Crave Talk: Is Nokia flying too close to the sun?
Tags: nokia, symbian, boot, simplicity
Yesterday, Symbian announced that 100 million Symbian smart phones have shipped to over 250 network operators worldwide since the company's formation. Symbian develops and licenses the Symbian OS and has been used on devices manufactured by BenQ, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo, Sharp, Siemens and Sony Ericsson.
Nokia in particular, has used it on many phones in conjunction with its proprietary Series 40, Series 60, Series 80 and Series 90 platforms. Most of Nokia's high-end phones run on the Symbian OS version 9.1 with the S60 3rd Edition platform.
Last month Crave went to the Symbian smart phone show and we were blown away by the number of applications Symbian-based handsets can support. It was simply overwhelming -- from satellite navigation to instant email access to VoIP. But do phone users really want all these new features?
Nokia has always had a reputation among consumers for simplicity in design and use. Once people had had a Nokia phone, all other phones seemed too complicated to handle. Like the iPod, an elegant user interface gave them a unique position in the market, appealing to purists and newbies alike. Nokia phones just worked.
Yet at the launch of the Nokia N72, N73 and N93 earlier this year, Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice president and general manager of multimedia, said that the company no longer wanted us to think of its products as phones. They were morphing into 'multimedia computers'.
Some of the journalists present might have snorted at such pretension, but if they did they were quite wrong not to take the company seriously. Nokia genuinely believes in 'convergence', in super-smart phones that do everything. We can see the appeal, in theory. It would be great to have an MP3 player, GPS sat-nav, Internet browser, camera and phone all built into a small 'computer' that was always with you. In fact, Nokia has already done this with the incoming Nokia N95. So what's the problem?
The fact is, Nokia's phones are in danger of turning from the iPods of the phone world into the Gizmondos -- from devices dedicated to doing one thing well to jacks-of-all-trades that do too many things poorly. The S60 3rd Edition interface has received tonnes of criticism from veteran Nokia users for being far too complicated to use. It's great that there's new stuff to play with, but not so great that the old stuff, as in making calls and sending texts, has been made more complicated.
There's a simple explanation. Nokia's right. These new phones are multimedia computers -- with all the complexity, lengthy boot-times and interface confusion we've come to expect from Windows PCs. You now have to wait for your 'multimedia computer' to boot up and shut down and once everything is up and running you have to wait while an application loads. Is that what mobile phone users really want?
Then there's the issue of battery life. With so many new features the battery simply can't cope anymore. Recharging your phone almost every day has become the norm, which is a far cry from the days when phones like the Nokia 6310 would last you four or five days. Some people have also complained that the build quality isn't as good as it used to be either, with phones breaking more easily than they used to.
Of course, it's always easy to hark back to the good old days. Nokia's new phones aren't all bad, but these unsatisfied customers may have a point. While some users want a small computer-like device, many Nokia users were and still are quite happy with just having a simple, easy-to-use phone.
The perfect balance would be to do both well. Rather than focusing all efforts on making expensive converged devices, it might be a better tactic to make several devices that do one or two things very well, with calling and texting at the heart of the user experience. Nokia phones' ease of use and simplicity made them the iPod of the mobile phone market. But the dream of convergence has made Nokia fly too close to the sun. -Andrew Lim
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AnonymousSat 18 November, 2006 11:22pm
this article isn't FUD. Just because it doesnt represent your opinion, does make it FUD. I've used nokia phones with NokiaOS and Symbian, and I agree with everything this article says about symbian. I'm an IT pro, i like my gadgets just as much as the next guy, but I just want my phone to be able to make a call, and send a text message, without any dramas. Symbian is slow and clunky, and makes the simple tasks seem painful. I went out to buy one of the new n-series phones, and stop short after discovering they were all symbian based.
In Nokia's defence, I dont think anyone has the converged devices ready yet. Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition still sucks. For the same reasons, slow & clunky. I'll wait a few years before converging my device... give them all time to get it right.
AnonymousSun 19 November, 2006 7:30am
I agree with the second writer. I too am an IT professional, and have been working for one of the big blue manufacturers since ten years. I too do not want my phone to boot up in minutes, am not interested in GPS for the phone, and certainly don't play games on it.
While MP3 playing is always good for road warriors, I don't see how I can surf the internet at airports or in planes that much since the security checks take a lot of time and since I cannot turn on phones on planes. So even during travel, this functionality from a phone doesn't have that much value for me.
All things being equal, I want a phone to be fast, good at making calls and texting, and have a gazillion hour battery life. That's all. No more, no less.
If Nokia, which I've been in love with for the past umpty phones that I had, quits producing phones that do just that, I'll take my business to another phone manufacturer. Simple as that. And I do believe that there are other people out there just like me.
One must remember that telephone calls and texting are the core jobs of a phone. The rest is just collateral.
AnonymousSun 19 November, 2006 2:09pm
Symbian has to go in the same direction as Microsoft's Windows CE. It has to, because the money is in the enterprise market, as well as creating a application ecosystem around the OS. How it accomplishes this however is another matter. Palm tried and didn't make quite it. Symbian's OS is about the only guy left in the ring against CE. Else Microsoft will have won the mobile OS war.
AnonymousSun 19 November, 2006 2:11pm
I am a Nokia S60 user (yes it's Symbian) and i just love it. I'm really loathe of hearing all that talk about phone that just make calls. Senior embedded developer here using an S60 device for almost a year now with absolutely no complaints (even more happy since Nokia released their firmware update tool).
AnonymousSun 19 November, 2006 5:41pm
As a IT professional for the last 20 years, I have to say I fully agree with this great article. I had at least 3 mobile phones, and Nokia definitly has a special place fot its design and simplicity. I wanted to destroy my samsung, or even sony phones, just because of the time consuming user interface. Recent moves from Nokia greatly concern me !
JopeMon 20 November, 2006 10:18am
Heh, S60 didn't magically get worse with the introduction of 3rd edition. Welcome to 2002. S60 had the same UI back then as it has now.
I guess what it's always needed most was a more centralised "Control panel", where all the software settings would be grouped in one place, instead of having them in the menus of each app.
Buy a S40 phone if you want the S40 usability and elegance, buy a S60 phone if you want Symbian.
AnonymousThu 30 November, 2006 9:13am
people are just lazy. I've used the n-series phones and they are not complicated at all. Unless you dont have a brain or an intuitive mind you will call it complicted. That said my only comaplaint is the price of these multimedia computers
AnonymousSat 10 May, 2008 1:56pm
This is a stupid article in my opinion. Sure there are the great 'mini-multimedia computers', like the N73, N93, N95 etc. But if you find these 'way too complicated'..why don't you buy a Nokia 1100 or 1200, which are similar enought. Besides, Nokia are still releasing phones with the S40 platform (7900, 7500)
AnonymousMon 7 July, 2008 1:13pm
i love it
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AnonymousSat 18 November, 2006 10:09pm
This article is just FUD ... Personally I *want* to have a portable device which does "all the things" at least adequately, if not being *the perfect* device for all things. After all, it is kinda sucky having to carry around MP3 player, phone, portable game console etc...!