Nokia skipping Symbian V2, Maemo 6 products in second half of 2010

By on Feb 2, 2010 at 10:01 AM
Rumor February 2, 2010

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DigiTimes is reporting that mobile giant Nokia plans to forgo Symbian V2 and release Symbian V3, complete with multitouch functions, in the second half of 2010. Perhaps even more exciting than that, was what Digi’s sources had to say about Symbian 4: “Symbian version 4 is believed to be based on the Qt cross-platform application development framework developed by Trolltech. The Qt will allow software developers to develop application software supporting Symbian and Maemo platforms simultaneously.” Nokia acquired Trolltech back in June, 2008. While no details of Maemo 6 were revealed, the article does state that we’ll get our first look at Maemo 6 handsets by the second half of 2010. The source also went on to comment, vaguely, on Nokia’s 2011 product road map: “By 2011, smartphones based on the Symbian S60-platform will account for 55% of Nokia’s total handset shipments, followed by Symbian S40 feature phones at 35% and Maemo-based devices at 10%.” Not sure about you, but we’re pretty excited.

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  • n00b

    Sounds like Nokia is insisting on becoming completely irrelevant by 2012.

    Seriously Nokia, ditch Symbian a.s.a.p if you know what’s good for you.

    • Carmen

      As disliked as this comment is, I’m actually surprised that no one really agrees. I think that it’s actually a disservice to the industry to have more than maybe 3 or 4 OSs. I think between iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile that we have enough.

      • Carmen

        I don’t like how Samsung is making their own OS either for that matter. Competition is great, but three is the magic number. Beyond that, it’s not beneficial.

      • Mark

        That’s awesome, Carmen.

        Care to explain how Nokia increased its market share for smartphones from 35% to 40% this quarter and how that beats the next two competitors (RIM and Apple) combined?

      • jonathan

        I do believe that Symbian has been around far longer than Android and the iPhone. So, which of those do you blame for putting yet another OS on the market?

        By having more, there is more competition. More competition means not only competitive pricing, but to strive to create the next biggest and baddest thing. Of course, Nokia doesn’t think they need to create anything that will blow away the competition, but in theory a competitive market is a good market.

    • http://www.maemo-freak.com christexaport

      RIIIIIIGHT! Drop the OS favored by the entire world! The one that outsells RIM, iPhone, WebOS, and Android COMBINED!

      …sounds like someone got his degree from Bubba Tech with a major in Bidness. Good luck with that. I’ll stick with the leader. When someone makes an OS favored by more than 20% of the market that isn’t called Symbian, let me know. Until then, I like the 40% of the market, massive reach, and unmatched feature set over any newb OS.

      • jonathan

        @chris – Still at symbian-freak?

  • Sebastian Brannstrom

    To start with, there is no “believing” about it. You can read everything about Symbian^4 (and all our other releases in the Wiki): http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian%5E4

    The reason Nokia are not releasing any S^2 devices is that they have backported most of what’s new in S^2 to S^1 for whatever reason.

    And finally S40 is not Symbian based.

    • Brendan

      That really makes me wonder how many people who declare ‘Symbian sucks’ on Twitter are actually talking about their S40 phone??

  • Brendan

    Yet their smartphone marketshare increased by 5% this quarter. Go figure.

  • doncavali

    if they skip sym2 to sym3 then sym3 is sym2 and sym4 is really sym3.
    i’m tired of waiting! iphone 4G come to mee!!

  • Tim

    Qt based phone programming would be sweet. If they make it shiny enough (QML and whatnot) it might be enough to tempt me away from android.

    What would be /really/ cool of course is Qt on Android. Google will never support it though…

  • Dara

    I can’t wait for Nokia’s qt based lineup. I’m curious to see how Symbian^4 will turn out, but I think my next phone will be a Maemo 6 device. There is a lot of qt coding expertise out there and I can’t wait to see more advanced uses of smartphones when all of the walls are broken down and handsets have the same possibilities as desktops.

    Nokia will not “ditch” Symbian. To do so would be “ditch” their present smartphone user base, which dwarfs any other company’s, despite what Fox News might tell you.

    I know it’s not as pretty or “intuitive” as some OS’s, but for the people who know how to use it, Symbian is powerful and defines what a “smartphone” is. There are a lot of people who will simply not accept the compromises that the other platforms demand for some vague “user experience” benefits.

    Let me be clear: there is no platform that you can migrate to from Symbian without giving up core smartphone functionality.

    Nokia haven’t been that quick to deal with the newfound North American fascination with smartphones but they’ve been on a pretty steady path in deploying their technology in a way that ensures their continued market dominance.

    Their attempts to fight Apple with their v5 touch phones have had mixed results. The 5800 is a great value and the N97′s have great potential, but they still seem a little rough around the edges. Thankfully, the touch interface in v5 is compartmentalized enough that it can be stripped out for the new UI that’s coming.

    The next gen Nokia phones will be completely open playgrounds. The qt platform will make them the choice for in-house applications and the open source nature of the whole undertaking will bring developments from that work into the mainstream.

    • http://www.maemo-freak.com christexaport

      @ Dara,
      I couldn’t have said it better. Most of these idiots are neophytes with little smartphone know how, more concerned with learning how to compute mobily with the training wheels on. Symbian is the benchmark for functionality, and a new UI for us American consumers focused on ease of use is just a few quarters away. And all the “ditch Symbian” talk will look even more stupid. It should be “ditch S60″, Symbian’s legacy UI layer designed for buttons instead of touch, which is what they’ve been doing the past couple years. The revamping is nearly complete, and the UI will share a paradigm with Maemo when all is said and done, only with a smaller list of supported application toolkits, though still far better than anything else out there. at&t is a big member of the Symbian Foundation, and will begin featuring Symbian^4 devices towards the end of this year to the beginning of next year.

      • Dara

        I don’t think they’re going to ditch S60 in any way. In fact I think it will become even bigger than it is now.

        If you look at Nokia’s hardware from the past 3 years, it’s all very similar. Now you can be a glass is half empty kind of person and say that they are stagnant, or be a little more upbeat and say that they are perfecting the N/E series platforms for mass production (in the sense of shipping more than half the phones in the world, as they do now with lesser models).

        They’ve already said that one of their strengths is that there are a lot of people in the world who have only experienced email or the web on a Nokia.

        S60, with qt support added, is more than capable of being the defacto standard in cell phones 5 years down the road. All cell phones, not just smart phones.

        The price is right, the OS is already perfected for a non-touch phone, and it can share in the benefits of the high end Nokia smart phones by being qt compatible.

      • http://www.maemo-freak.com christexaport

        @ Dara,
        Nokia has already announced back in 2007 that the S60 UI is dead, to be replaced by its new Direct UI and Orbit technologies. This was the reason S60 development has slowed of recent. The new UI will be Qt based, likely hardware accelerated, and much more flexible and scalable to different resolutions and aspect ratios. The new Symbian will share its main third party application toolkit with Maemo and all other Qt supported platforms.

        Not sure what you mean of mass production, since Nokia is the epitome of such a move. And not just with low end models, but at all price points. Nokia stalled on putting another TI OMAP device out, hedging its bets on its massive technological hardware lead that the competition would gain, but not greatly surpass them as they focused on their services and touch enabled UI’s. Nokia has always been best at utilizing the TI OMAP platform to the fullest, and when OMAP4 arrives later this year, they should be back to showing the industry who is tops in hardware.

        S60 and its Avkon base is indeed dead, but Nokia and Symbian are alive and wel thanks to Direct UI and Orbitl, and poised to widen the lead on the competition. There can be better UI’s overnight, but the stable and powerful Symbian kernel is a ten year acheivement that has almost no peer or chance of being matched anytime soon.

      • Dara

        What I meant was moving the current feature set of N and E series down to basic phones as the component prices drop. Keeping them button based with a qt enabled evolution of s60 as the OS would bring the price down.

        I’m essentially talking about the extinction of dumb phones using today’s smart phone technology as the new baseline.

    • Jerry1ken

      …”there is no platform that you can migrate to from Symbian without giving up core smartphone functionality”

      Tell me about it – Just gone back to my old N95 8gb after 3 months with the Iphone and am as happy as a clam.

      Don’t get me wrong – the iphone is great; multitouch, great browser and good applications – but after a while you start wanting more!

  • Nokia N900

    Best news of the year!

  • plife

    maemo loooks sick – read the engadget review of the N900 and cant wait for that baby to get polished up.

    • http://pakistan.com giggig

      engagdget is apple’s site, they always try to bring nokia down, yet they going up lol.

  • sam

    Just thought to point out explicitly what the numbers in the article imply:

    In 2011, Nokia plans to sell over 50m Maemo based devices and over 250m Symbian based devices.

    That should be somewhat interesting news for developers.

  • Sir Bradley

    Nokia has done blatant mistakes during the past years, now they are spreading rumors which might as well turn out not to be true. Last year their technology manager Tero Ojanperä bragged about Nokia’s products and basically blamed Apple’s products.

  • Bradley

    i am excited to see what nokia has up their sleeves. they’re not the world’s largest mobile manufacturer for nothing.
    nokia has a simple strategy; getting their mobile phone to the masses at minimum cost. not everybody need a fancy touch screen interface or an always on device that they cannot afford. symbian is appearing in alot of affordable phones lately and will continue to featured more. now i don’t know if nokia will phase out s40 totally in favor of s60, we’ll have to wait and see.
    i believe that in a few days at MWC we will get a good idea of what nokia has in store for the world

  • Paulysworld

    @dara, @Christexaport, couldn’t have said it better myself. Its good to know that there are informed intelligent people out there. As I languish here in Canada waiting for the N900 to appear, I eagerly anticipate its big launch on WIND (new carrier here) if I can believe the rumour mill.

    • Dara

      Same here.

      Canadian and I want Maemo.

      I’m not sold on Wind though. I’ve really managed to bring my bills down with Rogers by leaning on VOIP and roaming free data. I’m not sure Wind would save me any money and it might cost more.

  • Bradley

    one thing i forgot to say, i am hoping that when symbian v3 is introduced, a firmware update will be allow devices like the n97, x6, and current models to be updated to the new UI. i will not be happy if i had to pack my n97 away and spend money on a new device just to use a new and improved UI. hoping for n900 also with maemo 5

    • http://pakistan.com giggig

      Nokia is mean or intelligent enough not pass benefit of Symbian 3 in older device to give there new devices a chance to sell more and more.In case of Symbian 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, they never reverted back benefit of 9.3 to 9.2 devices or 9.2 to 9.1 devices. though they all carry pretty similar hardware, i mean 128 MB RAM and 369 to 600 Mhz of processor.

      So its highly unlikely for benefit to come back on older devices, either you need to bear it or buy a new nokia or other brand phone i believe.

  • Samarcande

    there is no platform that you can migrate to from Symbian without giving up core smartphone functionality.
    WWW

    • Dara

      Hey spammer…

      You stole my line.

  • http://bogee-games.com Frog

    I will NOT develop anything for Symbian devices until outrageous, overly expensive certification process scraped. They want us to pay to third party testers (third party thieves – I would say) hundreds of bucks – literally for nothing ! Nokia – please, abandon Symbian!
    It is old, outdated OS, based on ancient Epoch OS -
    it has no place in the future.

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