AT&T wants a universal OS for its smartphones; Magic 8-ball says, outlook not so good

Roger Smith, director of next generation services, spoke at the Symbian Partner Event in San Francisco and stated that Symbian is “a very credible and likely candidate” to be that singular OS

Symbian?? Please. Aside from a few Nokia devices, who uses Symbian here in the US. Another outdated European product that some what to shove down everyone’s throat.

HELLO? CAN ANYONE READ? THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR PRECIOUS IPHONES AND BLACKBERRIES.

If you read the first paragraph of the READ article, you’d see this, which PUTS ALL YOUR FEARS TO REST:

AT&T hopes to standardize on a single operating system for AT&T-branded smart phones as part of a “dramatic consolidation” of its mobile platforms over the next few years, a company executive said today.

Want more? How about the third paragraph:

The consolidation effort is focused on a completely AT&T-branded smart phone, distinct from the iPhone and other products that may use AT&T’s network, Smith said in an interview following his speech.

BGR should be ashamed of itself.

If AT&T did somehow manage to pull off Symbian as a universal OS though, would you jump ship for another carrier?

Easier said then done. With each year, there are less and less choices for cellular carriers. We are now down to 4. In 10 years, I predict only AT&T and Verizon will be left.

There’s a reason I’m not an AT&T customer…

hey, guys. To everyone who is freaking out over this news, your reaction is justified. Unfortunatly the source article misquotes what Roger Smith of at&t actually said. I attended the Symbian Partners event yesterday, and I video’d Roger Smith’s entire 30 minute talk. I’ll be posting the entire video tonight at Nokia Daily News, so you can watch it then.

What Roger really said was that at&t is moving away from closed OS’s towards open os’. They’ve acknowledged that the trend is towards “open access” non-branded devices for their power users, and they’re not trying to take that away. For their at&t branded devices, they’re looking for more locked down, more branding built in, so they need more “customizability”. But they really need real, open standards across multiple OS’s for their inhouse developers, so that at&t software has the same look, feel, and functionality across a range of OS’s. If M$ doesn’t want to work towards this, at&t will drop M$.

I hope this helps.

it’s one thing to make your feature phones have a simlar OS, they make it easier for regular customers and tech support to use the same interface. that way everyone knows how htings work.

however making the OS for all smartphones would suck major fat, people jumping ship by the truckload, schlong. but I would be pleased to see all the haters of Verizon’s OS on the features phones try and defend how a flat OS on smartphones would be good…actually I think I would put them up on the net forever to see all the haters try and justify why that HORRIBLE idea would be even remotely good ha ha

I’m with Who? – the post missed the mark in the point of the CW “article”. ATTWS is simply looking to create one OS to deploy their own services – Media Net on smart phones, but controlled at the OS level rather than some Java layer with services users can just ignore in some evolved type of the Palm OS metaphor – extensible at the kernel level, with targeted marketing and apps.

I can’t see a business owner being interested in the future device – as a company prez, I want email, a GPS mapping app (with traffic updates), travel data, a decent web browser, and contact/calendar data that integrates at the system level – all available today with Palms, BBs, and WinMo devices. My gripe would be how competing third-party devices might get hobbled if they’re required to offer a layer of competing “services” controlled by ATTWS as a minimum entry point to their B&M stores and web portal – the Java hacks that ATTWS has made over the years has really screwed up some great devices, now they are considering a device with hooks at the OS-level? ATTWS has offered neutered S60 devices for at least a few years, I wish I could hear more what some mobile OS programmers are getting told to do to get their products in ATTWS stores!

OTOH, I’ll bet that ATTWS is pretty tired of hearing about all those dropped calls – it’s their way of at least offering an alternative that plays by their rules…

Very poor article from Marc Flores has all the chickens here running around with their heads cut off.

are they on crack?!

You my friend are right on the nose. AT&T may be a lot of things, but it’s not stupid enough to banish Apple, RIM and WinMo for the sake of easier support. So calm down everybody.

This is all about the multimedia opportunity. As much of a win as the iPhone has been for ATT, it is much bigger win for Apple. Not for the devices, hell I doubt they break even on those, but the app store and iTunes content are a huge cash cow. ATT, Verizon and the others want a bigger slice of that market.

Look at WinMo, over at XDA developers, there are tons of people dedicated to ripping the ATT apps off of the phone. ATT wants (for ATT branded phones especially) a situation like with the iPhone, where those features are locked down to ATT. I think the carriers are deluding themselves if they think they can comepete. If they really want to do that, you’ll see somebody like ATT buy Rhapsody for example, and force it to be built in on all phones.

Ridiculous – Can somebody pls say anti-trust

“The consolidation effort is focused on a completely AT&T-branded smart phone, distinct from the iPhone and other products that may use AT&T’s network, Smith said in an interview following his speech.”

This has NOTHING to do with iPhones, BBs, or WinMo. They will continue to be on ATT’s network. Please get a grip.

AT&T has declared JIHAD on WM, RIM, and Palm!!!!

@ gquaglia I completely agree and I know who the winner will be…VERIZON

This is because while AT&T will continue to support BB, iPhones and WM phones, they will indeed adopt this standardized Symbian os for their feature rich phones. Verizon’s a smarter company than AT&T even with the crippling of their devices. It’ll be evident in the next few years…mark my words. Sprint does not cripple anything and it’s almost dead. T-emporary Mobile is just shit even with the Android by its side and AT&T is the only brand hanging on. They’re a tough competitor but I think Verizon will always be on top.

WOW…and I was just talking about how I don’t like that (MOST) of verizon wireless’s OSes look alike. And now AT&T is gonna pull this?? Thats rediculous! I got the HTC Fuze November 11, and if its like this, I WILL switch carriers, unless there OS is reasonable. But a HUGE reason I like AT&T is because of there variety. AT&T, PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS!!!

I 100% agree with you. And if you look at the current issues with the iphone and ATT, that is exactly what is happening. One side says the other is at fault, the other side says the other is at fault. In the meantime, customers suffer.

People criticize Verizon having a standard interface and call it crippling. Well, when any customer calls in, at least the rep knows what they are looking at which makes troubleshooting an easier process. Many users need to remember that not all cell users are looking for advanced data features on phones. Many people just want a phone that dials out and makes calls.

Having been an Apple user for over 20 years, any iphone user who criticizes any carrier for being “closed” and proclaiming the iphone is open is the dumbest human to walk upright. The iphone is as locked down as they get. While it may be possible to use it on other carriers (so please do not use that whole other carrier issue as proving its unlocked caue it does not), it is still controlled by Lord Jobs and you are kidding yourself in a big way if you think it is truly unlocked.

Its funny, one thing you never hear from the apple fanboys is how apple purchased a little program called soudjam from casady and greene which was an mp3 music player. Then apple releases a program called itunes and the exact hardware you need to play songs on. Wow you 19 year old fan boys are stupid. It would almost be better if apple did buy BE instead of Next so we would never have to deal with stupid apple fanboys, ever.

Evilhomer is a prime example of the apple fanboy villiage idiot mentality.

i just hope they stop all the funky java restrictions that make it hard to get the gmail app on their phones………… i hate that crap. if someone is willing to pay 15 bucks a month for internet then they should be able to get email. their mentality of giving cv (streaming video) but not email to customers is ridiculous. i’m not a boy genius or anything, but it seems like streaming video takes up more bandwidth than email. even with attachments…

ATT is the GM of the cell market thats whay they still have this duopolistic mentality ther basicly takign a page out of Verizons playbook here even when i was talking with som verizon subscribers that one of ther major pet peeves besides the crippling of features. Varity an competition ar the spices of life and markets
If anything tish would force a good portion of subs over to sprint and T-mobile they’d loose market share faster than the US auto industry

If AT&T is the GM of cell phone market next thing you know is they will want the government to bail them out. Then one OS system, hell AT&T can’t even get their 3G network to work right.
Put down the loco weed AT&T or the pipe. Morons, the inmates are running the show.

so this means they have hinted for release of nokia e71x? or Nokia smartphone?

Hey, guys. I’ve posted this entire talk over at Nokia Daily News. Here’s a link : http://nseriesus.com/roger-smith-att