The Sad, Sad State of Symbian Signed
I’ve sat silently for a while, mainly because I’m not really experienced in developing applications, so I can’t speak first-hand of how difficult it is or isn’t to get one signed. However, I do know a few things. The first thing I know is that Antony Pranata’s Screenshot is one of the greatest freeware apps out there for 3rd Edition devices. It’s the first thing that I install on any phone, and possibly one of my most used apps (given, I’m a blogger, so I use it for posts, but still). It’s incredibly useful, and already up to v2.60 (2.80 if you count unsigned versions).
The second thing I know is that Antony Pranata is pretty well-versed
when it comes to developing Symbian S60. He’s a two-time Forum Nokia
Champion, a recognition and reward program for top mobile developers
from around the world, and as officially given up on the Screenshot
freeware app. You can read the details here on his blog.
I find this terrible, and hope that someone at Symbian/Nokia/S60 reads
this and makes some changes. Developing software for these devices is
already a big enough feat. Having your application, which you’ve slaved
over and spent countless hours perfecting, stuck in the signing process
for over a month is unacceptable.
I sincerely hope that someone doesn’t just make a phone call to get his
application through the process. That’s not what this is about.
SOMETHING needs to change, obviously. When someone of Antony’s
experience actually dumps a project because of it, changes need to be
made to ensure that doesn’t happen again. Please pass this along so
that anyone in Symbian/Nokia/S60 can take notice and make some changes.
In my opinion, Symbian Signed should be bending over backwards to help people develop applications for S60 devices. 3rd Party applications are one of S60’s greatest strengths and anything that hinders others in creating them is a bad bad thing.
To Antony, that sucks you’ve had such issues, but on behalf of the S60
bloggers out there, and regular users, thank you so much for developing
Screenshot to begin with, and for maintaining it as much as you have.
It may be Symbian Signed that ultimately drives me away from Symbian entirely. That’s a bold statement coming from someone who’s used exclusively Series 60 devices (with one or two exceptions), for the last 5 years (since the release of the 3650).
But it needs to be addressed more (as you have done), and it’s going to take some high profile developers quitting for Symbian to really get it. Plain and simple, all things being equal, there are only a few differences between Operating Systems (be they on the desktop, the server, or the smartphone). WinMo, Symbian, Linux, Palm, etc… all can have apps installed, all have native API’s, all are multitaskers (except Palm), etc. So why would I buy a Nokia S60 phone over an HTC WinMo phone?
In the end, it’s all about choice. I choose the hardware I want, and I choose the software I want to install.
By taking away the ability of dev’s to write freeware, cheapware, or beggarware apps for S60, you move it away from the realm of smartphone, and towards the realm of the iPhone (meaning that it is a smartphone in the sense that it’s POSSIBLE to install 3rd party apps, but I’d rather call it a VendorPhone (TM), since you have to have Apple’s blessing to install apps).
Imagine a world where you couldn’t freely develop for Symbian anymore, and the only way 3rd party apps were going to be installed without the blessing of Symbian was to hack the phone entirely (as is being done with the iPhone right now).
Windows Mobile has a lot of problems, and Microsoft as a company sucks — but they at least aren’t trying to lock out the small developers that really make the smartphone world go ’round.
Keep an eye out folks, or you’re beloved S60 may become the next VendorPhone, rather than the Smartphone it should be.
-olly
I totally agree.
I’m not a (Symbian) developer. But I know how it feels when a great project you’re making gets stuck in someone else’s hands.