Nokia says no plan to switch phones to Linux
What is a mobile phone, exactly?
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Despite reports to the contrary, Nokia is not embracing Linux as a platform for its mobile phones. The Finnish giant insists that comments reported by Reuters and others were quoted out of context and that nothing has changed.
Speculation started when comments from Rick Simonson, Nokia's Financial Director, that the mobile phone giant was "well on the way" towards using Linux on mobile phones, and prompted speculation about a tie-up with Google's Android platform.
Except, says Nokia, it has no such plan. The confusion comes from the definition of a mobile phone, and what constitutes a phone handset. Nokia already uses Linux on its internet tablet class of devices, exemplified by the Nokia N810, and is planning to expand that class into more feature-rich devices.
The N810 already features VoIP, including a Skype client, but so far those have only been usable when logged on to a Wi-Fi hotspot. But in the US Nokia has announced and demonstrated a version of the N810 with WiMAX support, which will give it the always-on connectivity that traditionally defines a mobile phone.
So here is a handset, from Nokia, which can make and receive calls as long as it remains within a WiMAX network which is intended to be ubiquitous, eventually. So can one say Nokia are planning to release mobile phones based on Linux?
This kind of confusion is only going to get worse, as more classes of device come into existence, and more of them feature constant connectivity - the only conclusion one can draw from this is that Nokia doesn't think Symbian is suitable for internet tablet devices. ®
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COMMENTS
the only conclusion... Nokia doesn't think Symbian is suitable for internet tablet devices"
Or, you can conclude that Nokia doesn't think Linux is suitable for mobile phones.
Trying to ease the confusion.
I once used this analogy and it seemed to have worked then to clarify. It's far from perfect, but meh...
Symbian: Underlying OS, think linux
S60, UIQ etc: Front End, think gnome, KDE
If you had to go through 7 menu items to play a game, would you blame the OS or the GUI?
UIQ was awesome, way ahead of it's time. There was a huge user community years ago for the advanced devices like the (admittedly oversized) Motorola A920, then A925 and A1000, and the P9xx series as mentioned above. We (The Moto crowd) waited and waited for Motorola to bring out a new edition. Foma got a half-hearted upgrade and then Moto had the RAZR - and they forgot that they made any other phones. Was a terrible shame. Through desperation and love of Symbian I bought an S60 phone, as UIQ was going nowhere. It's ok, better than average, but still nothing in comparison.
I think SE have since tried to revitalise UIQ with a 3rd edition, but the vast majority of the devout have given up now. What once was a thriving user community is now basically static pages.
@Danyal
Ummm... SonyEricsson smartphones use UIQ on Symbian as opposed to S60 on Symbian.
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