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I agree with all of that Goldenface, well said!
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Posted: 2008-08-20 05:48:45
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No maybe about it, UIQ is stone dead. The announcement was effectively made when the Symbian Foundation was formed, but in reality it was smelling pretty bad for a long time before that.

There's been no significant development of the platform since the P990, merely repackaging.
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Posted: 2008-08-20 13:20:54
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How do you know this, the COULD suprise us, like they did with the experia:D
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Posted: 2008-08-20 13:39:17
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I missed the announcement, have been out of the mobile phone industry for a couple of months, but yes it's true UIQ hasn't seen any development since P990 so I guess it's not surprising.

Just checked out the Symbian Foundation, it actually looks promising tbh. Cheap membership and open licencing should encourage industry wide participation.

Explains why SE aren't developing for UIQ - no point in putting a lot of energy into an interface that may not have an OS to run on after 2009. However does this mean Nokia will also be developing a new interface also, or are they going their own way with the existing symbian?

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Posted: 2008-08-20 13:42:11
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The Symbian Foundation is working towards a single, unified Symbian OS and UI to be launched in about two years time - meaning there will be no more S60 or UIQ, only Symbian.

Unsurprisingly, the Nokia owned Symbian Foundation has made it clear to developers that this future version will be fully compatible with existing S60 apps that they may be developing now. In other words, S60 is the base for this new unified Symbian. While it's possible that some elements of UIQ may also be integrated, UIQ as a base UI has effectively ceased to be, and any UIQ apps being developed now will not work on the new Symbian (with the upshot being that third party development for UIQ is bound to die off very quickly).

All this has been underlined by the laying off of virtually all UIQ's current workforce, within hours of the Symbian Foundation announcement.

Proud new owners of the G900 don't have an awful lot to look forward to I'm afraid (other than the dubious honour of owning SE's last UIQ phone, most probably).
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Posted: 2008-08-20 13:51:51
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Well there was never a great choice in software for UIQ anyway.

Symbian Foundation is non-profit, and Nokia will be buying out existing shares of symbian and gifting the whole kit and kaboodle to the Symbian Foundation. Since the licencing is royalty free, and membership is only $1500 per year, who pays for development and how do they get paid back?

I also wonder, will there be different UI's, or the means for an OEM to design their own interface? I mean, won't OEM's want some means of personalising and differentiating their products from other OEM's?

Thanks for your input
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Posted: 2008-08-20 14:32:18
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Put it this way - those working for the Foundation will be (and are) employees of Nokia.



I'm sure there will be a layer of branding and customisation available, but the point of bringing the whole Symbian eco-system under one roof is to standardise on one UI, and one platform. A Nokia Symbian phone will be 100% software compatible with an SE Symbian phone, or a Samsung Symbian phone, etc etc - an app developed for one will work on all the others. Right now, that means that any recent S60 app is guaranteed to work, while anything developed for UIQ is basically a dead-end.

I've no idead who (other than Nokia) will actually be releasing these phones. Obviously there are any number of members of the Foundation already, but then it's very cheap to join - whether SE for example are actually planning future Symbian phones is anyone's guess.

[ This Message was edited by: Boinng on 2008-08-20 13:51 ]
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Posted: 2008-08-20 14:48:45
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So if Nokia pays for development, why are they giving it away for free to competitors?

The reason I'm asking these questions, is I'm trying to understand will this be a true multi-partite industry effort, or will development directions be strong armed by Nokia to suit their own market directions and strategies (as they were doing with Symbian previously - and arguably the reason SE departed a couple of years ago with UIQ in an obviously failed effort to go their own way)

If this is an attempt to develop a truly open industry standard mobile os with cross platform application support then it would be a good thing. But I'm cynical that this will happen.

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Posted: 2008-08-20 15:02:28
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So they don't get wiped out but Google's Android and also to put pressure on the iPhone SDK. Smart move IMO
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Posted: 2008-08-20 15:27:36
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So do members get input into development, or will it be Nokia centric?

If it's too stacked towards Nokia's market needs, they may discourage uptake.

Still, it's got potential and it would be awesome to see a true industry standard OS emerge, especially from an application point of view. It's the only chance really of competing realistically with WM as an application platform.

Anyway, whether SE go with WM or this new platform, or a bit of both, I don't think they are in danger of fading out. They will adapt one way or the other.
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Posted: 2008-08-20 16:08:30
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