Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

Thank you for your information, especially that one how to reset the device, didn't know that and it is not anywhere upfront.

I am not complaining to you.


The situation I present here is not acceptable in 2009 with an 11 years old OS.

And the discussion is not only about loosing your apps and the crappy Symbian AppManager or the Ovi store issue with re-download.

It is about user experience, it is about improvement from Nokia side, it is about OS compatibility between versions, sub-versions and devices, it is about how Maemo handles some of this issues.
And, by the way, what can a Nokia service center do after 1 year (expired) warranty? See, nothing. But don't worry, these complains can lead to future solutions, isn't it?

Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

Oh, it is pretty acceptable. You just didn't have chance to compare with some other phones (running WinMobile or various custom platforms).

Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

Maybe I didn't get your question right but I have 6 games and 20+ applications installed on my 580. Once, I did a reset on my phone and used Ton Ren AutoSisInstaller to install all needed auto-install all sis files I put in one folder. Also my favorite app would be Mobipocket Reader which is s60v3.1, well you have to use volume keys for scrolling but transparent VirtualKey app fixed this by adding arrows on the screen.

Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

Architengi - one pint regarding losing contacts and apps when you reflash to newer firmware for Symbian.
You do need to backup the data before and Nokia updater software does mention it (I recently flashed to new firmware for my N95).

The point you make about Apple not erasing user data while updating is beacuse of their over-the air updates that they provide.
Nokia recently shifted to OTA updates for Maemo and also for many phones.

But yes, the a modern firmware update process should keep user space untouched while updating the OS space. I will grant you this. But that does not mean Symbian as a whole is a bad OS. It is very stable for me - I hardly reboot my phone or it hardly crashes - unlike my previous Blackjack with WM.

Granted I also dont mess with 3rd party apps much.

Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

So just to get things straight...

Architengi: Do you own a Maemo device? Are you planning to buy one?

You do understand that this is not a Symbian forum, right? Some of us own Symbian devices, but that is not the reason for this forum. We discuss Symbian when it relates to Maemo or our tablets. For instance, "how do I tether my N95 to my N810?" or some such topic.

Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

Yes. I plan to buy N900. This is why I ask people and Nokia here how is the Maemo OS compared with Symbian at these key features:

1) AppManager to not stop working (yes, some installs or uninstalls it is acceptable to fail, but not the manager itself).
2) App compatibility between OS versions and sub-versions (and devices)
3) Existence of secret APIs (device APIs) which break the compatibility
4) Number of firmwares per year for a device
5) update process to be OTA and to keep the user data (contacts, installed applications)

Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

Well, see, we can't tell you how Maemo on the N900 compares to Symbian, because the N900 will come with a new version of Maemo that none of us have tried yet (except in a beta SDK, which isn't really the same).

#2 will always be a problem on every device, and from what I've seen, it will be a problem moving to the N900 (Maemo 5). And it sounds like there'll be another break for the next OS (Maemo 6), when they move to the QT toolkit.

But since you don't own any Maemo devices, why are you asking about compatibility issues?

#5 should be just as you want it on the N900.

Other points have been addressed above, including the fact that you're complaining to the wrong forum about Symbian...

Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

To erase the contacts during the upgrade and make all the installations not running it is simply not ok.

Don't forget about the AppManager that it is reportedly stopping working after more installations. This is not excusable. As I said:

AppManager should not stop working (yes, some installs or uninstalls it is acceptable to fail, but not the manager itself). Even if the installation fails or it is interrupted, the AppManager should continue to work after that.

Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

This is only Nokia problem, they simply don't care, I read the thread about "Quim keynote on Maemo's switch to Qt as the main toolkit"
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=30085
where they simply say all the existing applications of Maemo 3, 4 and 5 made with Hildonized Gtk+ will stop working in Maemo 6. This is simply un-excusable as a rationale direction and approach. Looks like dictatorship to me. "we don't care about your old software". Why is so hard to keep both Qt and Gtk+? Stuborness? I know there is and can be a small reason for everything, but if you want to say "the end user is our boss" then you have to make it easy for him, not very, very hard. The same for programmers, they will leave the platform if the direction changes that much dramatic.

Re: Why Symbian OS is so not friendly at all? How is Maemo?
 

Well, I guess you'll have to get an iPhone, then.