I always thrashed Apple for their crippled iPhone. You need iTune to sync your files, you can't multi-task, you can install app files without app store, you can use attachments in email, you can't see files on your iPhone (explorer style) and so on.
Yet you could do all these if you jail break iPhone. A jail broken iPhone is much more versatile than Apple's crippled out of box iPhone.
So, I was upset and thought ok, I'll buy a Nokia which won't be lame as an iPhone.
How wrong I was!
After buying Nokia 5800, the first really popular touch screen (or I rather say press screen) phone from Nokia - which is often termed as cheaper alternative to iPhone, I was in joyful mood for few days.
But fun started to disappear when I discovered my Symbian smart phone is nearly as crippled as iPhone by Apple.
Let's start from beginning. I bought the phone direct from Nokia and as a result, it came as network unlocked (which is a good start). But my patience ran out when the phone started showing its bug quite ofen. For example, just after unplugging USB cable, the shortcut bars started disappearing. After crawling on internet for a solution, I discovered that you need to hard reset the phone by pressing 3 (green red camera) +1 (power) keys while powering it on. This deleted all my user data!
Then from forums, I also came to know that Nokia could have just allowed users to delete a single system file or a particular folder to solve it (without doing hard reset). But in my phone, I could not even see those files. Why? Because they have been hidden by Nokia! To see them, I need to "hack" or "jail break" my phone - in same way iPhones are hacked!
Then I tried to figure out why Nokia did that. The result was very interesting.
The Symbian foundation is mostly owned by Nokia. An inherent feature of Symbian is its "signed certificate" feature. Any app, which you like to install on your Symbian phone, must be signed by developer's certificate. It is analogous to getting your manager signed his approval whenever you want to access internet at work (imagine how inconvenient it would be).
Apps from big commercial vendors (in Symbian) come with proper signed certificate. So, you can directly install those apps without much drama.
However, problem crops up when you try to install apps from less wealthy developers. I continuously got "certificate expired", "certificate invalid" etc. errors. I got same error even with my own developed Symbian *.sis apps!
To get a signed certificate license, you need to pay a hefty sum to Symbian Foundation (i.e. Nokia).
There is another option though. In Symbian signed website, you can upload an unsigned app with your IMEI number where they will generate signed app for your but that will work only in your phone (as IMEI is embedded in app).
Not only this is bit of inconvenience but it won't sign apps if it detects apps are trying to interfere Nokia's own protection system.
What a money making exercise!
There are some apps using which you can hack your Symbian phone (most models). Most common is HelloOX (just search over internet). This needs to be compiled specifically for your phone (ie IMEI dependent). Unless you can sign it via your own developer's certificate or can read Chinese language website, you need to fork out $5 to get a signed version from their site. Once you get that, you can easily hack your Symbian phone! Then you can install your own apps and no longer get certificate error message. Basically this hack makes you something power user which is analogous to root user in Unix. So, you can see all files (even hidden system files) and bypass certificate errors.
Nokia argues that not everyone should become root as bad apps can muck the phone software to render it unusable.
Well, I counter this by saying, just using Nokia's own firmware, my phone (and several others as you can see on internet) got screwed.
Also, as a developer, I know what I'm doing in my phone. So, why I should not get the flexibility of developing my apps for free?
Symbian is quite a powerful OS for smart phones. Even without hacking your phone, you can access individual files (except hidden system files) using Windows Explorer type file manager. You can use attachments in emails, you can read Microsoft Office files using free Quick Office viewer (editor will cost money though). You can directly transfer music (or any file) treating the phone as USB disk.
So, definitely Nokia did something which Apple didn't. But if they claim Symbian as open system, then they must not close it to users.
Yet you could do all these if you jail break iPhone. A jail broken iPhone is much more versatile than Apple's crippled out of box iPhone.
So, I was upset and thought ok, I'll buy a Nokia which won't be lame as an iPhone.
How wrong I was!
After buying Nokia 5800, the first really popular touch screen (or I rather say press screen) phone from Nokia - which is often termed as cheaper alternative to iPhone, I was in joyful mood for few days.
But fun started to disappear when I discovered my Symbian smart phone is nearly as crippled as iPhone by Apple.
Let's start from beginning. I bought the phone direct from Nokia and as a result, it came as network unlocked (which is a good start). But my patience ran out when the phone started showing its bug quite ofen. For example, just after unplugging USB cable, the shortcut bars started disappearing. After crawling on internet for a solution, I discovered that you need to hard reset the phone by pressing 3 (green red camera) +1 (power) keys while powering it on. This deleted all my user data!
Then from forums, I also came to know that Nokia could have just allowed users to delete a single system file or a particular folder to solve it (without doing hard reset). But in my phone, I could not even see those files. Why? Because they have been hidden by Nokia! To see them, I need to "hack" or "jail break" my phone - in same way iPhones are hacked!
Then I tried to figure out why Nokia did that. The result was very interesting.
The Symbian foundation is mostly owned by Nokia. An inherent feature of Symbian is its "signed certificate" feature. Any app, which you like to install on your Symbian phone, must be signed by developer's certificate. It is analogous to getting your manager signed his approval whenever you want to access internet at work (imagine how inconvenient it would be).
Apps from big commercial vendors (in Symbian) come with proper signed certificate. So, you can directly install those apps without much drama.
However, problem crops up when you try to install apps from less wealthy developers. I continuously got "certificate expired", "certificate invalid" etc. errors. I got same error even with my own developed Symbian *.sis apps!
To get a signed certificate license, you need to pay a hefty sum to Symbian Foundation (i.e. Nokia).
There is another option though. In Symbian signed website, you can upload an unsigned app with your IMEI number where they will generate signed app for your but that will work only in your phone (as IMEI is embedded in app).
Not only this is bit of inconvenience but it won't sign apps if it detects apps are trying to interfere Nokia's own protection system.
What a money making exercise!
There are some apps using which you can hack your Symbian phone (most models). Most common is HelloOX (just search over internet). This needs to be compiled specifically for your phone (ie IMEI dependent). Unless you can sign it via your own developer's certificate or can read Chinese language website, you need to fork out $5 to get a signed version from their site. Once you get that, you can easily hack your Symbian phone! Then you can install your own apps and no longer get certificate error message. Basically this hack makes you something power user which is analogous to root user in Unix. So, you can see all files (even hidden system files) and bypass certificate errors.
Nokia argues that not everyone should become root as bad apps can muck the phone software to render it unusable.
Well, I counter this by saying, just using Nokia's own firmware, my phone (and several others as you can see on internet) got screwed.
Also, as a developer, I know what I'm doing in my phone. So, why I should not get the flexibility of developing my apps for free?
Symbian is quite a powerful OS for smart phones. Even without hacking your phone, you can access individual files (except hidden system files) using Windows Explorer type file manager. You can use attachments in emails, you can read Microsoft Office files using free Quick Office viewer (editor will cost money though). You can directly transfer music (or any file) treating the phone as USB disk.
So, definitely Nokia did something which Apple didn't. But if they claim Symbian as open system, then they must not close it to users.
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