European Wafaa

One of the Symbian based site that I regularly follow (Symbian-Guru) have had a couple of posts on Symbian vs Android. The first one is “10 Things Android Does Better Than Symbian”, the follow up to this is the reverse lookup “10 Things Symbian Does Better Than Android”. Now I can't argue with any of the points raised in the first article, however I don't agree entirely with the second article, but I do acknowledge the limitations in place. What I mean is they are using a flagship Symbian device from Nokia & Samsung, a better comparison would have been to compare against either Motorola/HTC & Samsung's flagship Android device.

I use my N97 & Motorola Milestone (GSM version of the Droid) and to be honest in my opinion the Milestone really does spank the N97 :-( Saying that though my E71 outperforms my N97 in many aspects thanks to Nokia's utter balls-up of the N97's hardware ;-)

Now there is a comment about Android 1.5 being on a lot of devices, and yes it is, but if I remember correctly there was a few posts (not that I can find the links any more) about Android versions. My dodgy memory seems to recall there are more devices running 1.6 than any other version, followed by 2.0.1 and then 2.1.

Anyhow back to the second post, now don't get me wrong I'm an avid proponent of Symbian as a mobile OS, and I've been using it for at least 5yrs in one form or another from multiple hardware vendors (mainly Nokia & SonyEricsson); but I do have to disagree with most of the list. I'll answer each point individually:

1. Gmail: Nokia Messaging does indeed work *very* well with GMail, but I do think the overall winner has to go to Android - the integration is superb (as one would hope). Also the configuration aspects of Nokia Messaging are relatively limited.

2. Multitasking: I agree with the Multitasking win for Symbian, although I do find sometimes that Symbian really needs to know its limits - my N97 starts to creak when I have more than 6 apps running, my E71 can plod on happily with at least 8.

3. Twitter: I do love Gravity for all my Microblogging requirements on Symbian, but I do find the likes of Twidroid offer a better experience with a unified timeline in addition to the individual account ones. Very similar to what I'm used to on the desktop. I would probably call this one a draw as there are aspects of each that I love and hate.

4. Last.fm: As much as I like Mobbler, the official Last.fm app for Android is far better, and integrates with the built in media player seamlessly so in my view a win for Android.

5. Waze: Now I only really heard about and got into Waze thanks to Symbian-Guru, and I tried it on my N97 with near catastrophic results – it doesn't help that the GPS receiver on the N97 is so poor and I have to use a bluetooth receiver. Again I find that Waze on the Milestone far outshines that on the N97 or E71. So a win for Android.

6. Music: I have always found the sound quality on the N97 a bit of a disappointment, especially the built-in speakers. However the Milestone surpasses this without breaking a sweat. The mono speaker is very loud not that tinny and full of bass, in comparison the N97 is actually fairly painful to listen to. Whilst using headphones the N97 is almost on par with the Milestone but just a little bit behind. This is not a software issue, but a hardware one and Nokia couldn't have dropped the ball any worse with the N97 when it comes to hardware :-( From a software perspective, I again have to award a win to Android for the actual Music Player. It is quick to update the library it has all the essentials nicely and easily grouped, oh and it play fantastically with my desktop app – Banshee – without hackery.

7. Calendar: Now all I need to do to go to the next day is swipe, pretty simple really. One thing that does annoy the fuzz in me is that for some reason the calendar on my Android device fails to pull my personal calendar from the big G in the cloud; it pulls all the other calendars without issue ( i.e. openSUSE & GsoC). So in this respect I'll call it a narrow win for Symbian, although I haven't found a way to get the calendar on my N97 or E71 to pull in additional calendars.

8. Power Down: I think this is just what one is used to. Shutting down an Android phone is more like shutting down a computer, and I think this was a conscious choice by the devs – a sort of differentiating factor – you not only have a phone in your pocket but a computer. Now for powering up my N97 actually takes longer, it sits at the Nokia logo just before the hand shake for a good 5-10sec (really annoying). I'd call this a draw.

9. Phone: I can't fault the phone side of things on either device, they both work well and I don't encounter any issues. Each do different things in good ways.

10. Developer Opportunities: Now this is a sticky one, sure as mentioned Symbian has a plethora of languages that people can code in to get there product out on the largest number of handsets in the market today. For the uninformed, developers can choose from C++ (granted afaik it is a kind of weird iteration), Qt, JavaME, Flash Lite, Python, Ruby, .Net/C# (if you are a C# developer and would like to see the wonderful Mono available like Monotouch on the iPhone, make sure you let the Mono team and especially Miguel De Icaza know ;-) ), WebRunTime(javascript/html). Being able to develop an app isn't the whole picture, there needs to be a way to get your app out there to all those handsets, and to be honest Android Market spanks Ovi Store. Sorry but it's true. As an example I had to hard reset my N97, and the few apps I purchased from Ovi wouldn't re-download, it took me over a week to get them back, and then I had to re-hardreset the device and I just havent bothered going through the painful process again (yes I tried re-downloading without joy). On the flip side, I had to send my Milestone off to get fixed, and it came back in vanilla shape (with new firmware), after I entered my credentials at setup and entered the Market, my downloaded & installed history was there waiting for me and I was able to get all the paid apps easily and hassle free. So in this respect Android wins. Android learnt from Apple that there needs to be a central place for everything, so it is very easy, and getting your app on the Market is a breeze. Symbian on the other hand has steered away from that and has left the Symbian “App Store” fragmented worse than a cluster bomb – Nokia/SonyEricsson/Samsung/LG/Sharp/Fujitsu/$PHONE_MAKER will all have their own store for Symbian devices which from a developer's stand point is a real PITA. This is a major fail on Symbian's part. One big issue is that Symbian has is an almost zero take up in the US. Some may say so what we don't give a monkey's left bollock about what the US think or does. As much as I may agree with that thought at times, when it comes to tech related things the US is very relevant whether you like it or not. A lot of the cool, new, funky, swish, web 2.0, $BUZZWORD sites and apps originate or are housed in the US. So naturaly they cater for their own and then add in Europe and other places afterwards (if at all). This is entirely a fault of the Symbian Foundation and Nokia before it. That is one reason Apple has made the iPhone such a success, and another reason that Andorid & RIM (yes I know they're Canadian) and even Windows Mobile out sell Symbian.

One aspect that I think should be trumpeted nowadays is the fact that the next release of Symbian on handsets will be totally open under the EPL license. To an average user this may mean absolutely nothing, but it counts a bit for me. On the subject of Symbian^3 (yes that's the name of the new release for those not in the know), I do think a lot of the software issues will be resolved with the core OS. The key is for hardware vendors not to screw up!