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Apple understands users and marketing to them. It's a company that is acutely aware of the demands to make its brand succeed, and it has been very successful in its niche doing just that. Developing on Symbian and dealing with fragmented platforms and, frankly, rubbish tools is not appealing to begin with. Add the pain of having no effective route to market and all the nonsense associated with permissions, test, certification (carrier-induced stuff) and it's no wonder they gravitate to the (unfragmented) iPhone and ready made near-global distribution channels.
Symbian is a rather ugly pig in the modern world which is being redefined by the Apples and Googles - and no amount of lipstick changes that. So - yes: you are indeed asking too much!
yesterday before my flick for the 995 with INCLUDED FREE CLIP ON SHITE SPEAKERS.. in bright ORANGE. They harped strangely "the music mobile for your mobile life" complete and utter shit.
I guess grandma or NORMOB DAD will see this buy it for their kids, and their poor kids will think my dad is such a looser.
The OEM's want to sell mobiles that it. if 80% of the population wants to carry 2004 in their pockets, then thats what the OEMS will make for them. Sad for us.
In my dev bookings for the next year I have IPHONE, PRE, ANDROID. Thats it. I have completely forsaken ANY other platforms as economic suicide, and NOKIA/SE/SAMDUNG as LUDDITE FATFORMS that dont give a FUCK about their developers. Apple sucks, pre is free sort of sucks, android well sort of works. At least I MAKE MONEY and can crap out an application for free (which I do)
Finally BLACKBERRY...last gen platform for last gen people. They try to be hip, but its failblog mobile city. BB Browser = 2005 wibblematic.
rant off time for a tea.
I COULDN'T AGREE WITH YOU MORE.
I love my Nokia because I'm a rare breed of mobile user. I'm a geek. I like to tinker with the device and I don't have a problem navigating through menues and cryptic error messages. I know that different Nokia phones have different OS even if they look mostly the same. But most people don't.
I bought my mom a phone last week. If money had been no object, I would have gotten her an iPhone. It's a dream to use for someone who doesn't know what an OS is or care about it (instead I got her a low end Samsung - oh my god, whoever designed the UI on that thing deserves very, very bad things). That makes up for a high percentage of the mobile users.
The iPhone has many flaws, yes. But it was conceived with the user in mind, and it shows. And that's why people love it, and that's why marketing people love it.
My phone can do it! But lazy/clueless web developers lock me out because my browser has the wrong user agent. I end up with some miserable mobile website formatted for a dumbphone with a screen 1/3 the size of mine.
While the iPhone has it's own faults from a development point of view, namely Apple's position as gatekeeper, the end user experience is fantastic. Normobs actually WANT an iPhone versus settling for the latest free-with-contract Nokia.
A few years ago, almost all the business people making these decisions were using Nokia's. To be specific, they were using the 6310i. Every businessperson had one.
The thing is, that after the 6310i, they all got given Blackberry's. Their last experience of using a Nokia phone was in c2004, apart from the £20 PAYG shitter that they bought their kid for Christmas last year.
Do they think Nokia phones have changed? No.
Do they see adverts on telly showing them what 'cool' stuff a Nokia can do? No.
Do they know you can even get apps on a Nokia? Of course not.
The iPhone is perceived as the defacto standard in the world of 'cool'. If a big business develops an iPhone app, the Top Knobs think that it will propel their brand into being 'cool'. If their app is successful, maybe they are hoping they will get to meet Steve Jobs, and then they will be 'Uber cool'.
Until Nokia claw back some 'cool' points, they can have the easiest route to market for apps in the world, but still no-one would develop for them.
On an aside, my 10 year old sister in law saw my N97 for the first time last night. She popped out the keyboard, and her words? "Wow, thats cool"...........
Let's look at the UK market as an example.
Develop for iPhone? Build and test on a single platform release and there are 1m iPhones + 1m iPod Touch devices in market. It's reasonable to assume that 75% of these are running the same OS, which also happens to be the OS that Apple released in the last month, and that anyone who really wants your app will upgrade to that same OS.
So potentially 2m people can get your app in the UK.
Symbian app? Well... There are more Symbian devices, but the biggest selling is the N95 8Gb, of which there are about 650k in the UK market.
Oh, there are multiple firmware versions of that, and most people don't know how to upgrade.
Runs OK on the N95 too? Apart from there are multiple firmware versions of that too.
All in all? Massive test & support problem.
Conclusion? Deliver an iPhone app, if that sells really well, then maybe, just maybe, port to another device.
The same will apply to smart phones as well. Nokia will do to Apple what Microsoft did to the Mac. Right now the picture does not look very clear. Its all about iPhone and Android . But check out Nokia's OVI and how its expanding everyday. And most important thing, the pricing factor. Apple's always been exclusive and i believe will remain exclusive for the elite few. Nokia's market is vast and diverse. Wait for some revolutionary handsets from nokia. Its will be all about convergence and nokia is up to it.
My two year old can pick up my phone, unlock it, find the photos app and flip through photos clicking on videos to watch them play, it’s that easy, I give her my wife’s N79 and she pretends to talk into it – that’s the difference, Nokia’s are phones pure and simple, if you want to talk and text then great, perfect – guaranteed success every time, my iPhone is a handheld computer that allows me to do so much, the phone functionality is an add-on, and one that’s not great, yes I get a lot more dropped or unconnected calls but I will live with that because of everything else it allows me to do – order shopping, check train times, view movie trailers, book tickets etc etc etc..
Nokia / SEMC / Moto have had 2 years to play catch up, the Symbian Foundation fiasco a year ago has only put things back even further, with SEMC and Moto cancelling all their Symbian devices last year (yes I know they were UIQ not S60 but still...). What Symbian devices have we had released in the past two years?, a couple of 5th edition devices (finally touch screen from Symbian), and a raft of 3rd edition FP1 & FP2 phones, great devices, but please, 3rd edition is old hat now. I just hope that the first Symbian Foundation phones are spectacular, but deep down I know we will all be disappointed.
I still hope that people high up in Nokia are listening and taking action, it’s not too late for them, but they do need to remember that companies as big and a successful have failed over time.
"Maybe QT will fix it, er? I won’t even mention the 20-stage install process on Symbian."
And then the video...
This shows your complete lack of anything approaching technical knowledge. These steps are required because the S60 5th edition platform as it stands at the moment does not contain the Qt dependencies. This is obviously not going to be the case when Qt is the standard framework for app development in Symbian.
Anyway, this conversation is dominated by developers who are under the delusion that the VAST majority of phone users couldn't give a squeaky crap about them and their shitty little 'apps'. Get a life, all of you...
Why am I punished? Why can't I use an Ocado app on my N86?
Lexus knows this too. As a product, their cars are not discernably better than their high-end competition (well, maybe an edge in reliability, but that's a Japanese thing), but the overall proposition, including the customer service, is second to none, leading to high-consumer ratings all round. I'll wager that the buyers have little idea of what's going on 'under the hood' (save some vague notion of engine + transmission) and guess what, they don't care. Where therefore is there still any sort of debate about iPhone-vs-Symbian-vs-Android? Notice that from Apple's perspective, no-one talks about the proposition from an OS perspective.
Nokia don't do propositions, SE don't do propositions - no matter how good or bad their products may be.
Apple DOES do propositions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/2...
We are the people our friends and family look to when it comes to choosing a new mobile. We are the people who chat on social networking sites about this stuff. We are the people who want to develop mobile sites and apps. Its not a good idea to piss us off.
Now days Nokia delivers them OTA (actually it wont for N97 v2.0 because it is so big). The N97 is one of the first phone Nokia specifically said at launch would have major upgrades, which would add major functionality... I guess people always want more. But bear in mind Nokia rolls out more OTA updates across more models and in more markets that anyone else... When is that going to become a significant business advantage (e.g. for pushing out new services or reducing support calls over the life of a phone).
Ideally it would all happen at once, but most people just aren't that concerned - over a month is fine. Yes stuff goes wrong - the red and blue 5800 incident springs to mind - which needs fixing.
But yes Nokia would do well not to annoy the influencers, who after all do understand why Nokia does some things and don't always have a rational, objective view point. And why should they? Just one more thing Nokia have to actor into to decision making...
Ha ha, it's what I do best ;-)
Well, yes, I have to agree with your point in *this* article about the *current* state of play. But I would say, again, that you are seeing merely the ebb and flow of competition, of natural selection in a competitive market. You CANNOT make prophecies of doom on the basis of the current situation. You don't know the future. And by that I mean your prophecies make the assumption that Nokia cannot and/or will not respond, or respond effectively. And that is the Achilles Heal of your argument and your prophecies.
You are seeing a temporary moment in time right now - a snapshot. A snapshot, where like in a road race, one car is ahead of the other at that moment in time. CLEARLY Apple have pulled ahead in SOME aspects (mainly getting people to develop apps and others to use them) of Nokia. Cool. Agreed. How could I not agree - it's the snapshot of the present time.
Now, I disagree with some of the arguments, or at least the strength of the arguments, against Nokia/S60 (e.g. it's slow, hard to develop for, or whatever). But say they are all completely correct. Why, exactly, does that mean that we all suddenly know the future? Why does that make everyone think that Nokia are simply a house of cards that fall down at the slightest puff of wind? At the slightest competition?
Shocking proposal for all you doom-mongers and naysayers: Maybe, just maybe, Nokia will see the current state of play, read articles like this, see the drop in market share, etc. and RESPOND. Shocking notion eh? Maybe they'll re-organise, re-shuffle, re-motivate, and fight back.
You see, a company like Microsoft really are doomed in mobile. They really, really are. They're a company that only understands yesterday's 'personal computers' - you know the big beige boxes sitting under your desk. They absolutely 100% categorically do not understand mobile (as for the latest version of WinMo - don't make me laugh).
Nokia are utterly different to this. They have been ahead of the curve, and have defined the present market of 'personal computers' (or what many people currently call mobile phones). They initimately know and understand it, and iPhone is but a small yappy terrier nipping around their ankles. Nokia are kings of the hill. Now, sure, utlimately that could all be lost. But I wish people would stop assuming the future is one where Nokia lie down and die. It's just bonkers. And it shows people's RADICAL ignorance.
Nokia have been stung, and they will respond. And maybe they should have responded sooner, maybe they shouldn't. But wait and see. And if in some unlikely future they don't respond well enough. Well, so be it. -> ** IT'S THE USERS THAT MATTER ** <-. I only care that the users get the best experience (and that includes cost and availability of technology). iPhone is pointing to a better usability but it's a shocking failure on the cost and availability of technology front. Show me all the poor people with iPhones - there aren't any. They deserve this stuff too, and it will be Nokia that gives it to them - and Apple that we can thank for giving Nokia the push to do so.
Articles like this one Ewan are VERY good, because they're giving Nokia a public slap. Good work. Articles like the one yesterday are less so, because they're indulging in over reactionary future speculation.
I think its clear that Symbian is going to be around for while and with decent (global) market share to boot - insert symbian, Nokia market share stats etc here - but your fustration is utterly understandable.
What do Nokia, Sony etc have to do to get Developers on their side? But more importantly why the hell hasn't this been number 1 priority for 3 years? I worry far less about Nokia than Symbian because Nokia have realised that Symbian just can't cut it when it comes to serious mobile computing (name your reason, mostly corporate apathy i imagine) hence the intro of Maemo and the stunning N900.
Someone made a good point in an earlier thread, just how essential are apps compared to connectivity, functionality, web browsing etc at the moment? I tell you what, with the desktop browsing capabilities of the N900 I can watch a youtube video, i can check my gmail, I can do my shopping online (bit painstaking, granted), I can update my social networks and guess what? I DON'T need an app for that!
So the N900 looks great and Nokia's future rosy, so now for the easy part...getting the developers on board!!
I just can't see Nokia making another N-Series device that runs off Symbian, Maemo will spread through the top end devices and given time trickle down to mass market handsets as well.
To be honest I think that Maemo has come along about 18 months too late but now it's here Nokia need to pick it and run with it, run like the wind Nokia, run! Because lets face it, how dull will it be if 'mobile computing' has a competetive set one 1?
Taking away that its a difficult enough to develop anything, its a total dog to deploy anything after its developed. When the went from one symbian version to the next the deployment process changed completely as well, not to an easier method but to a more difficult one.
I just don't get it. Why do they make things to damn difficult for developers?
The Ovi site is just rubbish and embarrassing and looks like it was developed by kids at school.
It's so easy really, list categories, list apps, click on app to install, pay using your account.
Whats difficult with that?
Symbian is a SUPERB mobile OS, and I reckon the best out there. Just one indicator is the multitasking capability. I've been programming various systems for around 25 years now, and I can say genuinely that the multitasking is better than ANY other OS I have seen (on any platform), other than a.) The Amiga (IMHO the best digital product of any sort in history :) - yes I'm a fanboy ) and b.) The tragically now defunct Tao Group's Intent OS (originally known as TAOS). Multitasking is a clear pointer to the underlying structure, efficiency and maturity of the OS. The telephony integration on Symbian is also excellent. WinMo, RIM, iPhone OSX, Android et all can match neither of these features.
Now, if you have an issue with Symbian - e.g. tough development, I'd ask simply how much of that is the technical fault of the OS and how much is the fault of poor SDK design, not enough dev. support, not enough programming language support, etc. If you have a problem with S60 fair enough but know that the UI engine is scheduled to be replaced with something much better.
Whatever the reasons are they're obviously all equally important but I think it's also important to be clear where exactly the problems lie, because it helps everyone's understanding, and complaints to be better directed, and fixes to be sorted out.
This general "Symbian's crap" attitude doesn't help anyone when in fact you mean for example the S60 UI layer is a bit slow historically and developer management policies have annoyed you.
Attempts to undermine the broad thrust of my post by making corrections to the sweeping statements I've made are ridiculous. They're 'sweeping' for a reason: Because I don't want to write a 50,000 word analysis.
Why can't I get Ocado on my Nokia N86?
Why is it such a flippin' trauma to develop for the Nokia/Symbian platform?
What's been done about it?
Why no Ocado (see my other comment). But there's little business case for it full stop right now. iPhone is the easy reach, but serves only a small fraction of their customers (Ocado shoppers and iPhone onwers may correlate quite well, but how many of those have downloaded and used the app).
Why trauma - older platform that addresses mass market. Therefore has legacy issues, and is built to fulfill other requirements which were more important (and probably still are). Operators still a drag too.
What's being done about it? Qt and WRT - powerful combination, but it takes times. WRT currently under exploited - most web services could use this to create integration right now. Distribution will be fixed by Ovi Store in time (building for a cross-the-market portfolio and global is hard).
Its kind of like asking when will my Ford have the same stuff as my Tesla...
I think Alex has already posted a couple of great comments, but I might build on something he said...
As Alex said this is a view of the current moment in time, and I would add to that it is a view of a relatively small proportion of the market. There's an understandable obsession with tracking high end smartphone £400+ devices - but these are only the tip of the ice berg.
There's also a tendency to be ahead of the real world. Mobile has already created new technology worlds (near instant global communication anywhere, anytime)... but the best is yet to come. People reading blogs like this are playing with the next generation stuff that won't go mass market for some time. Yes these things can help sell high devices now because they are an obvious differentiators, but seriously how many people buy a device purely on these merits? And that's just the high end...
Yes, you can make the argument that the trends we see here will be repeated lower down the market in time. I do agree with this, but it is rather more complicated that the statement suggests. Yes we may see the same trends, but will they be implemented by the same companies in the same ways - almost certainly not (you can pick this out in almost any consumer electronics industry). I've seen the car industry quoted as a good example, but you could also pick out the PC market etc. etc.
So why is it different? Things might look the same, but the business processes and the technical structure is often very different - so too is the operating environment (internal legacy constraints and unavoidable externally governed constraints being the biggest factors).
That's a general thought on this.
Some great thoughts in this thread about Symbian development (mainly agree). But for all these great iPhone apps how may actually make money as a sustainable business - some sure - but a lot of it (with bigger companies) is just written off as promotional spend. It would be the same if they did Nokia apps too (maybe even more so given the distribution headaches). The market, as a whole, just isn't that mature as far as apps go. That's why Ewan says I'd like to use app / service x. Not I need to use... I bet he'd say I need my mobile phone to make calls. I need my phone to be pocketable (and so on). And Ewan is a high end user - this is even more true for mere mortals.
So one answer would be that any company putting money into mobile apps might have their sanity questioned... except of course its not always about the bottom line. You follow the media hype. You have non-revenue reasons for doing stuff (e.g. potential, learn now, exploit later). The iPhone is probably the easy reach now, but will it be the easy reach when things turn into multi-billion £ business'? Probably not as they wont address the whole market - that's a very fundamental difference to Nokia (which is why the Nokia versus Apple thing gets tiresome).
So yes I guess it is about patience. Should Nokia be doing better - definitely. Is it critical yet - nothing like it. Will they do better - yes. Will it be perfect Elysian fields - no. Will it have volume - yes. Will you be able to build big business on it - yes (though maybe only the future can answer that...). Will there be other players - most definitely.
I know there are exceptions to all of this (I'm sure we can all point to several case studies), but I speaking as a gross generalisation.
Nokia basically gets a lock of flack because its market leader... but compared to a lot of others it looks good... Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and so on... It doesn't excuse Nokia, but it does place their performance in context.
Crappy Nokia devices - yes S60 5th Edition UI is widely considered a dog - that should be separated from Symbian as an OS. Fair enough.. its being worked (and even so it still manages to be the second biggest selling platform - behind S60 3rd Edition that is)... S60 3rd Edition is said to be old and outdated - it is not - try an E52 or an N86. No it is not touch (the very horror), but it has no competition (outside RIM) and there's a good reason for it - its a very good platform - maybe its not considered high end by some (ignorance really). The E72 is probably the finest all round QWERTY you can get - but no one thinks about it because its not one of the 'cool' touch phones... Ok must control ranting here. Point being that there are some great devices and they're still selling well. You could say that's down to consumer ignorance, or maybe its because Nokia has delivered what the mass market operators (and to a less extent consumers) want?
What about turning this around? Apple's device are outrageously expensive, they have not manged to launch a mid tier device yet, their devices still regularly drop calls, have moderate battery life etc etc. All unfair because its not really what Apple is about in the mobile space. And let's be honest what self respecting geek (you know the ones concerned about network neutrality or how cool open source is, or how important freedom, the ones who celebrate the new open culture, the democratising effect of the web is etc etc.) should own an Apple phone - after all it has a horribly closed business model - that is about as far as you cant get from the geek 'open' culture that we're live in where utopia happens. Compare that to Nokia who have embraced open source and openness as their business model (Symbian Foundation one of the biggest ever contributions to open source). Every open source geek should be cheering Nokia on by buying a Nokia phone.... Of course I jest, but hopefully you get the point.
Whoops I appear to have ranted a bit. Ewan is an evil influence ;) And I probably didn't even answer Ewan's questions.
Nokia have given developers matchsticks to fight with in what was a hostile environment with walled gardens, blocked internet ports, poor access to network apis, fragmented phones etc
Apple walked in and dropped a small nuclear bomb into the cosy little forest arrangement and armed developers with automatic weapons, suddenly location, global distribution, global payment at non punitive revenue shares and discoverability had become easy making the environment less hostile for all involved
Android mean while has been quietly setting off smaller fires around the outside of the forest, that are gathering momentum.
There is nothing wrong with Symbian or JavaMobile on its own but when the whole ecosystem (SDK, user perception, data plans the phones are sold with, dev support, documentation, certification, testing) is put together the environment for third party developers leans heavily towards the iPhone and Android platforms currently
I am fairly simple chap I would love Androids SDK, Apples hardware, user base and marketing with Nokias marketshare, I think myself and other developers might flock to that eco system
whatever happens with Nokia, Apple et al 2010 is bound to be interesting from where I sit
The average low-end symbian phone gets about 6 months support from the manufacturer ( that is they usually fix the most grievous bugs ) but nothing close to the level of support that Apple commit to providing.
The average two year old symbian phone cannot possibly install applications intended for the current generation of phones which developers are targeting, hence you are paying the same in 20012 as you did in 2010 but for gear which is utterly incapable of keeping up with the standard.
If I had to blame somebody for this situation I think the networks are the most culpable: They are the ones who hype high-end featurephones to gullible early-adopters in order to mark up the price of a contract. In the end this is self-defeating because those early adopters know that the contracts force them to update less frequently.
This situation can only benefit android since the platform that can deliver the first fully-featured PAYG smart-phone is going to win all the disgruntled former contract-holders.
I won't say I disagree with you Ewan, because I can't disagree with something as subjective as this rant. But, I would point out that I find it very interesting that you're dropping all the blame on Nokia and Symbian (and sometimes inter-changing these with no particular logic, I might add).
I do admire your "developers, developers, developers" motto and mantra (if that means anything even remotely related - I honestly don't know but love the way it sounds).
But I don't share it.
The developers you so cherish and credit for being the future (whatever that word means) are mainly a bunch of crybabies. Sorry. Ignorant crybabies.
And if they choose not to develop for Symbian, it's their *choice* and their loss. Literally: loss. As in, money lost, not whuffie points from Scoble.
Me? I always want more apps. I like apps. And the more, the better.
The real world, however, could not care less. That's a reality. And if you are going to call those mobile device users ignorant, then please, apply the same logic to developers.
What's the average price for a successful Twitter app for the iPhone? Compare that to what Jan Ole Suhr gets for his app on Symbian.
As for the fragmentation, bollocks. That app I just mentioned above, that serves as a great example (Gravity) comes as ONE sis file that you can install on THREE different generations of S60.
Sure, Nokia could do more for developers. Symbian too. And so could Apple. And they all will, because they have to constantly improve everything.
But the fact that you and I can't go and develop our own app, no matter what the platform, in 5 minutes with no actual knowledge of, well, anything, means that in order to be a developer you have to have developing skills.
Creating a fart app (or 10,000) does not qualify you as a developer in my book.
Again. More promotion from Nokia? Sure. More help for developers? Sure. But let's also have real developers, ok? I don't look forward to licking my phone.
Answer that one, Vlad.
I think it's about time though that we refocussed this on USERS. You know guys - users? That dusty vague old concept hidden away on a bookshelf somewhere, buried under a pile of papers, and almost forgotten.
Us lot sit here and bitch about Nokia, and bith about development, and bitch about Apple, and all this blah de blah de blah. And that's fair enough within it's limited little box.
But let me say that Ocado, and Sony Pictures and all the rest a a bunch of f'ing idiots. And I'm not normally prone to such language. And dare I say that developers that *blindly* jump on the iPhone/Android bandwagon (i.e. without even a proper cost/benefit analysis and a clear idea of profits to be made - or some other competitive advantage, and that's without even considering the point I am making right here) are also a bunch of f'ing idiots (hey see all the friends I just made by saying that!).
Why? Because we're a bunch of selfish ******. Yeah, we have to make a living. Blah de blah de blah. There is this faux air of caring about users, which is in fact false. Because if you cared about users, why on earth would you target one of the most minority platforms on the planet? (iPhone). At this point I won't even mention Android because (taking a snapshot right now, as we're doing with Nokia) it's one of the most insignificant and undersold software products in history and trying to find an Android owner is like trying to find a cork floating on an ocean.
No, if you (you being developers, but more to the point you being Sony Pictures, and Ocado and all the rest) REALLY care about users - you will meet them where THEY are at. Not where you are at with your geek-love-fetish for premium high technology.
Many, many, many, many, i.e. almost all, users out there, do NOT have iPhones (and some platform beginning with A whose userbase is so small I've forgotten about it). No. They have, possibly, if you're lucky, mobile web. And they almost guaranteeably have SMS. And they DEFINITELY have voice (shock horror scream faint - voice got mentioned - and by voice I mean REALLY well designed IVR/push button menus).
So developers, with your druggie-like addiction to iPhones and other shiny, touchy things, where exactly, I humbly ask you, are REAL services for REAL users, on the platforms THEY have right NOW?
Where are the apps, en masse, that are fun, interesting and enjoyable, telling me about the latest movies, or allowing me to order my shopping, etc, that work with the mobile web, SMS and voice that almost all REAL users actually have right now? Where?
Yes, sure you can pick out a few sporadic random unusual examples if you try. But by and large they are not there. And why? Because the idiot, deer-caught-in-the-headlights developer industry went off chasing something shiny and exclusive. Why did they do that? I don't know. Geek psychology? Selfishness? Greed? Not enough love or sex in their lives? I dunno.
There is a place for iPhone apps, sure. To try and coax users to a better place, slowly. But many, many, many people on this planet can not afford an iPhone, or have one for some other reason, or it's just not right for them. And we the developer community are failing them on en masse because of our geek love for the highest of high tech. And this is not answering the needs that real users have.
Of course some will understand and answer this need. And they will be rewarded in ways that put the paltry sums the most successful iPhone developers make to shame.
And please don't reply to this post with the lamest of lame excuses - "we've tried that for years and it didn't work".
So I agree there's a heck of a lot of laziness on the part of developers -- but it's also a cost issue. For the developer and for the client making the purchasing decision.
So laziness gives way to simple economics :|
It's typically cheaper to make an iPhone app than a Symbian one. That should hopefully change when it comes to discussing Maemo. But I find it absolutely staggering that with the millions and millions of entirely capable Nokia N95s out there, more companies don't support them.
The sad fact is most companies made a costing decision and opted for iPhone. The market has spoken -- and it's said 'no thanks' (broadly speaking) to Nokia/Symbian.
So who's at fault?
Symbian and Nokia. Not the developers, right? They're simply reacting to reality.
90% of phones in the world aren't smartphones. 93% or 94% of phones in the world aren't Symbian. So in your reply mentioning iPhone and Symbian combined, you're focussing on around 6% / 7% of users. What about the vast remainder, exactly?
I know for an absolute fact (as I do it daily) that for example developing and running a mobile website, or to be quite honest a good IVR or SMS app, is cheap as chips. Way cheaper than anything else. It really is. Especially if in the latter cases you get the user to bear the cost (noting that the cheapest premium SMS tariff is 12.5p I think which would be easily bearable for most users and the few pence profit from which would cover all the costs of running the service).
What it does require however is having the intelligence and being bothered to make a good mobile website (/sms/IVR). Most of the stuff is free - e.g. PHP (/Ruby/Perl/Java), WURFL/WALL for live adaptation to any mobile, MySQL for database, Freeswitch or Asterisk for IVR, numerous co's for SMS (Zong.com are great for premium stuff - no cost to developer). Hosting costs a bit, but very little and can be scaled up according to load very easily (try vps.net for example).
Developing a scalable mobile website integrated with SMS and IVR and using the above tools is at least an order of magnitude easier (and also much cheaper and quicker) than learning the iPhone SDK and producing an app for it.
Come on developer community, you've got no excuses.