What’s On Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford’s Phone?
AllAboutSymbian has a great piece today, as Ewan recently had a chance to sit down with Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford to talk about what’s on his device. As we get more and more comfortable with our S60-powered smartphones, we typically will customize the snot out of them, with themes, and our own applications. The Active Standby is a great tool that most of us use to bring our most-used applications to our fingertips - but not Nigel.
As you read Nigel’s comments, you’ll find that, despite being the head honcho for the company responsible for the most widely-used smartphone operating system in the world, he doesn’t typically customize his phones, at all. I was rather put off by reading that. As someone with a handful of S60 phones, I’ve taken some time to get each phone setup as I want it, so that I can put my SIM into any of them and instantly be ready to rock and roll. Unfortunately, with S60, when you get a *new* phone, it’s quite a process to get not only your contacts and other PIM information, but also your personal settings, applications, and shortcuts all copied over.
I’m rather disappointed to know that even the CEO of Symbian doesn’t see this as a major issue, but instead has come to grips with it, and simply accepts it as a limitation. This even while other smartphone operating systems offer just that ability, either built-in or via 3rd party developer.
With the iPhone, setting up a new unit from an existing is as simple as plugging it into iTunes, reportedly. With Windows Mobile, there’s a FANTASTIC little application called Sprite Backup. I used this previously on the Palm Treo 800w, when a 2nd review unit was sent out. Within 10 minutes of receiving the new unit, I had backed up the original and copied the file onto the new one, then restored it. Applications, settings, contacts, you name it, it was there. Freakin brilliant.
I’ve asked for something similar before, but if any developers are reading this, perhaps you could solve this issue. Heck, I’d even drop $10-20 for an application that I could use to copy phone settings, apps, etc, from one phone to the other. What about you?
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