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The New 3G iPhone ! Is this the begining of the end for the SE P AND X series? |
anonymuser
Joined: Dec 17, 2002
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On 2008-06-12 19:50:47, pnf1973 wrote:
Underwhelmed by UIQ or by SE? UIQ by itself is a rather good UI, it can easily be made finger friendly simply by using the right theme. The underlying UI is very stable and competent, the actual implementation by SE might not invigorate you but that is down to SE playing safe, not UIQ.
UIQ is okay, but that's it. It's about as standard as any touchscreen interface could get, and is actually a lot closer to Windows Mobile in design than many would like to admit (all it's really missing is the Start menu, which is actually a plus point for WM). It's impressive what it does on such a low-rent, low power hardware base, but at the same time SE have been stuck on these same 208mhz chips for far too long, and the continued lack of HSDPA and any real speed has long since started to show - it's nothing short of embarrassing that new handsets like Paris are apparently just more of the same, in a slightly new box.
Recycling it in a cheaper form factor a la the G900 makes some sense (although even there it's looking dated) but flogging the same dead horse as their latest smartphone is just the mark of a completely lost cause.
Meanwhile, the only other manufacturer doing anything at all with UIQ is Motorola, and for them it's just an easy way to develop new feature phones without having to rewrite their own godawful interface. Fair enough, running it without the touchscreen proves the platform's versatility, but it's also pretty uninteresting to anyone wanting a serious smartphone. After all, if you wanted serious smartphone features, but didn't want a touchscreen, you'd get a Nokia.
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pnf1973
Joined: Oct 04, 2007
Posts: 403
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I agree about the hardware, but I have to argue one thing - battery life. Compared to most nokia s60 devices the p1 really does last much longer between charges. Which is primarily down to work done by UIQ and SE to get the most out of the hardware available.
I would like to see a UIQ which is as finger friendly as the iPhone, or even the new Touch3d, but which still has all the good parts of UIQ there, including that battery life.
Yes, SE have consistently extended the hardware rather than radically alter it, but this has lead to a great deal of stability to the hardware - which isn't a bad thing really. Uptimes measured in months has always been a major plus for me. I hardly ever had to reset my 910, and my p1 is pretty close to that too, but yes i agree. I dont know if i will upgrade to the p5, not with the hardware spec as it stands.
PS I prefer to think that WM has moved closer to UIQ, rather than UIQ being like WM, UIQ was there first after all. |
anonymuser
Joined: Dec 17, 2002
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Battery life is a great thing, and certainly not something that Windows Mobile can particularly boast of, but at the end of the day I'm quite certain there's a market for UIQ phones which maybe need slightly bigger/heavier batteries, but can also compete with S60/WM/Iphone on speed and data. It shouldn't take much, if UIQ is as efficient as it claims to be, and yet SE just won't make the leap.
My P910 was extremely stable years ago, but I'm not convinced any UIQ3 devices have ever really matched that. In my experience WM is every bit as stable as UIQ3, if not more so.
And in all fairness to Windows Mobile, it was around in Pocket PC form long before the P800 arrived, and UIQ2 wasn't exactly a revolution in UI design.
[ This Message was edited by: boinng on 2008-06-13 12:21 ] |
pnf1973
Joined: Oct 04, 2007
Posts: 403
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Bah. Psion got there first with EPOC, which UIQ descends from. |
anonymuser
Joined: Dec 17, 2002
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Hmm... I was a big fan of Psion products, and to be honest it's a real shame they didn't go it alone without spinning out Symbian - their own software and hardware designs were far better than anything SE or Nokia have done since. I loved the P800 as a phone, but I'd have loved it a lot more if UIQ had been as well thought out as the Revo or Series 5 OS...
Apart from anything else, what were they thinking when they ditched the old Word and Spreadsheet apps? And why lobotomise the Agenda suite?
Windows Mobile has at least steadily improved all the while, while Symbian took a big step back before it went forward...
[ This Message was edited by: Boinng on 2008-06-13 17:05 ] |
pnf1973
Joined: Oct 04, 2007
Posts: 403
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Yeah, I have to agree there. The 5mx was years ahead of its time. Psion actually had a working prototype communicator, similar to the p800, including a 5mx with a builtin CSD modem. It really was a shame they ran out of money like they did.
They had huge plans for both the 5mx and revo, i loved the fact that the 5mx ran for two weeks solid on a pair of AAs, man that was battery life! |
Dogmann
Joined: Jan 29, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: London England
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Hi all,
Good points and believe it or not still now there are many using their Psion's that just can't bear to part with them and move on to a smart phone.
But besides those devices just being PDA's they were actually quite large now although i never used a Psion i did use an Ericsson MC218 which was a rebadged 5mx. It would of indeed been interesting to have seen what Psion evolved into if not Symbian but unfortunately will never know.
Back on topic 3G iPhone or not we have all waited the best part of 2 years for UIQ to deliver on it's promise and potential. Still now we are waiting and whilst SE has given it's first WM device all we could wish for it hasn't done so for UIQ. Really the biggest threat to UIQ is SE itself as the longer it continues to fail to deliver the more once loyal users they lose and the number of loyal and faithful SE/UIQ users just continues to decrease. Which is so sad for the company that brought us the P800 and the first true PDA/Phone combo.
Marc
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[ This Message was edited by: Dogmann on 2008-06-13 18:37 ] |
pnf1973
Joined: Oct 04, 2007
Posts: 403
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It seems that SE are attempting to do with w960/g900/g700/m600/p5/p1 what nokia did with s60.
It is nice to see a larger number of devices using uiq, I think that this can only be a good thing. SE never had the market share of Nokia, and never put the resources into it that Nokia did. Herein lies half the problem, UIQ never had the same money spent on it and symbian really had most of their time absorbed by nokia with s60. Given the the size of Sony they really could have totally turned that around but then i guess they haven't exactly made alot of good business choices in recent years. We can only hope that the increased sales aren't just swallowed by SE and actually plowed back into uiq.
As another aside, will apple's iphone kill off s60 touch? Will it kill off the BB thunder?
[ This Message was edited by: pnf1973 on 2008-06-13 19:33 ] |
Dogmann
Joined: Jan 29, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: London England
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@pnf1973
Sorry but that's not quite right Symbian is the OS that both Nokia and SE use, the difference is the UI and that is Nokia use S60 and SE use UIQ.
So it really is not the case of Symbian paying more attention to one more than other but of how well the UI's are implemented and the differences in the implementation of hardware that is used. Nokia have added HSDPA and fast processors whilst SE haven't. Also so far Nokia have delivered far more stable software then SE has.
Hopefully tomorrow we may get in the announcement the kind of spec's and devices many of of us are hoping for. As after all it's about time UIQ got updated spec's and performance to compete with all the other devices available. If not know IMO it really will be to little to late as with the Iphones advances and Android coming as well as WM7 and S60 Touch UI SE/UIQ's one advantage of a touchscreen is evaporating. Now really is the time for SE/UIQ to deliver with the right type of devices and spec's and hopefully not with 9 months away release dates either.
Well tomorrow we will see just what SE/UIQ have in store for us lets hope it really is unexpected and exciting once more other wise i foresee the RIP UIQ stories starting once more and this time they could come true.
Marc
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Nokia E90,8GB SDHC, Fring, Seven, Tom Tom 6
Honoured to have won BEST DEBATER
[ This Message was edited by: Dogmann on 2008-06-16 09:17 ] |
pnf1973
Joined: Oct 04, 2007
Posts: 403
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Psion spawned off EPOC32 as symbian, s60 and UIQ, each were development projects they ran. The point I was trying to make was that Nokia took much more resource from Symbian with s60 than SE did with UIQ - far more in terms of peoples time and efforts.
Which is what I was trying to get at, Nokia has had a much greater say in the development of Symbian than SE which put SE and the UIQ team at a disadvantage from the start. Part of the shame is that UIQ was a much more mature UI than s60 when the two started out, the state of play now is a testament to the lack of investment from Sony from day 1. Hopefully now Sony have seen the success of s60 and Nokia and are looking to replicate that with UIQ and really grab market share, which is why we have seen more and more rehashings of the original p800 hardware rather than anything really new and interesting. Maybe now we will see change in this, maybe SE have been quietly pushing a new platform forward. But then again, maybe not.
I hope its the former but believe its the latter. Shame really, Psion were real innovators and all that effort and intelligence from a great group of engineers in a british company really really got squashed. |
bluefire3648
Joined: Apr 11, 2008
Posts: 30
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I don't know about everyone opinions cause yall just wrote to much to read.. but from the title ....
iPhone is never going to kill off SE series because everyone has different needs from a cellphone and iPhone just doesn't give to everyones need... Also for the reason of iWhatever will always have a big name and that is why everyone wants one cause it brand name.... Idk if yall would agree but iPods arent even the best music players out there..... for some reason people buy the iPhone cause its shiny, it new, and it is all over the place....
I would rather have any other phone then an iPhone or Razr because they are overused and like my p1i would stand out in a crowd of iphones....And for apple ipod and icrap  how come none of them has a fm radio?! |
Nipsen
Joined: Jul 31, 2007
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Good point, pnf. But I disagree it's UIQ this ended up putting at a disadvantage, more than that the work at SE fell through and wasn't structured well enough. Unless it turns out that SE hires UIQ people to program the mainscreen, the phone- tools, the phone- book integration, the @- button menu, and so on. I mean, that's what we're really talking about when saying UIQ looks a bit basic - UIQ comes with some pre- defined classes and a few good programs. But it doesn't prevent SE from cramming the device full of less than perfect background services, like they did. Or really bad ways to read and store data on the common symbian stores. Or, for example, a more useful or expandable main- screen, and so on. |
pnf1973
Joined: Oct 04, 2007
Posts: 403
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I'd argue about SE writing background services, I really would have thought that those would come from either Symbian or UIQ.
There is a interview on the net somewhere with the original Psion engineers who were behind the 5mx, EPOC and later symbian, s60 and UIQ. It makes really interesting reading, the work they did to optimise EPOC32 for the 5mx was amazing and most of that work went into symbian and UIQ too. I'd bet that most of the "quirks" that have annoyed us loyal UIQ users since day one are still present simply because of the hand-optimised nature of the code the causes it. I know what it's like trying to make sense of code like that - its a nightmare 
But, if SE are trying to turn UIQ into their answer to s60, which now ships on millions of handsets a year then it can only be a good thing in the long run. I just wish they would properly open the damned system up, make it unnecessary to have to "hack" the protected folders. They'd really open the platform up for other developers, which will only make it more popular in the long run. |
AD
Joined: Aug 25, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: UK
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I do find it a little sad, and yet truly hopeful from an end user perspective that it's taken a small group of independant programmers to start making real improvments to UIQ. My real hope now is that these wonderful people might band together to completely rewrite the os, as happened with linux being born from unix, probably never happen due to lack of demand & the hardware specs changing so rapidly though, but I believe it could be done.
I also hope that as with what happened to PCs, the mobile market will mature to a state that users will be able to choose their hardware platform, then also be able to make a separate choice as to which os to run on it. |
Nipsen
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On 2008-06-17 11:09:12, pnf1973 wrote:
I'd bet that most of the "quirks" that have annoyed us loyal UIQ users since day one are still present simply because of the hand-optimised nature of the code the causes it. I know what it's like trying to make sense of code like that - its a nightmare
lol. yeah. But that's on the api level - that doesn't stop anyone from making sure the program logic in the contacts application, or the lookups in the message- app isn't done in a more logical way. I mean, I've been programming my share of machine code, I know how easy it is to improve on things that "just doesn't work" - if you just have enough ram and cpu to go on, and so on. An excellent example is the RSS browser - it's completely linear. And won't cache or use multithreading in any way, it seems.
And I mean - the speed on all of this is horrible. And it's not because either UIQ or the phone is particularly slow. It's because the program logic is bad.
On 2008-06-17 12:24:40, AD wrote:
I also hope that as with what happened to PCs, the mobile market will mature to a state that users will be able to choose their hardware platform, then also be able to make a separate choice as to which os to run on it.
*crosses fingers really hard*
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Posted: 2008-06-13 12:35
