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A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

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Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#61
post #2

What is the chart measuring? The article implies that it represents App Store visits. Do they buy anything, though? That's the metric that's important to developers.

This article[1] suggests that the Ovi store gets 2.7 million app downloads a day. The Apple App store gets 17 million app downloads a day with less than half the marketshare.

[1] http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/11/09/10-reasons-why-you...

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#62
post #58
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, Nokia N900 is the only phone accomplishing that :-) For example, Android and iOS browsers skipped the rather useful contentEditable functionality. On my N900 I have it.

what does it do? Edit: OK, not that I know what it does, what do you use it for on your N900?

http://html5demos.com/contenteditable

Suffice it to say, this is not the reason why smartphones are so much better at browsing the web than feature phones.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#63
post #36
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just writing to agree. I have started learning native development at first. That was good experience from the point that you get some inner understanding how Symbian works but overall it is too hard to develop using native code. As well I am developing actively two Qt based Symbian applications during my free time currently. I really love it because I can in relatively small time develop nice and working applications…

Just yesterday I attended a presentation on the upcoming Qt Quick toolkit and QML, the language for defining UIs. Should have support for both Meego and whatever Symbians remain. QML looked quite nice in itself and a definite improvement but, in historical context, I'm not yet convinced…

I have not considered using QML at all. At the moment samples were unusable or very slow on Nokia E51. Pure Qt from other side was faster than I have expected. Actually I do not feel difference from native applications.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#65
post #36
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just writing to agree. I have started learning native development at first. That was good experience from the point that you get some inner understanding how Symbian works but overall it is too hard to develop using native code. As well I am developing actively two Qt based Symbian applications during my free time currently. I really love it because I can in relatively small time develop nice and working applications…

Just yesterday I attended a presentation on the upcoming Qt Quick toolkit and QML, the language for defining UIs. Should have support for both Meego and whatever Symbians remain. QML looked quite nice in itself and a definite improvement but, in historical context, I'm not yet convinced…

TwimGo is a nice example of using QML: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak-Py3cf_Ac

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 3 years ago in the UK, business people had Blackberrys and everyone else had Nokia or Sony Ericsson phones. Fast forward to now and business people have iPhones or Blackberrys while teenagers tend to use Blackberrys (they're cheap and good at messaging). Others have iPhones or Androids with the exception of people who haven't upgraded their phone in a while who still have Nokia or Sony Ericsson devices.

Nokia has very little presence here in North America for reasons I haven't been able to fathom. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that most people in the UK will have have owned a Nokia at some point in the last 10-15 years. The brand really is that common. It's the cheap first phone you get, or a fast replacement if your smartphone dies and you still have a contract to uphold, or the phones parents buy their ki…

Nokia owns much of the GSM standard, and thus dislikes making CDMA phones. This limits their major models to the AT&T network in the USA.

Nokia also dislikes selling phones trough carriers -- they prefer marketing directly to consumers, not tying their phones to carrier-specific plans.

Together, this means that in the US there is only one carrier where their major model phones work, and that carrier considers Nokia's strategy to be openly hostile to them.

So no wonder they don't sell much.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#67
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easier of cross platform development is a good reason to use JavaMe in lieu of Qt when developing for Symbian because Android does not fully support C++ development. [edit] eSWT provides access the GPU under Java.

JavaMe is not that cross-platform from what I've been told. Qt runs on Linux (including embedded), Mac, Windows, BeOS and Symbian/Maemo.

Only one of those operating systems, Symbian, is used on phones to any extent. JavaME runs under both Symbian and Android - and that's a lot of Mobile platforms. So if one is developing a mobile app on Symbian, Qt may not be the most flexible option once other currently available mobile platforms are considered.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#68
post #40
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until the internet capabilities on smartphones get realised. On a bus for 30 minutes? Use the phone to browse HN. etc

That's what I do every time I'm on a bus :)

I do the same on the Phoenix light rail; This site's layout performs really well on mobile devices; Loading a beast like Digg on my N900 would make me twitch for kill -9.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#69
post #23
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until the internet capabilities on smartphones get realised. On a bus for 30 minutes? Use the phone to browse HN. etc

Almost any phone can browse the web today.

Its a better experience on some phones than others; "Surfing the web" in Blackberry's browser is closer to "drowning the web" and rendering nothing correctly.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#70
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but not in a way that approaches the usefulness of a desktop browser.

Yep, Nokia N900 is the only phone accomplishing that :-) For example, Android and iOS browsers skipped the rather useful contentEditable functionality. On my N900 I have it.

The N900 also has the only implementation of Firefox Mobile. Adblock Plus is in my pocket.
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