One in four developers happy to support Symbian

Why doesn't Ovi suite support quickly purchasing and downloading application from Ovi Store so they can be later installed on the device. Although I'm all for making phone a standalone device but such a functionality would only help improve the experience.

The current Ovi Store experience on the PC is rather clumsy. You have to go to the site which sends an SMS to your phone and then you connect via phone, the link takes you to the mobile site, which inturn opens Ovi Store and then you get to the page that gives you the download link. What can't I simply download the app directly onto the PC and it gets invisibly transferred and installed on the phone?

The equation is REALLY simple. There are already many tens of millions of Symbian phones in use every day that have the Ovi Store client on them, or access to Ovi Store. This is going to rapidly grow to 100 million, 200 million and beyond (given Symbian devices are selling already at 300,000/day which is over 100 million per year).

Ovi Store basically works, even though it's not perfect (incidentally it is WAY better than Android store which by all accounts doesn't make devs any significant money). Meanwhile all those Symbian device owners are sitting there being hammered with news of apps on iPhone and Android, and of course on Ovi Store.

Who in their right mind doesn't think this is going to create HUGE demand, and HUGE rewards for any developers with half a clue.

Developers need to stop being led like sheep by media nonsense and out of date rubbish about Symbian and Nokia, and see what a vast collective chunk of money awaits them on Nokia/Symbian.

You wait and see - Nokia/Symbian/Ovi is going to be the most almighty software goldrush the industry's seen in a LONG time, and any developer that doesn't see that is short sighted and going to miss out big time.

I'm a mobile software developer and made a carefully considered choice to not support iPhone and Android and looking at the competition on those platforms, I know I definitely made the right choice.

"a vast collective chunk of money"... LOL... sure, good luck with that theory of yours mate.

OVI Store has a long, long way to improve the user experience.

There was an initial lucrative period for iPhone apps, then it got saturated. Same happened with Android. I am predicting a lucrative period also with QT as apps are developed based no the most popular App Store / Android market apps.

There will be a QT period where money can be made, but it won't last long and those that will benefit should have already started work. Start now and you've already missed the boat.

:)

I am a developer and I wholehartedly agree with this statement!

"Developers need to stop being led like sheep by media nonsense and out of date rubbish about Symbian and Nokia, and see what a vast collective chunk of money awaits them on Nokia/Symbian."

"Developers need to stop being led like sheep by media nonsense and out of date rubbish about Symbian and Nokia, and see what a vast collective chunk of money awaits them on Nokia/Symbian."

Devs need to stop viewing app stores as little more than a get rich quick scheme. Good software will make money regardless of what platform it is on; bad software won't.

Truth is, if a developer can make a living from mobile apps then they're doing well. A cash cow it certainly isn't.

Well, from what I understand, most of the major third party developers are now located in the U.S., and a large portion of them on the West Coast; as a result, they're going to focus on the main platforms that they see around them: Android, iOS and Blackberry.

People may not like that, but you have to deal with reality.

Besides, a kid in his dorm in, say, UC Berkeley developing, for example a high end mobile gaming application or a comics viewer or what have you, has little incentive to port his app over for legacy S60v3 devices around the world, then he would simply for an iPhone or Droid.

Many modern apps are also data, processor and graphics intensive which is fine for, say, an HTC Evo. For somebody's Nokia E61 or N85 in Romania or Indonesia, likely on limited pay-go data availability (which would have to include multi language support), not so much.

Also, you can wax poetic on what developers *should* do; it doesn't mean they *will* do. I think the major opportunity for application development for Nokia devices is going to be Meego; with Symbian, only with S^4 and the backwards compatibility break.

First of all, when it comes to Nokia as a developer you should concentrate on supporting Meego first. Meego is where all of Nokia's top spec devices will be.

Most likely, because Ovi Store doesn't currently have any kind of copy protection/DRM, no activation/registration keys & such, and not even any PC Suite/Ovi Suite mechanism to keep the downloads "secure" (encrypted) on the PC.

Without such mechanisms, if they allowed app PC downloads from Ovi Store, you could simply buy one copy and then post the file on the net or send it friends and family without them having to pay anything to get the file.

Many are, but "most" is an overstatement.

If you want to get paid today, it is probably better to develop for an existing platform.

There's no single Nokia MeeGo device announced yet. How long will it take until there is, and how much longer until Nokia has sold millions of them?

Yep. Devs just jump on symbian and stop dick riding iphones.:rolleyes:

["The equation is REALLY simple. There are already many tens of millions of Symbian phones in use every day that have the Ovi Store client on them, or access to Ovi Store. This is going to rapidly grow to 100 million, 200 million and beyond (given Symbian devices are selling already at 300,000/day which is over 100 million per year)."]

Just because there are a lot of Symbian handsets out there does not necessarily mean that there will be a lot of downloads from the Ovi Store. I'm pretty sure that 95+% of iPhone owners would have visited and downloaded something from the App Store but I'm sure the percentage of Symbian^1 handset owners visiting and downloading something from the Ovi Store is much lower.

Nokia needs to get some great titles onto the Ovi Store. Learn something from Google and Microsoft. PAY software houses to develop graphically rich games and apps (just like what Microsoft is doing on WP7). Run competitions like "app-of-the-week" and "app-of-the-month" with large $10,000-$25,000 cash prizes to entice other developers.

Then Nokia needs to promote the hell out of the Ovi Store and SHOW users the range of apps/games they can get on their Symbian^3 phone. Apple did that with the iPhone 3G and iPhone OS 2.0 with print and TV ads and there is no doubt that apps is what is driving sales of the iPhone.

Finally since mobile gaming seems to be gaining a lot of momentum, Nokia needs to update the hardware on their phones. Their mass-market, mid-range phones (like the C6) should at least have 256 MB of RAM, an ARMv7 CPU running at a minimum of 600 MHz and a GPU capable of supporting OpenGL ES 2.0 (like the PowerVR SGX on the iPhone 3Gs/4). Developers need to know the base specs of the mass-market devices so they can tailor apps to the device. Microsoft is doing this with WP7 with the Chassis 1 specs which are MUCH higher than what I listed.

Most developers are rational, and follow market demand: the market demand is for iPhone and Android, which are both heavily promoted by the operators. The problem Symbian has is that most of the people who have a Symbian phone don't use it as a smartphone, and don't think of it as a smartphone. They use the camera or music player. They are not an apps market. In the future Meego is what Nokia's high end smartphones will run, so I can't see that changing.

You *hope* you made the right choice. There, I fixed it for you.

No. You have oversimplified. It's not just demand, it's SUPPLY and demand and there is too much supply for iPhone and Android already. There is no real appeal for developers to develop an app where there are already 20 free ones on the store/market.

Oversimplified again. The future for Nokia platform developers is not Meego, it's Qt.

And I've seen the N9. No way I'm carrying that lump around. Can't see it being mass market.


The truth is that the popularity of App store and then Android market is waking up Symbian users to the possibilities of buying apps. And the Ovi store use show the figures ramping up. Symbian is the next rich seam. There will be a window of opportunity, before it too gets saturated.

Bang on right there. Well said. I pity any developers that refuse to accept this. And the even better thing is with Symbian sales currently at a rate of over 300,000/day (FAR in advance of any other platform) which is over 100 million / year, not to mention a FAR bigger market share already, that window of opportunity is going to be the biggest and longest you've ever seen. I can't see saturation happening for a LOOOONG time. Even small developers with poor marketing and other competition for their app are in with a much better chance simply due to the huge numbers of potential customers involved.

Pro Nokia/Symbian folks keep pointing to the millions upon millions of Nokia/Symbian loaded devices, but they fail to state that most of these devices are dumbphones. Or mid-range phones, with access to Ovi store tacked on as an afterthought. The profile and habits of these users, combined with the subpar Ovi store experience, simply does not translate to download or profits for developers.

Sure you can keep developing for Symbian, but freeware and inane apps only. Just don't expect serious money from paid apps. The world will move on with iOS, Android and even Nokia's new baby Meego. Even Microsoft is hard at work at WinMo 7 , don't be surprised if they have an app store of their own using the leverage of the Windows platform.

Look at how the Nokia N8's getting delayed, from Q1 2010 to almost Q4 2010. Why? The S^3 is not ready for primetime. Also, you can't use the 'we decide when it's ready' strategy (i.e. Blizzard Games style). Things and technology move blazing fast in the world of mobile devices. A lot of things can happen in just a few months.

Symbian is going the way of the dinosaur in the smartphone realm. It will still power low end and mid range phones, but that's it. The truth hurts, but you must accept it.

Love it - a good attempt at a fightback from an Android/iPhone fanboy. Given that everything you write is either untrue (Symbian = dumbphone!? What planet are you on?), misunderstanding or lies, I'll leave it there, but thanks for the comedy :)

I think what he means is that people *use* Symbian phones like dumbphones: placing calls, some texting, playing mp3 files, maybe firing up a browser on a QVGA screen once in a while....and that's basically about it.

Sure, that's how some also use Android and the iPhone, but not many. If I buy a new smartphone, most people I know will ask me: "Oooh, what apps do you have for yours?"

I have a nephew that loves the iPod Touch his parents got him; he has apps so that he can read DC and Marvel Comics, play interactive learning games, video games and some music.

The chance for this type of use for Nokia devices is clearly for Meego. Symbian, though a smartphone platform, is most definitely small-button based-phone-centric.

The market is moving away from phone-centric smart phones, and towards do-all PDA/pocket computers, that include a phone as an additional 'app'.

Oh yes? If what you say is even slightly true (it's completely wrong actually), then how do you explain the fact that several months ago Ovi Store was getting 1.7 million downloads a day (this figure is out of date, new figures which will be MUCH higher will be announced at Nokia World probably) and that Niklas Savander, Nokia Vice President said recently that 75% of those downloads were apps? And we also know that most are not S40 apps. Also quite a lot of Symbian apps on Ovi Store have had well over a million DLs for one app, with one developer getting over 25 million DLs across all their apps.

So - this proves that Nokia/Symbian users know their phone to be great for apps, and are buying them in the millions.

Oh yes? If that's even slightly true (again, completely wrong) how do you explain the fact that Nokia stated they were going to be the biggest selling manufacturer of touchscreen smartphones in the world and they have now achieved that, and that all of those sales are running Symbian? And that Symbian^3 and ^4 are even MORE touchscreen oriented, in fact have touchscreens as the primary input device?

Sorry mate, you are continuing the sort of absolute RUBBISH that gets spoken about Symbian and Nokia, and it needs to be stopped, and for once, the truth needs to be heard.

Indeed, and that "ooh" is what is causing people to go looking for the Ovi Store to see what they can get.

Thanks for that little insight into your life. Very erm.... useful.

(wtf?!)

Nope. Qt. Meego is going to be for extreme gadgeteers. Normal humans with social lives will not want Meego.

[quote=Jimmy1;474427]
Symbian, though a smartphone platform, is most definitely small-button based-phone-centric.
[quote]

Symbian is based on EPOC32, which had touch screen capability way back in 1997. SE had their touch interfaces too. Way back. But none of them are relevant because Symbian is about to become ^3 and ^4 which most definitely stepping away from small button.


Symbian had a UI that was left behind by the iPhone and has been used on some poor hardware. It also had some different development techniques - mostly in the deprecated Avkon library.

Now it has an updated UI in Symbian ^3 and some decent hardware. Avkon is replaced by Qt.
Symbian ^4 will have a back-compatibility break, people who need to run existing apps will hopefull get versions for ^3.

So, having corrected its failings and gone open, what's wrong with Symbian now?

Yup. Completely agree with that. I bet that a large number of Nokia Symbian phone owners don't even know that you can download apps.

And yet with Apple's far smaller smartphone market share (13% vs 38% for Nokia Symbian devices in Q2), it was getting around 10 millions downloads a day (Jan 2010 figure).

There is little doubt that there is potential for the Ovi Store to be the most popular mobile app store. Unfortunately Nokia has done little to boost consumer knowledge or the quality/number of apps in the store.

In the eyes of a developer, what sort of hardware should I be targeting? Should I limit my apps so that it will run on the (horrendously outdated) 400 MHz ARM11 devices without GPU acceleration like the current flagship, the N97?

What proportion of Symbian devices will be able to run high-end, graphically rich apps like Need for Speed, Brothers in Arms, NFL 11, FIFA World Cup, SimCity, etc?

What about non-touch Symbian devices? Doesn't Nokia sell more S60 3rd edition phones than 5th edition phones? What is S60 5th edition's market share in the smartphone market?

When are app updates going to be implemented in the Ovi Store? Is Nokia going to be actively promoting the Ovi Store to consumers like Apple?

As an iPhone owner I have downloaded and deleted literally dozens of free apps from app store that frankly have been a waste of my time. Many of these are demos of paid apps, which I have been deterred from paying for. It takes a very special app to be worth downloading and keeping, and even more special to be worth paying for and there are not many of those in the app store.




The question was, "having corrected its failings", failings including running poor hardware by Nokia (a decision to use poor hardware is not a fault of Symbian). The developer should be looking at Qt.

That's a very games-centric view. I differentiate games apps and smartphone apps. Developers are not all games developers and it remains to be seen how devices like N8 will perform as a games platform, I don't think that games or anything N-Gage like has been the focus. Personally, like most adults, I don't bother with any games.

I have also downloaded and paid for several apps from the Apple App Store.

As a Nokia Symbian device owner I have also downloaded several free apps from the Ovi Store (after I got the damn thing working). How many paid apps have I downloaded? Zero. Zilch.

I don't think many people will argue with the fact that the iOS App Store contains more high-quality apps than any other mobile app store, There is a lot of crap in there (and Apple will need to address this issue soon) but with the huge range of apps in there, you're far more likely to find the app you want compared to the Ovi Store, Android Marketplace or BB App World.

Yes while its true that Nokia and Symbian are in theory separate organisations, they obviously have a strong symbiotic relationship. If Nokia abandoned Symbian, it would wither away. The Symbian Foundation, IMHO, should mandate a minimum spec for each release (or class of device) just like Microsoft is doing with WP7 or Android is doing with Gingerbread.

A developer cannot simply develop software using Qt without knowing the hardware specs. You simply cannot build software if you don't know what hardware you're targeting.

iOS developers know exactly what hardware is available to them while other platforms have specified minimum specs (like WP7 Chassis 1 I mentioned earlier).

Firstly lets talk about 3D acceleration (or more specifically OpenGL ES 2.0 support).

Most iPhone users are adults.
The majority of the top 100 paid apps in the iOS App Store are games.
WP7 will have 60+ games on release.
WebOS has released its PDK for iPhone like gaming.
Android has released its NDK to allow far richer games. There is even talk of a Sony Ericsson PSP Android handset.

Don't you think it would be naive for Nokia to ignore the games market?

Graphically rich games can be enough to convince a lot people to spend lots of money on high-end phones, even if they don't end up playing a lot of games on the device. Nokia needs all the help it can get to attempt to regain the high-end market.

Plus graphically rich apps are not only limited to games. What about augmented reality apps, medical imaging viewers, 3D mapping, CAD?

Secondly what about 2D acceleration. Will all Symbian handsets from now on get 2D hardware acceleration? Will panning, zooming and scrolling be quick and smooth or the stuttery mess on current end devices?

No shit sherlock! That was a useful input.


That's probably more a consequence of the iPod touch than the iPhone.