You're a bit Jeremy Clarkson, in that you see things as black and white, shit or great. Or at the most with one shade of grey.

> those 250 million Symbian handsets are more or less useless to developers.
> most of the 250 million installed base are lost to application developers

I don't accept that's true to the extent you make it out to be, and I suspect you're basing that on gut feeling, and industry experience, and dare I say it, slight hubris, which you're collectively mistaking for fact. Particularly looking forward to the future, as the ripples from increasing app awareness on iPhone reach other platforms, and Nokia Ovi app Store hits and becomes known, I really don't think you can write off the installed base so quickly and easily. But for argument's sake, lets say you write off 85% of it, if it makes you happy What's left still equals about the total installed base of iPhones and iPod Touches together (and lots of those never download apps). My point being you can't just say 250 million Symbian installs are inconsequential while the very low millions of Android are. Sure Android potentially has big sales potential (and I mean that as written) if lots of things come together. But really, please don't make the mistake of equating developers wetting their collective pants over an OS that has a string of ifs and maybes between it and sucess, and is really only slightly better technically than S60 (from a developer's point of view – and remembering that all pro-Android comments you've seen from developers does not equal the collective view of all developers), with 250 million actual devices in people's hands. Nokia are dunderheads with some things, we all know that. But I'd say the combination of Ovi Store + Nokia sales figures + S60 installed base has way more potential than Android, and yes – that's even with me agreeing with all the other pro-Android comments to this blog, AND all the other anti-S60 comments.

Also, yes the S60 UI can be argued to be not up to iPhone standards by some way (though I've seen arguments to the contrary, by experienced industry watchers). If your term for that point on the scale is “shit” then fair enough. Again, in Mr Clarkson mode, you're operating in binary and writing it off. Not good enough. The fact of the matter is the millions who now own S60 devices (even just focussing on the newest ones) are not all returning them to shop and saying “this is shit! Money back please, give me an iPhone instead”. No, those millions are sticking with and using those S60 handsets, and most quite happily despite being aware of the existence of the iPhone in the same universe they live in. a.) why is that? and b.) who cares why that is – it's a fact whatever the reason. It's ridiculous to suggest that getting an app onto an S60 phone for a normob is anywhere near impossible – that's just simply not true. It may be more difficult than an iPhone, but it's WAY above impossible. And indeed is really quite possible, despite all the hassles.

As a developer I don't want to live in la la fantasy land. And an awful lot of Android developers are there right now. If it proves itself technically, and with sales routes to market that make money, and with getting millions upon millions of devices into people's hands, then as a developer I'll sit up and take notice.

The heart of the matter is that fickle techy geeks get over excited about the latest new tech, and think that it's curtains for everything that came before it. But that's not a sign of maturity or longevity, and many a tech bubble has been grown and then burst from such over-excited zealot's pronunciations.

More power to Android, and I'm not even saying “lets wait and see” – the early bird will catch the worm. But it hasn't caught it yet, and it may not even be worth catching in the end. And while we're on this axiom-spree, two more relevant ones: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” and “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”.

You're a bit Jeremy Clarkson, in that you see things as black and white, shit or great. Or at the most with one shade of grey.

> those 250 million Symbian handsets are more or less useless to developers.
> most of the 250 million installed base are lost to application developers

I don't accept that's true to the extent you make it out to be, and I suspect you're basing that on gut feeling, and industry experience, and dare I say it, slight hubris, which you're collectively mistaking for fact. Particularly looking forward to the future, as the ripples from increasing app awareness on iPhone reach other platforms, and Nokia Ovi app Store hits and becomes known, I really don't think you can write off the installed base so quickly and easily. But for argument's sake, lets say you write off 85% of it, if it makes you happy What's left still equals about the total installed base of iPhones and iPod Touches together (and lots of those never download apps). My point being you can't just say 250 million Symbian installs are inconsequential while the very low millions of Android are. Sure Android potentially has big sales potential (and I mean that as written) if lots of things come together. But really, please don't make the mistake of equating developers wetting their collective pants over an OS that has a string of ifs and maybes between it and sucess, and is really only slightly better technically than S60 (from a developer's point of view – and remembering that all pro-Android comments you've seen from developers does not equal the collective view of all developers), with 250 million actual devices in people's hands. Nokia are dunderheads with some things, we all know that. But I'd say the combination of Ovi Store + Nokia sales figures + S60 installed base has way more potential than Android, and yes – that's even with me agreeing with all the other pro-Android comments to this blog, AND all the other anti-S60 comments.

Also, yes the S60 UI can be argued to be not up to iPhone standards by some way (though I've seen arguments to the contrary, by experienced industry watchers). If your term for that point on the scale is “shit” then fair enough. Again, in Mr Clarkson mode, you're operating in binary and writing it off. Not good enough. The fact of the matter is the millions who now own S60 devices (even just focussing on the newest ones) are not all returning them to shop and saying “this is shit! Money back please, give me an iPhone instead”. No, those millions are sticking with and using those S60 handsets, and most quite happily despite being aware of the existence of the iPhone in the same universe they live in. a.) why is that? and b.) who cares why that is – it's a fact whatever the reason. It's ridiculous to suggest that getting an app onto an S60 phone for a normob is anywhere near impossible – that's just simply not true. It may be more difficult than an iPhone, but it's WAY above impossible. And indeed is really quite possible, despite all the hassles.

As a developer I don't want to live in la la fantasy land. And an awful lot of Android developers are there right now. If it proves itself technically, and with sales routes to market that make money, and with getting millions upon millions of devices into people's hands, then as a developer I'll sit up and take notice.

The heart of the matter is that fickle techy geeks get over excited about the latest new tech, and think that it's curtains for everything that came before it. But that's not a sign of maturity or longevity, and many a tech bubble has been grown and then burst from such over-excited zealot's pronunciations.

More power to Android, and I'm not even saying “lets wait and see” – the early bird will catch the worm. But it hasn't caught it yet, and it may not even be worth catching in the end. And while we're on this axiom-spree, two more relevant ones: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” and “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”.

Where Android is succeeding is in bringing together current and new developers to learn a new set of APIs, the basics aren't a million miles away from writing MIDP but the deeper concepts are. The Android framework is a seriously powerful bit of kit and the developers are still discovering it. Anyone who realises the true powers of the of: Activity, Intent, Broadcast and Receiver is in a strong position. The point being that Android is designed from the bottom up to be a collaborative platform where all apps work together harmoniously to bring the most powerful experience possible to the party. If that dream is realised then no other current platform can touch it. I'd explain now but this post is going to be long enough already.

This evolution of the ecosystem means that, yes the first apps out have been a bit 'shonkey', but it is also clear that the quality, functionality, user base and developer base are all on the up. Also with companies throwing around predicitons of 900% growth, the possibilities are pretty huge.

In terms of the fragmentation issues, there are definitely some hurdles coming up. The first issue was the launch of the Magic, without a hardware keyboard, it was cleared with no major issues. The next problem is going to be different screen resolutions, and even though Android and the SDK are designed to cope with this well, there are developers including myself who go for pixel perfect designs that won't scale very well – e.g. Ultimate Stopwatch where the background is a 320×480 graphic. It is going to be annoying, but not unnegotiable as the framework provides a couple of ways of working around it. In the end, Google has unlimited resources and a very many clever engineers and they aren't going to let Android slip through their fingers, infact quite the opposite.

btw, re the Ovi Store, great stuff, Nokia distribution has always been an issue. But our 1st app was rejected as 'Early Series40 6th Edition devices don't have that certificate preinstalled' – the certificate in question is Nokia's recommended Thawte Certificate, ouch. Talk about complexity and hurdles.

Anyway, in my opinion it is a question of intent. Most of the quadzillion users on those symbian devices have little or no intent on actually installing an app (normobs). A user on an iPhone/Android device is far more likely to use it as a mobile browser and/or install apps on it than one on a Nokia S60 device. If that's simply because of the current hype, so be it. It's not though… its because the standard of quality set by these devices is so high and the majority of the other handsets out there on the market simply cannot match up.

My verdict on Android is still out though. It seems to have this great potential, but we haven't really seen it realise any of that potential yet. iPhone development is enjoyable because you KNOW your environment, with Android shipping on all these different devices by different manufacturers and with operators able to make whatever changes they want to the OS who knows what the Android environment will look like… it could just turn into another fragmented J2ME-like disaster (though I doubt it).

The reality is those 250 million Symbian handsets are more or less useless to developers.

The Ovi store isn't going to change the fact that most of the 250 million installed base are lost to application developers. Completely lost.

I concur with your perspective on the Android Store. I've not heard any good news. Indeed, I've not heard much at all. I've bought a few apps myself — vs tons on the iPhone App Store.

If Nokia's Ovi Store begins to deliver, that will signal good news for Symbian.

The Nokia / Symbian UI is still a piece of shit. I don't say that lightly. You still have to wrap yourself around it. You still have to force yourself to learn how the thing works. My mother simply cannot fathom it — and until she can, no dice. Forget about making millions from developing on Symbian. Until you can swiftly download a cute talking puppy application for £2 in 10 seconds, Symbian will go nowhere. (Bring on a successful Ovi Store implementation).

I'm pretty excited to see what Sony Ericsson can do with an apparent clean slate (Android) in terms of user interface. I'm also very keen to see what Motorola bring to the party. Just leaving Android plain-vanilla isn't going to be that useful.

I'd like to see the introduction of some user-abstraction-layers to really make the UIs fly. I'd like it to be as fluid as, say, the developer of Tweetdeck improves things. I'd like to see weekly or monthly revisions and updates to the way the thing works. To really begin to customise my entire mobile experience.

I'm encouraged by Sony Ericsson's Android news. Indeed I'm pleased to see that Acer have decided to take a look (after their silly launch with Windows Mobile).

It's very, very healthy for the industry.

Look, I love Android as much as you (well, maybe not) – I'm a developer and I've studied the SDK and OS in depth and admire them for sure. But let's just re-skew things back to reality a bit here Symbian's really very good these days, is in over a quarter of a billion devices out there vs. Android's few million at very most and can be programmed in multiple languages including widgets, C, J2ME, Python, C, Basic and C++ where Android can only be programmed in Java – and this makes a big difference to prospective developers.

Android is the young upstart here with an insignifcant installed base, an app store that by all accounts is broken and making no significant money for any developers, and really has everything to prove.

Yes, I have high hopes for it too, but there's a need for a reality check in some quarters I'd say