From S60 to iPhone

[slitchfield]

Guest writer Matt Radford brings us his impressions of the Apple iPhone after a lifetime of S60 use, from Nokia 7650 to N70. Although the transition would have been even more apt if he'd gone from something more up to date like an N95, it's still a terrifically interesting comparison and a good read.

Read on in the full article.

[Taomyn]

Had to laugh at the writing on the CPW door - "your phone, your way". should have an amendment stating "unless you buy an iPhone"

[malerocks]

Good article and even though Matt says that it is aimed at people moving to the iphone from an old model, I feel N70 is too old a phone to be used for comparison. Newer S60 phones can beat a lot of the points that the N70 didnt score at (e61i can play basic flash content on sites, though not the types of youtube).

I personally feel that people who are addicted to the flexibility and versatility offered by Symbian and the power users will not be fans of the iphone (a.k.a. people like us ) But people who have been using the java based phones and the kinds will find the iphone a welcome surprise. It all depends on what you are expecting to do with your phone. E.g. I have a friend who uses his phone for only calls and sms. Us S60 addicts depend on our phones for a lot of stuff as compared to any other device we have.

I was really tempted to do the switch from Symbian to iPhone, but decided not to. I've enumerated the reasons here:

http://www.chromewalker.com/cw_six/?p=606

In summary though, it seems to me like Symbian still gives the power user the option to control more of the system, whereas the iPhone feels too much like there is hand holding going on. The one thing I have to admit is way better, is the iphone browser. So I got an iPod touch and stuck with my Symbian device.

[mattrad]

@unregistered (Carlos is it?)

Each and every one of your 21 points on chromewalker.com is spot on, and it's a good counterpoint to my article above. The iPhone has a restricted feature set in comparison to Symbian devices - even those that are out-of-date like the N70 - but IMHO it improves in the things that it does do (although SMS/MMS is a major exception to that and there are other exceptions).

'I noticed that CPW have a “no iPhone returns” policy so it’s just as well I’m happy with my decision for the next 18 months. '

Sheesh! Is that even legal?
The iPhone looks georgous but to be tied into something like a phone for 18 months seems ludicrous. It's going to be very dated by the end of that contract.

...everyone who has experienced newer Symbian OS devices,from the likes of N73 and above (and is a power user,of course) is likely to be really,really upset by Iphone.I swapped my N95 with an Iphone of a dear friend week-wise for a 'double-experiment',and the result was that i was counting EVERY SINGLE SECOND to the moment i get my Nokia back.

"..disjointed sync effort..."

This just about sums up where Nokia are (and will) losing ground. Nokia and others fail to get the basics of seamless integration between the devices & pc/mac platforms right, I have lost count the number of times that my S60 device fails to connect or the steps/tweaks I need to do to get some codecs to transfer/work on the phone.

"...Symbian still gives the power user the option to control more..."

The majority of users are not power users, the majorty of users just want things to work first time, every time!

As Apple improve their phone line-up and fix the rev 1 issues that most people complain about (3g, camera, sms/mms) then they will start to see an ever increasing market share unless the other companies realise where apple is coming from, ease of use for the majority not a long list of brilliant technology on paper like the N95.

I have used Symbian (currently using 6120 and at the moment is one of the best phones I have used), Windows Mobile & Palm smartphones, along with various media devices. But using a couple of ipods for the last couple of years has shown up how bad these mobile platforms are at making it easy to sync and manage your media files (music, photos, video)....

[ratza]

It should've been compared with an UIQ device and not with an S60. Make a comparison between Sony Ericsson P990 an iPhone for example.

[mattrad]

Sorry ratza, I'm not a journo and so can only compare what I own.

Will gladly accept any review devices though...

[Jejoma]

A comparison against any Symbian 3G phone combined with the Nokia N800 would also be interesting. There's not the same user-friendly interphase but what's there is pretty good and the larger screen is certainly very welcome to my eyes :-)

[Bassey]

It's interesting but a lot of people on here and other "smartphone" sites (myself included) have been saying for months that the iPhone looks like a great phone, but what lets it down are the power features we are used to.

It's now starting to look very much like what is actually letting it down in the marketplace is data entry in general and SMS in particular. I don't think this was an issue in the US where SMS isn't so massice as in the UK and cell phones are generally used for calls. The iPhone is fine for calls and adds a huge amount in terms of consuming content. It sounds like the synching also makes inputting unecessary for many things.

However, the UK market is addicted to texting and relies a lot more on general text inputting, swapping pictures by bluetooth etc. These are the things either the iPhone doesn't do or doesn't do well and seem to be the reason (as well as cost) that they have sold so poorly. It seems to have little to do with editing word documents, customising the today screen, running ftp clients or any of the stuff WE think is important.

There's an interesting piece on the Register on how the highstreet is full of iPhones but you can't get hold of a Wii or an Eee PC for love nor money. Now who would have predicted that two months ago?

Nothing about lack of 3G on the iPhone? A deal killer in my opinion.

[Rafe]

Originally Posted by Bassey

It's now starting to look very much like what is actually letting it down in the marketplace is data entry in general and SMS in particular. I don't think this was an issue in the US where SMS isn't so massice as in the UK and cell phones are generally used for calls. The iPhone is fine for calls and adds a huge amount in terms of consuming content. It sounds like the synching also makes inputting unecessary for many things.

However, the UK market is addicted to texting and relies a lot more on general text inputting, swapping pictures by bluetooth etc. These are the things either the iPhone doesn't do or doesn't do well and seem to be the reason (as well as cost) that they have sold so poorly. It seems to have little to do with editing word documents, customising the today screen, running ftp clients or any of the stuff WE think is important.

There's an interesting piece on the Register on how the highstreet is full of iPhones but you can't get hold of a Wii or an Eee PC for love nor money. Now who would have predicted that two months ago?

I think that's a very astute observation. I think the problem comes down to fact the iPhone (whatever you might think of it) puts the music / video experience first in design terms (the device size / interaction). It doesn't really look like any other phone (nor does it behave like that) and people don't like that. We can debate whether its good or bad at particular tasks, but in one sense that's irrelevant.

I'd agree cost is also a factor.

I also wonder whether the good enough syndrome comes into play here. People buy a phone because they want to make calls / send SMS. The keypad with small to medium size screen is the best form factor for this (one handed usage, device size etc etc). Increasingly people are also thinking it would be nice if it also did something else (play games, play music, do email).... but crucially how good the experience is here is far less important than the phone experience provided it is good enough.

Yes touch and the iPod model does provide the best solution for media playback, but if a phone can provide a good enough alternative then that's all it needs to do. Music on a phones like the Nseries is actually quite good (i.e. most people can get a bit of music on them through one of the various methods. It might not be so elegant but it works. (The exception to this maybe where you're an existing heavy iTunes users, but then I suspect people already own an iPod and maybe more interested in the Touch. Equally this works the other way round - if you have your computer music collection in Windows Media Player you'll have an easy time using an Nseries phone)

Personally I think this is one reason for S60's relative success - it does the ordinary phone bit very well (or rather its very like the Series 40 experience people are use to).

On a separate issue: Things like codecs for video / audio apply less now. The recent S60 phones have the same stuff as the iPhone (indeed if anything they are more flexible). I also think sync works as reliably on S60 as anything else I've tried. Each has its annoyances. e.g. the iPhone uses play list based sync (making it less intuitive to drag and drop files on to it)

[krisse]

As others noted, it's a bit odd to compare a model from a couple of years ago with one that's just come out.

Originally Posted by Bassey

There's an interesting piece on the Register on how the highstreet is full of iPhones but you can't get hold of a Wii or an Eee PC for love nor money. Now who would have predicted that two months ago?

Yes, I agree, I think we've reached a "good enough" plateau for many tasks in computing and electronics where we simply don't need or want more expensive hardware any more. If even low-end computers are good enough to do email, websites and multimedia then people are going to go for the cheapest computer possible, which is what things like the Eee offer.

One almost-totally-unnoticed development in Symbian a couple of years ago was their move to reduce the number of chips required by Symbian phones, which in turn greatly reduces the size and cost of the phones. The fruits of this are being seen now in things like the E51 and 6120, which are fully featured like their predecessors but absolutely tiny and have relatively low launch prices too. That reduction in size and price is IMHO by far the most important thing that a smartphone can do to make itself mainstream.

As long as a device has a certain minimum functionality, price outweighs all other factors. It's not a question of being the best, it's a question of being the cheapest while still being good enough.

In case anyone missed it, this was pretty much the gist of a feature article I did a while ago:

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/featu...Smartphone.php

I don't see Apple embracing this philosophy at all, they've always kept their products expensive year after year by upping the specs and not allowing anyone else to manufacture compatible devices. It's difficult to know what will happen in the short term, but that attitude just isn't going to work in the long term.

But people who have been using the java based phones and the kinds will find the iphone a welcome surprise.

The sim-free iPhone costs €1000, which is thirty times more than a basic phone, twenty times more than a java-based phone, four times more than the 6120 (which has similar multimedia and web-browsing abilities as the iPhone, plus the ability to render flash websites, plus it runs S60 3rd Edition software), and the iPhone even costs more than the E90.

Looking at it from an average user's perspective, I can't think of anything that a phone could do which would justify it costing thirty times more than a basic model. It makes no difference how good it is, that kind of price difference is too much.

You can pay less up front if you buy the iPhone on contract, but you're still talking about hundreds of euros when most people get contract phones (including the 6120) free. You also end up paying a very hefty monthly fee for a couple of years, far more than you'd pay for a Java-based phone, and the total price of the contract will probably be something approaching a couple of thousand Euros.

Whichever way you buy it, the ultra-high price for the iPhone means that it's difficult to see the average user even considering buying one, especially as basic phones are going down in price all the time.

The only people putting their money down for the iPhone will be wealthy enthusiasts of one kind or another, ordinary users will be sticking to their €30 sim-free or free-on-contract basic models.