On The Definition Of “Just”
If you don’t have any experience with Windows Mobile, you probably haven’t gotten around WMExperts. The most remarkable feature of WMExperts are the writings of the chief editor: Dieter Bohn. He knows when to be funny, when to be smart and when to tickle your mind with the start of an idea and leaves you freely thinking about the end of it. Recently, he has participated in the Smartphone Round Robin where he and the editors of TreoCentral, CrackBerry and Phone different exchanged devices (HTC TyTn II, Treo 680, Blackberry 8310 and iPhone) for 3 consecutive rounds and learned to live with nothing but their new device and get the most out of it. While this is an enticing adventure and should give us an idea to implement in our Symbian / Nokia world, it is not the reason of this post. In his last post on the Blackberry 8310, Dieter concludes with this:
If you want a device that “just works,” then the BlackBerry 8310 is probably for you. But make sure that you want “just works” in both senses of the word “just.” As in
- just: without having to futz around too much with settings.
- just: without being able to futz around too much with settings.
The reason I prefer Windows Mobile to BlackBerry is that latter bit. As for the former, well, I think that WM is really close, just not quite there yet. [...] So, yes, the BlackBerry “just works.” That’s a great thing for people who don’t care about the 2nd definition of “just.”
Click on for my thoughts on the matter.
Reading this, I roamed back to my motherland, S60. In fact, S60 is much closer to Windows Mobile in terms of user experience than I thought it was: both do fit in the first definition of “just” but do not fit in the second. Yet there are some differences:
- S60 gives the power user the opportunity to tweak and improve, but it is still limited compared to WM. I will get to that point in more details in another post.
- Out of the box, S60 works “just” right and better than WM especially in terms of telephony and messaging, the basic features that the average Joe uses 99% of the time.
Having used both, I’m left to think: what makes S60 my number one choice and WM my second? Is it the fact that I have a longer history with S60 than WM? Is it that most of the time, for everyday usage, I prefer the device that “just” works more? Or is it the frustration I feel, when the WM platform abandons me in the middle of a tweak, that makes me head back to my Nokia every time? I sure can’t answer that, not now at least.
One other idea that occurred to me is that S60 has found a great compromise between both. I was never as sure as I am now about the policy and the core strategy behind it. The whole idea is to bring a platform to the masses that can be great for their usual activities but to also give the opportunity to those who want to customize to be able to do so. That’s why I believe S60 has done so great, market-share wise. And while I still doubt that it has reached the perfect balance between both, I can’t question a second the intention and the effort to bring it to that level. So the next time I wonder why a certain feature hasn’t been implemented in the platform, I’ll know that it is probably because 95% of the population wouldn’t need it and that having it there would complicate things a little for them.
Tell us, what do you think of that and of Dieter’s definition of “just”? And what made you come into S60 land, in the first place? Were you looking for a platform that “just” works (1st definition) and stumbled on its wonders later OR for a device that doesn’t “just” work (2nd definition) and discovered its ease of use later?
Marahaba Rita
well, for marketing wise whether its a law end or a high end user, people naturally would go for “Just” the best choice, which means best device in terms of hardware, and that’s the smart deal that nokia went For within these years, by going for the best HDW features “Best” (Camera resolutions, video recording, displays, speakers, etc) which helped in implementing the symbian as the OS of the best Gadgets and the most popular, so marketing wise there was allot of income to help Nokia continue leading with their top pop gadgets, now days many other phone companies has made some money for example HTC and we can see that with their flagship device TyTN II which in terms of Hardware feature has allot of challenging power to nokia models, therefore NOKIA now days started to realize that they should start tweaking their OS in terms of UI, etc, so that they continue to keep it up, So I say neither the 1st “Just” or the second “Just” its just the 3rd “Just” (market share, money, popularity) are the basics of making good OS and software since all IT companies will turn to them for the biggest share in the OS developments.
Rita - I’m curious what you mean by S60 isn’t quite as flexible as WM. Having used WM 2003-5.0 and S60 from my 7650 to now, I’ve found that S60 has always offered more tweaking ability out of the box than has WM. Moreover, I’ve found that most tweaking programs for S60 are free, and many are also open source, while the vast majority of WM programs are pay.
So I’m curious to know - in what way have you found things limited compared to WM?
It’s been my experience since having used Symbian, WM and BB devices that out of all them, the only one I’ve truly hated at any point (though they all have bad points), is WM.
Why?
Because it’s the only mobile OS where when it crashes, 9 times out of 10, you lose the lot and have to restore (great when you’re nowhere near a PC). Never had this with Symbian which I’ve used the most and truly regretted using WM for the 12 months I had one for.
Granted, no OS is perfect but for me WM was the most unreliable.
My first S60 device was the 7650, too. Although I didn’t know what S60 was or even that my new handset had it (I siply bought it because I was broke and it only cost 1€), I fell in love with it from the verry first day. My next handset was the 3230 and now I finally reached the N-series with the N95.
So basically every S60 handset I bought was a big step forward and I never wondered about changing the ploatform. Because whatever problem I had (storage, ram, software,…), when it was time to get a new handset, these factors had been taken care of.
I’m shure, WM get’s improoved, too, but right now I don’t see a reason for changing to a platform that I don’t know verry well (I used some WM handsets of friends, but all in all not more than 30 minutes).
That would be like a blind jump instead of a first class flight with a service that I got used too. Maybe the jump would be much more pleasant, but if not, there’s no way back (at least for two years, till I get the next handset)
I am a fan of all platforms and have Palm, Windows Mobile, Series 60 and UIQ phones. The ones I use most frequently are S60 (Nokia E61) and WM (Ubiquio 501) and I would agree that WM is much more configureable than S60. The homescreen, for instance can be configured almost infinitely, and unlike varun’s experience, most of the useful plug-ins are free. In fact, you can change the entire interface if you so choose. Check out xda-developers for loads of different ways to personalize your device.
I agree that S60 is more stable than WM in general, but this is partly because I dump a lot of 3rd party programs on my phone. S60 is not immune from crashing. As for the need to reinstall in WM, I would say that since WM5 Pocket PC there has been persistent memory so you do not lose all your programs with a soft reset. And if you absolutely must do a hard reset then most programs can be reinstalled from the cabs on your device.
That said, there is inevitably going to be a tension between the ability to configure everything to your taste, and how easy and reliable it is to use out of the box. S60 really is a very good balance between the two but the choice in the end depends on your own particular needs.
The thing I love about WM, and the thing I miss the most when I’m using an S60 phone, is that phonebook.
For all of the wrongs and pains WM has inflicted on the world, the amazing contacts lookup feature that they’ve created almost equals out all the bad.
If Nokia can copy the iPhone for their touch interface, they need to steal this as well.
I agree with you JC on the phonebook.
This pretty much sums it up for me and why I prefer S60 (at the moment) from the article:
“Having used both, I’m left to think: what makes S60 my number one choice and WM my second? Is it the fact that I have a longer history with S60 than WM? Is it that most of the time, for everyday usage, I prefer the device that “just” works more? Or is it the frustration I feel, when the WM platform abandons me in the middle of a tweak, that makes me head back to my Nokia every time? I sure can’t answer that, not now at least.
One other idea that occurred to me is that S60 has found a great compromise between both.”
There’s no denying WM has its good points. I love the phone book, ability to customize, and the abundance of 3rd party apps available and how easy it is to integrate them. But S60 “just works” better than WM. I do hate the email client and the contacts directory but I can deal with that.
A pefect balance for S60 would be sitting directly in the middle of the iPhone and WM 6. An interface as intuitive as the iPhones with the capabilities of S60 and WM. It’s a shame the iPhone has such a great GUI but is so crippled. I have an iPhone, Tilt, and N95-3 and in its current state the iPhone is pretty useless, but it “just works” for the average user and is probably why it’s the chic phone at the moment.
Afreet
Definetely, your third “just” is the 6th player in the game. I agree it plays a huge role and I am glad you mentionned it. Looks, colors, brands, camera, keypad, wifi, 3g are the first things people look for. Mostly price too. And I would agree that at some points, they would be willing to change OS for the sake of a new hardware feature that they can’t find on a device with the OS they are accustomed to.
Varun
As ZSX said, WM offers the ability to totally customize the user interface, from being able to tweak the today screen to being able to edit the registry. This is the first post in which I mention S60 and WM. I will be having a LONG short series of S60 vs WM posts and customisation will be one topic I will sure discuss
Taomyn
TOTALLY agree, just yesterday my WM for no reason gave up on me and now I can’t launch ANY app on the memory card. I think a memory card format is a MUST. While I am at it, I will do a hard-reset.
Floriel
Brotherly advice: stick to S60. Unless you need any sort of professional-axed applications (engineering, laws, medical, photo and video editing,…) S60 has nothing to be ashamed of in front of WM
ZSX, JC and Aggie99
Seems like we’re on the same page
*Blush*!
So I just updated the firmware on an N95-3 and an starting my adventure with S60, which was left out of the Round Robin mainly because we were all stupid about Symbian and didn’t have the n95 lying about when we started.
5 minutes into it and I can tell you I need to get my head away from the Windows Mobile set of UI metaphors. I feel totally lost and don’t know why yet.
First example: messaging is asking me which connection to use. Erm - use WiFi if it’s available and use my preferred network connection if it’s not. Just do that, don’t ask me. Weird.
On the other hand, the camera on this thing is stupendous!
Rita - sounds good. I personally am interested in knowing what tweaks you’ve found for the S60 interface.
And welcome, btw.
Well I’ve come from 2 WM phones in a row - SPV C500 which had an HTC name I forget, and an T-Mobile Vario AKA HTC Wizard. I had initially went to Symbian in the shape of a Moto Z8 with UIQ, but it was a complete dog and Vodafone took it back after a month and a bit of ownership. I’m now onto the N95 and loving it.
The reason I moved from the more PDA like Vario was probably this magical “just”. I was a bit fed up with the WM experience. Yes it could be customised, but it felt like it was always a bit unfinished at times. The S60 experience doesn’t. The Moto UIQ experience felt like it had been designed by someone with ADHD.
For me the N95 does just about everything I want and so much more, but it does the simple things really well and with so little faffing about. It’s not without its foibles as I’m sure most of you will agree but as my “daily driver” it’s by far my favourite. I’ve always got the Vario as a backup, and it’s a much more rounded phone now with a custom WM6 firmware on it. It’s a tool to be used for specific days with specific requirements now and I’m glad I still have it.