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Symbian Won

shkspr.mobi

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Re: Symbian Won

#241

Post by floatboth »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #110
belorn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still use mine. Got a suspicious cheap battery + charger several years ago when the usb broke again. Shipped from china it took 2 months by boat, and the other battery is now extended enough that you can't close the back lid, but dammit, great phone.

Why are you still using the N900? Its kernel, browser and SSL libraries haven't been upgraded in years and years now. If you connect to a network, you are just asking to be pwned. I kept my N900 for years longer than most people because it has a quality DAC and, as long as I kept it in airplane mode, it was a good music player for the classical and jazz I listen to on high-quality headphones when traveling. But event…

You can use a mainline kernel. (Without the GPU..)

Re: Symbian Won

#242

Post by zepearl »

mempko wrote: post #118
bjarneh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two Nokia N9's (running Meego) at home still. I used N9 as my daily driver until about 3 years ago. The failure of that magnificent OS, combined with the failure of the successor (Jolla / Sailfish) still annoys me.

Sailfish is still around and is still getting upgrades every quarter with new features and improvements. Android support is actually pretty good and I use it for my daily driver. It's not a success but it hasn't been a failure IMO.

I used an Xperia X with Sailfish until end of 2019 but then I finally dropped it - it mostly worked but got too much annoyed by small bugs that never got fixed 100% (but in the meanwhile the UI got a lot of changes => that would definitely not be my way of prioritizing work). It's a pity but personally I think Sailfish will die.

Re: Symbian Won

#243

Post by AceJohnny2 »

nitrogen wrote: post #240
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could never accept the coding standard for curly bracket positioning. Hahaha, how bad could it be... ... Why the fuck would they need to indent every function by an 8-space tab!?

8-space using the tab character is the Linux kernel standard, but the curly braces are closer to other coding standards.

It's not the 8-space I'm aghast about, but that every function body is indented by it.

Re: Symbian Won

#244

Post by russfink »

speeder wrote: post #197
secondcoming wrote: post #60

I used work for Symbian. The OS itself was great at the time (it's open sourced somewhere), and got security correct (I don't recall 'privacy' ever being an explicit goal) but it was an absolute bitch to develop for. It had its own dialect of C++ which looks nothing like modern C++, the learning curve was huge. It tried really hard to have an app ecosystem but it was nothing like what google and apple have today. Net…

I am Brazillian, and I think killing Symbian was a huge and stupid mistake. When Microsoft release that memo that killed Symbian, in Brazil its marketshare was INCREASING, there was a lot of people learning how to code for it, many people saw it as a good future, because with it you could make blazing fast CHEAP phones, iPhones were crazy expensive, and android was a slow buggy mess. Thing is... iPhones are STILL cra…

I could enable GPS and leave the phone on without charging... for THREE WEEKS at a time.

Re: Symbian Won

#245

Post by scooble »

bjarneh wrote: post #66
arpa wrote: post #5

I don't miss symbian. Maemo on the other hand... was a loss. Nokia N900 was absolutely the best smartphone i ever used. Would use it still, but usb port issues forced me to upgrade.

I have two Nokia N9's (running Meego) at home still. I used N9 as my daily driver until about 3 years ago. The failure of that magnificent OS, combined with the failure of the successor (Jolla / Sailfish) still annoys me.

The killing of the n9 is the one thing in tech I'm pretty sure I'm never going to get over. It was awesome, and they killed it.

Re: Symbian Won

#246

Post by npunt »

Eh, not really. Symbian was right for the wrong reasons. They were right to warn users about apps using internet access, but they were wrong about the reason - it was about data caps, not privacy or security.

Data caps mattered in that era, so from a narrow point of view it was the smart thing to offer those features. But to launch a category defining smartphone, that limitation needed to be broken entirely, and that involves work outside of software; namely, timing the launch such that you can negotiate with AT&T to ease the data restriction.

It's like saying RealPlayer 'won' against YouTube. No, they didn't. They just mistimed an idea, and a few implementation details were the same.

I've written more about this type of dynamic here: https://nickpunt.com/blog/category-defining-products/

Re: Symbian Won

#247

Post by randyrand »

Mostly decent article, but one point - Android is hardly a libertarian free for all. Google controls the way apps must ask for permission.

If anything it shows that with just a single choice and no competition, android apps just all have to do the same shity thing. Opposite of libertarian.

Re: Symbian Won

#248

Post by asjw »

secondcoming wrote: post #60

I used work for Symbian. The OS itself was great at the time (it's open sourced somewhere), and got security correct (I don't recall 'privacy' ever being an explicit goal) but it was an absolute bitch to develop for. It had its own dialect of C++ which looks nothing like modern C++, the learning curve was huge. It tried really hard to have an app ecosystem but it was nothing like what google and apple have today. Net…

This really reminds me of good times

I started a company with friends to write games for phones, before they were smart

Our fist breakthrough was at E3 in LA with a game for Nokia 7650, but we worked on prototypes years before

My first mobile connection was with a Nokia 9000i communicator, I was working for an ISP at the time that gave them to us to test mobile connections, and it felt like a James Bond movie

I learned so much developing on Symbian, especially being a diligent C++ programmer on a system that wasn't really using standard C++

Fast forward 20 years, I work on backends in Erlang/Elixir and never touched mobile development again

J2ME was nice, but limited, I lost hope soon after when iPhones came out and it was clear that the mobile platform wouldn't be fun anymore

Re: Symbian Won

#249

Post by nexuist »

russfink wrote: post #244
speeder wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Brazillian, and I think killing Symbian was a huge and stupid mistake. When Microsoft release that memo that killed Symbian, in Brazil its marketshare was INCREASING, there was a lot of people learning how to code for it, many people saw it as a good future, because with it you could make blazing fast CHEAP phones, iPhones were crazy expensive, and android was a slow buggy mess. Thing is... iPhones are STILL cra…

I could enable GPS and leave the phone on without charging... for THREE WEEKS at a time.

GPS is a completely passive signal, so it's not really surprising that it lasts a long time. You can get similar battery life with IoT SoCs deployed on the field.

The difference between then and now is that modern smartphones use sensor fusion, combining cellular, WiFi, and GPS signals to generate a location. The end result is more accurate output, at the expense of battery life.

Re: Symbian Won

#250

Post by behnamoh »

pjmlp wrote: post #204
speeder wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Brazillian, and I think killing Symbian was a huge and stupid mistake. When Microsoft release that memo that killed Symbian, in Brazil its marketshare was INCREASING, there was a lot of people learning how to code for it, many people saw it as a good future, because with it you could make blazing fast CHEAP phones, iPhones were crazy expensive, and android was a slow buggy mess. Thing is... iPhones are STILL cra…

Symbian Belle, the last iteration was just great. I only moved to Android when forced to.

And this whole notion of "Symbian Won" reminds me how "Windows Phone Won" too. Just look at the latest iOS 14 widgets which is inspired by WP tiles.
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