Tag: Symbian
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Nokia grabs control of Symbian, downsizes Foundation
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Andrew Orlowski
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Nokia is taking over the governance of Symbian, leaving the non-profit Foundation as a vestigial organisation in name only.… Read More
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Nokia ends cruel and unusual ‘Symbian programming’ practices
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Andrew Orlowski
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Nokia has bowed to international pressure and agreed to end the cruel and unusual practice of programming natively for the Symbian OS. It still wants developers to target Symbian, but using the more humane Qt APIs instead.
Nokia has also torn up the OS roadmap, and will speed up the delivery of new functionality to users in chunks, as and when it’s ready, instead of in milestone releases. In less prominent statements, Nokia has clarified what had become a very … Read More
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Farewell then, Symbian
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Andrew Orlowski
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Ten years ago to the day, I attended the surprise foundation of Symbian. I was in Norway and sorry to miss the event today that closed the chapter – and probably the book – on the great adventure.
I find it exquisitely ironic that the philosophy behind the decision to end Symbian’s independent existence as a joint-ownership, for-profit consortium has its roots in the Microsoft antitrust trial. Symbian was created because the leading phone manufacturers desperately wanted to avoid Microsoft’s … Read More
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Why didn’t Nokia become the next Sony?
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Andrew Orlowski
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… Read MoreWhen, a few years ago, I described Sony and Nokia as the only two companies who could call the shots in consumer electronics, a few eyebrows were raised. Sony, yes. But Nokia?
I anticipated that success in smartphones would be a beachhead into a bunch of other consumer electronics markets. Few noticed that Nokia already made TVs and set-top boxes. It had just launched a games console, too.
In fact, Nokia had began planning for “mobile multimedia convergence” in the
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Panic in smartphoneland
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Andrew Orlowski
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Google is set to give the mobile phone business a body blow today – the second punch in the guts it’s had this year. Apple delivered the first blow, by turning the operators’ subsidy model upside down – as well as making rival manufacturers look like knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. But Google’s arrival may prove to be more dramatic and far reaching for the business.
Google is expected to give away the platform required to create a sophisticated smartphone to OEMs. Its … Read More
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Psion: The story of the Last Computer
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Andrew Orlowski
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This long (40-page) history of Britain’s last computer company, Psion, was written over four days. It’s the longest piece The Register has ever run, we made it available as a PDF (for a small fee).
Included are full transcripts of interviews with David Potter, Martin Riddiford, Mark Gretton, David Tupman and Nick Healey. (Charles Davies was interviewed too late for inclusion).