OK, so I know it’s been a long while since I posted anything up here at Symbian-Guru.  So sue me!  However, I hope to redeem myself with this one: the Rise of the "VendorPhone"!
I’ve had this idea floating around in my head for a little
while now, and I wanted to see if I can explain it to you all, the happy S-G
audience. We’ve moved into new
territory in mobile, and I think that it’s time we started paying attention to
it.

You see, it used to be pretty straightforward, when talking
about mobile phones, to split them into two camps: featurephone or
smartphone. The first is simply what it
sounds like: a phone that has a lot of features built into it, but is very
limited in its ability to add new features later on, no multitasking ability,
no real “OS” in any sense of the word (leaving out the sticky question of Java
apps for a moment). On the other hand, the
smartphone (used generically here, not in conjunction with any specific OS necessarily)
has the ability to multi-task, to install new apps, new functionality,
etc. As much as a handset ever can be,
the idea of the smartphone is that it emulates the abilities of a full-on
desktop Operating System, but on a much lower scale (with varying degrees of success of course). File system managers, programming API’s, multitasking, 3^rd
party apps, etc; these are all aspects of the smartphone.

So for years this has been the split we examined our phones
against. But I’m noticing a trend now,
one that started a few years ago, but is gradually spreading more and
more. It’s a worrisome concept, one
that should have all you lovers of mobile freedom quaking in your boots: the
rise of the VendorPhone.

What is a VendorPhone exactly? Well, since it’s my word, I’ll give you my definition:

 

A VendorPhone is a phone that emulates a SmartPhone in many,
many ways, but is limited in that only Vendor Approved 3^rd Party
Apps can be installed, thus crippling it’s attempt at true smartphone-dome. It rides the line between featurephone and
smartphone, but by doing so becomes pale in comparison to either.

Clear enough?  If not, let me
give you some examples of past and present phones that fall into this category, as
well as some disturbing trends that could lead other vendors down this unfortunate path.

The Danger Sidekick/Hiptop

Say what you will about it, you can’t deny that it’s a cool
design. Having been an owner of the
sidekick 2, it was great at what it did, and I still have a certain fondness for it. It had it’s drawbacks (lacking EDGE, crappy camera, etc). But for all that, I still loved owning it in many ways.  However, it was one big glaring
problem that kept me from hanging on to mine: the only way that you were ever
going to get an app on it was if Danger approved your app and it made it into
their catalog. That’s right, no 3^rd
party apps without going through a company approval process. 
And by all accounts, it wasn’t an easy approval process — you could
spend a ton of time developing an app, just to have it denied in the
end.  Risky business indeed!

The Helio Ocean

When this phone was released, I was skeptical of it. Now as I look at it more and more, it’s
actually a very cool and very well designed handset. The dual sliding keyboard is a work of brilliance, no doubt
there. But for all of this, if you want
a 3^rd party app on it (the Ocean runs a proprietary OS, but still
one that at a base level would seem to qualify as “smart”, i.e. multitasking,
file manager, etc), you can’t just install it yourself.
Just like the sidekick, you have to go through a vendor approval
process to get there.  Even worse, many of the apps that you would
simply install on a proper Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, etc
require a monthly fee to use!

The Apple iPhone

Not to harp on the iPhone too much (since I’ve already done that a ton), but it’s the ultimate
VendorPhone in existence. Is it a
smartphone? In its capabilities
absolutely it is. But without the
serious hacking efforts done on the part of some enterprising folks, you
wouldn’t even come close to 3^rd party native apps on it; without
that ability, it’s rendered into a very powerful featurephone, but not a true
smartphone.
Apple has tried to appease end users by offering the very weak "Safari
Web Apps" shtick, but sorry all you Cupertino folks, that just doesn’t
cut it.

These are just three examples, but I want you to think about
this for a minute. What if you had to
get Dell’s permission every time` you loaded software on to your laptop? What if, as a developer, you had to get your
software on an approval list before it could be run on Windows? What if we let Microsoft, Dell, or whomever control exactly what
we were allowed to use on our computers?

Well folks, that’s what a VendorPhone does. Now a lot of people see this as a good
thing. Apple, for example, touts this
as a “feature” so that malicious code can’t be run on your iPhone… after all,
you are only installing what they approve of, so they’ve already tested it,
right? This is the same argument used
by Danger. It’s the same argument used
by Helio. And it’s a flawed and failed
argument.

The idea that somehow a vendor controlling what can be run
on a phone makes it more secure has been shown time and time again to be
false. Whether it’s the fact that the
manufacturer is often no more careful with their built-in software then the 3^rdparty
devs are (Mobile Safari anyone? First week it was out, there was a
critical vulnerability that would allow complete control of the phone
if you visited a maliciously coded website); or it’s the fact that the
lock-in is severe enough for normal
consumers (meaning I PERSONALLY don’t have the knowledge to circumvent
it), but
it’s nowhere near robust enough to hold off a determined team of
hackers. In other words, it’s like stopping every 3^rd
person entering a convenience store and denying them entrance on the off
chance that one of the people you deny entrance to might be a wannabe
burglar… when in reality the burglar just picked the lock on the back door!

So if that’s the case why do companies insist on this? Are they so shortsighted that they honestly
believe that it’s more secure? No, it’s
nothing like that. It’s plain and
simple greed. How convenient would it
be as a bigger software developer, like Psiloc, to keep the freeware out of the
market (not trying to specifically pick on Psiloc here, I promise, just the first big S60 developer that popped into my head)? How convenient would it be to
be Shozu, and know that any competition you might have has to fight an uphill battle
to get signed, and recognized, first?
And how convenient would it be as Nokia to keep competition to some of
your built-in apps on the sidelines, while you run with your game plan
instead?  So you can’t install Shozu, but are forced to use Lifeblog.
You can’t install Opera, but are forced to use the WebKit browser.
Again, right now you may CHOOSE to use those anyway — but the choice
to do it is important, rather than being forced to.   

This is the problem we are facing. Ricky highlighted the unfortunate plight, and subsequent dropping
of the project, by Antony Pranata of Screenshot fame. Antony makes a very simple, but very powerful freeware app
called Screenshot (like Ricky, one of my favorite apps). But he can’t seem to
get it signed, from what it sounds like due to Symbian Signed politics, so he’s moving on from it. 

When things like that happen, we as a community lose, period.

How much would you like to wager that there will
be a paid version
of Screenshot up within a few months, from some pre-approved Nokia
company?  I’ll save you the trouble of betting: it’s not worth the
odds, I almost guarantee it’ll happen.

I’m telling you this right now, as a Linux user,
an OSX user, and someone who can’t stand Microsoft’s products for the
most part: the day that this becomes more standard practice, I’ll be
ordering a Windows Mobile device and not looking back.

-olly

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