s 16:9. Smallest screen displays are 4:3.
It’s very difficult for Nokia actually get the OS in their hands that actually will work for different type of phones and makes it easy for developers to make apps to full line up.
Nokia E6 Belle works fine but you end up having very low selection of apps as design does not make it easy to port app to work in that screen.
Even large companies will ignore the E6 totally as they do not see reason to make apps for low volume device.
Nokia has other phones with 4:3 but those are S40 phones or non-touch phones with different resolution and does not help the situation to.
2012 you will see a HUGE fragmentation with the low and mid end phones from Nokia. Sadly. 2013 they might get something that is not a mess.
Chassis 2 specs allowed for 480×320, but that was back in 2009. Obviously that makes zero sense now, it’s unlikely they’ll do anything like that. 800×600 for QWERTYbars makes more sense if they’re going to change anything up like that.
To make classic type of phones like Nokia touch and type or E6 type of phones. Resolution is not the biggest issue you need to design the layout as well.
WP UI is too complicated to work in different size of screens and to be usable for user.
best thing in Swipe UI is that it gives total freedom to app maker what kinda button layout they make and it also free the space from top and bottom 100% to application.
I really looking forward to see Nokia E6 type of phone with Swipe UI.
I have seen some “swipe ui” low end phones but they aren’t really swipe ui as only swipe feature is copy of “3 home screens”. UI has back/home button.
Agree that design of layout plays a big role in how a system handles different form-factor & resolutions. I assumed MS might have taken care of the layout aspect in WP considering their experience in software design.
And regarding your point on Swipe UI, isn’t Qt Quick with QML developed with this point in mind? In a pure Qt-Quick based system, different resolutions & forma-factors can be handled easily and the apps wouldn’t have to be re-designed. If correctly implemented, the apps would look natural or like built-in on all of them.
Well I Have seen some design concepts inside Nokia that has UI layout that will work in all form-factors from tablets to smallest screen phones.
Only thing that changes is what you can see on the screen with out scrolling. Tablet you can see a lot at ones and small phone it will limit that and you need to scroll up/down to see everything what you see in tablet with out scrolling.
But that only fixes the OS UI. Solution for apps I haven’t seen in that design but it’s possible to make a guideline for apps that will carry the same idea about the UI design.
I need to say that concept really did look really really nice. It was some type of Cloud base OS concept but I was only interested about the UI as it is best I have seen so far with tablets/phones.
Qt, even prior to QML, anchor-based layouting and other latest additions, had a support for multiple separate UI layouts for different resolutions, so all you need is to create just the UI layout for different resolutions without touching your business logic – after all, not everything can be handled with automatic anchored layout as it would look like crap in the extremes. Take look at the web – you’ll hardly find a site that is as functional and beautiful on 480×320, 800×480 and 1920×1200 resolutions without web devs doing the different layouts for different resolutions.
But Qt’s separate UI layout from the business logic, together with QML ‘n all, gives more than enough wiggle room for 3rd party devs to create apps that will easily scale and be functional across devices with minimal effort. You can’t go further than that, it really is a no-brainer. Now if some dev don’t want to bother, well eff him – if you can’t make a minimal effort to make your app available in different forms you don’t deserve the target audience anyway.
Exactly.. Qt (without QML) did allow for some support for UI layouts with the layout managers. But QML has taken that to a new level. I was amazed with the way QML did the layout while including the Qt-Quick components. It handled both landscape & potrait of nHD & FWVGA and E6′s VGA resolution.
+1
They can up the resolution once they move to WP8 with dual core processor support and the like.
That makes it reasonable for devs to work with. 2 resolutions isn’t a huge pain, especially when they’re pretty standard. They’d have to do 1280×768 though to keep the aspect ratio the same.
One thing make laught… “The point is, we are educating consumers about the tiles, about that experience; because what is out there in the industry today, people are most familiar with a grid of applications icons that don’t do anything. They aren’t used to things that are scrolling, that are alive, that are presenting information.”
So… square widgets, pardon me, tiles will save the world???… What about those who aren’t in love with widget in general (I only use the e-mail notification widgets) I feel like in early days of iPhone: this is a smartphone, this is a smartphone, this is a smartphone, this is a smartphone, the others are just phones…
Easy: delete the widgets/tiles and just have static shortcuts to apps.
It can be done on WP? I can have only the lockscreen + menu only?
I’m still waiting to see MWC to see the N8 succesot and what’s new on the hardware side for Symbian or Meego (I still want my Nokia, but not with the actual form on WP)
Ah, that I don’t know. I.e. whether you can not have any tiles at all and go straight to the menu screen. My guess is no, you can’t. On the other hand, my understanding is that the menu is alphabetical – i.e. that you cannot e.g. move your favorite/most used app to the top of the list. Again, I may be wrong as I have used WP for a total of 30 min.
But with static app or web page or application sub-menu/view tiles on the home screen you could at least have your favorite apps there always, without any of that (to some) annoying flipping and updating. I.e. have your own custom “menu” screen with a more complete menu at hand if needed. I realise the problem you may have is the look of the rather big tiles (although some of that you could also address by using one of those apps that let’s you use your own background for the tiles – I would love to see what the home screen would look like with black tiles on black, for example, or steel color/pattern tiles on black.
If you delete all tiles in Wp7, only list of apps are shown. List of apps are in alphabetical order. When you reach 40 apps, a jump list appears, so you can jump by letter to your apps. I don’t understand why anyone would remove all their tiles, as it’s the best feature of the phone. Otherwise, all you have is a grid of icons that dont anything but launch apps like iPhone, android and Meego.
^^ Nail on the head. I use loads of my N8′s features, but not many widgets (email, music, FM transmit, clock).
I don’t want loads of stuff over my home screen when they’re just a button away anyway.
Nokia Maps on my Blackberry Playbook without the need of the browser? Nice!
Fragmenting WP7 would be like splitting hair anyways. But, YEY!
Wonderful news from TechRadar…
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/82208104/
Almost Feb, so that means time for Elop to try and kill off Symbiam once more. *sigh*
Where did THAT url come from? This is all done on my N8 – maybe the great lump has a point!
One more try:
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/nokia-to-ditch-symbian-early–1056113
Well, at least in the actual interview Elop says absolutely nothing that would back TechRadar’s speculation.
He may have of course said something off interview – unlikely but remotely possible.
Btw, in that interview he puts this “differentiation/innovation” stuff clearer – at least to me – than he ever has.
So, so, so… Waiting to see wich are those innoavtions to come…
If you ask me, in some times we will see the A Microsoft Corp Division watermark on your new “Nokia” device
Elop is the biggest goof ever…it’s official
this is not by his decisions this is from Ballmer and shareholders that want money now and don’t care about shit later…ELOP is a full out Puppet and keeps showing it more and more in each interview with the same BS every fucking time
Seriously, someone like yourself is the sole reason I stopped reading/commenting/writing here.
Truth or lie, a broken record no one likes.
Then why do you still read his comments, if you don’t like them? That seems somewhat masochistic. You only have yourself to blame for that.
No, that’s definitely Deep Space Bar’s fault. At least dr_zorg has smartened up (or maybe DSB is dr_zorg’s sockpuppet? I haven’t seen him post recently).
The creation of Meego, was Nokia’s proof that they eventually wanted to move on from Symbian…eventually. It was obvious.
I get the feeling you people are impossible to please, I’ve always been a Nokia user, and I think it’s perfectly clear what Elop means about fragmentation. He could say he loves fragmentation and you lot would rip on him all the same.
Obviously they want to avoid fragmentation. If they can make excellent software that is capable to work on non Nokia devices that’s a plus, it’s important to have that two way relationship. As a developer this is great news to hear.
Also who cares about Tango/Mango/Apollo when it comes to Nokia. Are they responsible for that fragmentation? No, obviously not. So why are people hissy fitting all over this. He said they don’t want to introduce fragmentation, obviously he means at the Nokia level. God. Well formed interview by Elop, and nothing worth ripping apart. I mean if you’re just a mad person and you want everything to go back to the 2005 era Symbian Nokia, just say it. Fact is things change, get over it.
I’m not really singling out any specific posts, nor do I have any intention for further debate or back and forths. Just some of my opinions on the matter. Make of it what you will.
+1. Agree with everything you just said.
I want go back to 2005
… I say it…
hi it’s good when we share the nokia maps to other, like what google did. the different is pay and free, but still nokia can make money with data download. i hope nokia also can share Symbian APPs to other phone maker to make more developer do apps to this symbian.
So nokia maps on other devices? So I guess there goes Nokia’s differentiating factor. Guess only thing left to set them apart now is nokia music..
Don’t forget Nokia Drive, which is all together different than Nokia Maps. As far as I am aware, Nokia Drive will be a Nokia exclusive.
The exclusivity for Nokia is 6months after which they’ll find their way into other WPs. Nokia wants to monetize its services and only when other WP OEMs use these services, Nokia will make money..
Is Nokia Drive part of that though? I know for sure the ESPN and CNN apps were only a 6 month exclusivity.
Nokia Maps is actually going to be WP mapping app for ALL windows phones. It won’t be called Bing maps anymore, but Nokia Maps. From what I have read, the navigation app (Nokia Drive) won’t be part of this, but will be a Nokia exclusive. The plan, I assume, is to get people to really like the mapping app so they’ll want free Navigation too. To get this, they’ll have to get a Nokia. Since there really isn’t a difference in user experience between windows phones, they won’t miss anything jumping over to Nokia’s windows phones.
Wow……how underwhelming. If that’s all they got, then they’re fucked. The already small number people who want a WP7 (1.4% in the USA in Q4 – the Christmas quarter with Mango phones), will just buy the cheaper WP7′s offered by Nokia’s competitors.
Entertaining read, albeit with few plot holes.
I dont think that code base fragmentation killed symbian or even significantly slowed its evolution. How do you explain that symbian is both the most feature rich and youngest mobile os if you believe that? Fragmentation allowed for differentiation and shorter time to market on the other hand, hence more $$.
I also dont buy that symbian is more difficult to develop. We are talking about oses with millions lines of codes evolving over decades. You are bound to find it difficult to make any changes to it but i would not bet windows or ios fare better there.
I believe the main issue with symbian was the roadmap and especially the qt cult. Qt was not introduced in symbian due to any middleware fragmentation but due to nokia long term maemo plans. Nokia felt they needed a cross platform toolkit and they unfortunately chose qt while the obvious and only choice is html of course. They burned lots of energy in adapting qt to symbian, which is still not complete yet, and put lots of hope in qt to revamp the whole ui “later”. Just imagine what symbian would have become if nokia would not have been distracted by qt. Belle is not based on qt and could have been delivered much earlier if nokia had not waited forever for qt to be ready.
I never worked for nokia and i dont know any one there but this is how i read the story.
1) It’s not the youngest mobile os
2) It’s shit to develop for, that’s why devs don’t want to develop for it
An thats why I dont fel much love for tiles, fixed widgets (I dont care how much MS try to convince the they are different, things are what they’re) As I say earlie, I only use e-mail widgets and a very few icons to launch apps that from time to time I need (my prefered app is are running most time, no games of course)
FUCK ELOP!!!
LOL…
Elop is so full of shit, that I can smell him through the screen.
And that shit is smelling like M$.
Only children type M$ instead of MS.