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Symbian Won

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Re: Symbian Won

#281

Post by edeion »

neilv wrote: post #252
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…

Symbian was great, and I loved my indestructible all-silver Nokia E61 non-US version (which included WiFi, unlike the carrier-crippled ones I found in the US). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_E61 I actually looked recently at trying to buy another E61 in good condition, and how much trouble it would be to kludge up access to my email through it. I figured it would be more productive for email than my current main…

My beloved E6 had its flaws. It was a pain to sync, the syncs were not serviceable, but at least it was syncing to my computer, not to the cloud. On this one, Symbian Anna felt better than Symbian Belle and it would have been a pain to revert.

That said, it was small, smaller than an iPhone SE. And it had a hardware keyboard. I'm not against fancy apps and stuff on my phone but, besides calling reliability, the first thing I want is to be able to type small things.

I must confess I was unhappy that it even had a touchscreen: a nightmare when it was raining. I guess I just loved the form factor and its promises.

I'm thinking of making this an ode. The E6 ballad. Sorry for that long little-informative comment...

Re: Symbian Won

#282

Post by vxNsr »

derefr wrote: post #126
qwerty456127 wrote: post #26

> With the latest releases of Android and iOS, we’re back to where we started. Both now prompt you the first time an app asks for access. Both give you regular reminders of which apps may be snaffling your data. Both let you manage access and selectively deny apps. Every OS should do this, desktop OSes included. For the last 2 decades I've been using personal firewalls on Windows to do just this, now I use LittleSnit…

One thing I've been wishing for in the mobile OSes, is for them to copy web browsers, and offer a UI to change all these security/privacy permissions for an app quickly from the context of the app, rather than by going into Settings and navigating down to the app (which nobody ever bothers to do, and especially nobody ever bothers to do more than once —so you can't put stuff that'd be useful to change temporarily in…

THIS IS A TERRIFIC IDEA!

Feels so intuitive. Turns the control center into the top bar from macOS or the file/edit/settings bar that many windows apps have. That's so darn obviously the right way to do it!!!!

Re: Symbian Won

#283

Post by Zenst »

edeion wrote: post #280
Zenst wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also if a Series 5 Psion, an early owner of mobile ARM in its younger days.

Even though it's sort of an aside, I'm glad someone mentions Psion. I'd love to check whether their keyboards are on par with the legend. I wonder how many others relate, at the global scale :)

For the time, it was good, maybe better mechnisms available now, but darn - it was built to last and my 5MX still works. Though a lot of psions market was retail/stock warehous stuff, their handheld terminals had a huge market. So robust design was key. Only design issue on the 5MX that griped me was the stylus holder spring being not as industrial designed. Apart from that, all works well.

Since then, dreamed of some comparable device, basic linux, enough for vi and terminal stuff, wifi/bluetooth and well, happy with the screen. Alas all devoplment of anything close, tend to wack in CPU's that would be classed as a supercomputer of the 5MX time, power hogging colour screens and you end up with devices that will last a day perhaps, but not the month the 5mx would pull with comparable usage with the rs232 adapter.

Hence a cheap terminal, basic local editor wifi device in that form factor and if it could do bluetooth and double as a keyboard for a smartphone, well, a simple device like that would tick my boxes and maybe many others.

Re: Symbian Won

#284

Post by ngcc_hk »

QuercusMax wrote: post #146
kevsim wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Nokia starting in about 2004. Looking back on my career, one of the single greatest feelings of accomplishment was getting a Hello World application to run on Symbian/S60. I thought I knew C++ going in, but I wasn't prepared for two phase constructors and the 6 files you'd need to draw a simple list view on the screen. Felt amazing once it worked though!

I totally know what you mean - the sense of satisfaction and joy when you get even the most basic "end-to-end" functionality working in a new environment is hard to match.

It still is; try blink or counter on a new fpga board.

Re: Symbian Won

#285

Post by ngcc_hk »

stiray wrote: post #278
afandian wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an owner of a Gemini, the hardware is innovative and good enough, but the OS is really an afterthought. You can browse their current wiki and see how organised it is. No disrespect to the team, it just seems like taking sufficient care of this is a bigger job than they have the resources for. But I'm glad I backed the kickstarter, and would do the same for something similar in order to diversify a very un-diverse…

I agree, but they have announced initial voice call support for linux (update 78) and this is actually quite close to what I want :)

Still cannot get back to linux. Now just an android phone with a keyboard.

Re: Symbian Won

#286

Post by icebraining »

c0l0 wrote: post #85
qwerty456127 wrote: post #26

> With the latest releases of Android and iOS, we’re back to where we started. Both now prompt you the first time an app asks for access. Both give you regular reminders of which apps may be snaffling your data. Both let you manage access and selectively deny apps. Every OS should do this, desktop OSes included. For the last 2 decades I've been using personal firewalls on Windows to do just this, now I use LittleSnit…

I respectfully disagree. Because it's an EPIC pain, and it's absolutely hostile towards "average" users. Back in the Android 5 (or so) days, I knew what permissions an app I was going to install on my mother's phone was going to ask to be granted _once_, and be done with it. Nowadays, an app might ask for some kind of new permission "on first use", and users on mobile are developing the same habit as users of desktop…

I think you have to believe in sandboxes if you use the modern web; each site you load is effectively a program you are running on your machine, with only a sandbox protecting it.

Re: Symbian Won

#287

Post by cestith »

Zenst wrote: post #283
edeion wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though it's sort of an aside, I'm glad someone mentions Psion. I'd love to check whether their keyboards are on par with the legend. I wonder how many others relate, at the global scale :)

For the time, it was good, maybe better mechnisms available now, but darn - it was built to last and my 5MX still works. Though a lot of psions market was retail/stock warehous stuff, their handheld terminals had a huge market. So robust design was key. Only design issue on the 5MX that griped me was the stylus holder spring being not as industrial designed. Apart from that, all works well. Since then, dreamed of som…

My 3, 3a, 5, and 5MX all still work (as do my Atari Portfolios and HP LX series palmtops, save one 200LX with physically damaged screen. I too keep wanting to see something like the 5Mx, or the PS-1000, or something similar with modern specs. I don't need the screen to be fast, just useful and low power. The 16-color E-Ink screens I keep reading about in Chinese tablets should work. Big battery for the form factor wouldn't hurt, but we used to use AAs. A dual-core or quad-core A53 with all solid-state storage, a nice legible low-power screen, and a great little keyboard would be quite a find.

Re: Symbian Won

#289

Post by kwhitefoot »

bjarneh wrote: post #218
kwhitefoot wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would still use my N9 except that there are apps that I use every day that simply don't exist for Meego. I suppose I should try to sell it to some one who can use it but it is such a beautiful thing that I am loath to get rid of it even though I haven't even switched it on for ages.

At some point it just got too slow, and the browser was just not up to scratch. Still the best looking phone ever made..

> browser was just not up to scratch

I found a version of Firefox that worked very well. Haven't tried it for a year or so though.

> Still the best looking phone ever made..

Definitely!

Re: Symbian Won

#290

Post by smichel17 »

pjmlp wrote: post #160
smichel17 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although the NDK is really annoying, it's not required to build an app, which it seems like Symbian C++ was. I think that's critical for getting the app ecosystem off the ground.

You could use Java, Flash, Python and Web Runtime as alternatives back then. Much richer than Android still.

Thanks for the clarification :) It was before my time.
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