Why S60 apps suck

Source : Why S60 apps suck

http://tamss60.tamoggemon.com/2008/05/19/why-s60-apps-suck/

By admin

Michael Mace has been on my radar for a long time - being a former PalmSource employee and running a nice blog definitely qualifies you to be on my watchlist(as I also run a Palm OS site). He recently posted an article about why Nokia’s S60 platform will fall behind the iPhone eventually - he claims that it all has to do with marketing. And - unfortunately - I happen to disagree(*).

For me, S60 sucks because of a variety of different reasons:

Rampant piracy AND signage crap
S60v§ introduced the need for application signing. If your app wanted to do certain things, you needed to get it signed(which cost you 180 Euros or more). No signage, no workie.

This is similar to the concept Tapwave used with its Palm OS-based game console - but there’s one major difference here. Tapwave’s Zodiac checked if a signed app was modified, and refused to run modified apps.

Crackers had to either break the entire DRM system(which they couldn’t do) or had to resign the app(which would have forced them to give up their address and real name).

The two factors above made the Zodiac a piracy-free platform; and thus made developers accept the burden of application signing. Nokia, on the other hand, insists on signing but does not offer any benefits in exchange…

Stupid development mantra
I have developed applications for Palm OS, Windows Mobile and a variety of other systems(including even 14bit PIC MCU’s). Each system definitely has its own oddities - but Nokia’s S60 is full of weird crap.

Leaving functions? A cleanup stack? The four-object base model? Views? Loads of concepts that are unique to the S60/UIQ world.

This makes developer training expensive and development hard - and reduces the motivation for the development of S60 apps.

Carbide.c++ costs a LOT of cash
Finally, Carbide.c++ costs a load of money. For me, this is the straw that lays the camel flat - have a totally fuxated development model AND charge big bucks for the IDE. If Nokia wants to grow its followership, give away Carbide Pro with a book for 100€. Restrict it to single-developer shacks. But do it…

Cutting a long story short: for me, the reason for Nokia’s problems lays in the operating system’s architecture. Sure, S60 is a great, stable and well-usable OS - but developing for it is a huge pain in the butt. Eliminating piracy would put Nokia into a unique position on the marketplace - but the opportunity apparently has not been realized by anyone in the S60 camp so far…