S60 Open to new features

Hi,

there are two things Nokia could do:

1) Better support for developers would help a lot. In my understanding, Symbian devices are so great because of nice 3rd party application. But there is not much help for them. Not every developer can afford a Nokia Pro membership, because sales are not very high.

E.g. currently I have an issue about a new software. I am creating an OpenDocument client for Symbian devices, but 3rd edition emulator crashes with a weired error 37.595 FAULT: nkern.cpp 00000025. Nokia is aware about it. It seems to be some linking error with estlib.lib and Carbide.vs but all they did was telling me to buy a ticket so they will look into it deeper. Why do I have to buy a support ticket for a bug in their system? Currently, my opendocument client will not be available on 3rd edition devices due to this issue.

2) Do more and better marketing, let the people know what you can do with your device. In all stores here in Germany, all Symbian devices are right next to any other phone without any mentioning of the capabilties. The customer see the device and pick a smaller one right next to it. They are just not aware about all the posibilties.

Here in Germany, there is currently a tremendous marketing campain about Windows Mobile featuring all possibilities on large posters. I understand that Symbian/Nokia is not Microsoft, but some more marketing for Symbian and Symbian based devices would be also nice.

Wow, didn't mean to write so much

Regards
Max

Max, I couldn't agree more with you :)

Ditto, I'd like to see Symbian platforms and their benefits promoted more too. I say platforms because I think it's up to S60 and UIQ to do this since that is what the end-user interacts with.

Selling them a "Symbian phone" may be misleading - they might end up thinking they can use UIQ apps on S60 or vice versa.

Unfortunately I suspect handset manufacturers like Nokia won't be too keen on promoting S60. If people like their Nokia phone they will probably buy another Nokia phone next time. However, if they like their S60 phone (from, say, Nokia) and want to get another one, they might go for someone else's handset (eg Samsung).

Then again, Java doesn't seem to have hurt handset manufacturer's brand loyalty. People understand "Can run Java games" as a feature, but it doesn't seem to make them less likely to buy a phone from the same manufacturer. So, perhaps if "Can run S60 apps" was promoted as a feature it could work.

James, I don't think it's fair to say that "can run S60 apps" is not promoted at all.

Take a look at Nokia E50 features:
"Wide range of applications separately available for S60 software"
Another example is Nokia 5500, it doesn't mention S60 anywhere.

Just a couple of examples, Nseries has its own way of mentioning S60. The question is of course, does the message come through clear enough?

Sorry Jukka, I didn't word that very well. Nokia's site and S60.com are very good step in the right direction (I was very pleased to see the S60 logo popping up on Nokia's phone pages lately). However, I was thinking more of the situation in highstreet phone shops. Here in the UK I have not seen S60 mentioned in phone shops and judging by Max's comment the same is true in Germany.

IMHO and from experience, these are the only 2 ways to make some money for your hard work on the Symbian platform.

>>- selling the application to operators (for >>operator-customized devices)

They would in all likelihood want it for free and then retain up to 60% of sales revenue. Wonderful init?

>>- selling the application/technology/company to >>a bigger player

May be 1 in 1000 or 10,000 would be successful going down this route.

Boom

Then there is something wrong in the S60/Symbian ecosystem? I would say it's too early to say yet, the whole S60 market is relatively small. Would mobile Java community be a good benchmark? It's many times bigger at least.

Yes the mobile Java community is huge but again the only way to sell mobile java solutions is through operators. Currently, I think 80% of mobile java solutions would be games. Development is fast, turnaround is quick; so it is easier to at least break even on mobile java games.

For serious applications Symbian is the first choice, usually mobile java is provided as a LITE version for the full blown Symbian solution.

Boom

max is right about marketing.Most of my mates use this s60 phones.but not many of them know there true potential of multitasking,extra applications out there.they purchase this phones for multimedia capabilities.But nokia india is not providing enough attention to marketing the series 60 platform.India is emerging market but for seeing how the handset work-we have to first checkout local gray markets.authorised dealers dont have demonstration handsets.There is not enough marketing.i agree.this is reducing the sales of 3rd party applications in india.In my openion-there is not a single online portal for indian customers.

I agree with much of what has been said.
We have been disappointed with how things have gone. Series 60 was the first cost to enter, now we have s60 3rd edition. Probably good in the long run but is breaks all our hard work on previous versions. This we could swallow.. if Nokia did actually provide some help is compiling [and some reasonable tools] for 3rd edition. We have apps that run great in the emulator, but fail on device.. Nokia knows it.. but again, seem uninterested to assist. I did not think we would need hack our way through development… but this is exactly what developers are now doing with S60 3rd edition.

Then to making some money on sales.. yes.. really feel a little like guinea pigs.. It would have been good to really have a partner in Nokia – it could have help enormously.

This has not been fun, and we are still trying to make things work. wow.. PPC was never this hard.