Over at Laymanhack.com I have just posted a new article which argues against the fact that Symbian’s move to open source is risky.

All you mobile OS junkies, go take a look!

“Does it have a touch screen?”

“How good is the camera?”

“Is it slim or bulky?”

The Operating System it has is a question rarely asked. Even when it is, it often figures at the bottom of the list. For a huge percentage of the general users, the phone’s Operating System plays little to no role in phone selection. It is simply not as big a decision as the selection of an Operating System for computers. Slightly worrying, considering that unlike computer operating systems, phone operating systems cannot be replaced at a later stage.

The perception of the operating system playing a minor role in a phone’s functioning might be set to change. With the foray of Google into the mobile world, and Nokia striving to make Symbian operating system open source, the battle arena is heating up. Consumers now have a greater choice than they ever did.

Yet, much of the earlier apathy towards the mobile operating system still remains. No mobile advertisement ever talks about the operating system. It is therefore intriguing when one stops to wonder why people don’t care about their mobile operating system when they worry so much about their computer’s operating system. Or we can turn the question on its head and ask why people care about computer Operating systems, to begin with.

The answer to this question might lie in the way these two devices originated. For all their similarity today, we cannot forget that when they were first introduced, they served vastly different purposes.

Computers have always been meant to make people’s lives easier, by allowing them to automate much of their work. To achieve this, applications are required. And applications require a system to run on. It is obvious that an application written for one operating system will not work on another. Not difficult to understand, then, the reason people fetter so much over their computer’s operating system. The types of jobs they will be able to accomplish depend hugely on the operating system they are running.

Not so for mobiles, however. Mobiles were invented simply as a convenient way for people to talk to one another while on the move. That remained their basic purpose for a good many years. A few years later, following the advent of the mobile phone displays, messaging was introduced. Again, this was incorporated easily into all mobile phones. No problems there.

But in recent years, the pace of development of mobile hardware has been breath-taking. Today, you will find the same hardware on phones that you did in desktops not too many years ago. RAM of 256 MB, processors up to 1 GHz (and soon to be 1.2 GHz), storage memory of up to 48 GB… no one would have believed you 7 years ago if you told them all this could be fitted in a 100mmx60mmx10mm box.

All these improvements have helped mobiles behave a lot like computers. However, it is only recently that phones have been able to run games and applications that were once run on desktops.  The consumers and the companies have been a little slow to keep pace with the development in the hardware sector. The indifference towards the operating system still remains among buyers.

Android, iPhone, Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems

But are things changing? Cell phone operating systems have recently been making the news a lot more. Bloggers are blogging about it, tweeters are tweeting about it and the general public is talking about it. A lot more people are now worried about whether their phone has a Windows Mobile operating system or a Symbian operating system. Android has been rapidly gaining a strong foothold in the market due to its popularity among buyers. Maemo has been generating much hype. Companies such as ITG have begun trying to make a phone with a full-fledged Windows XP operating system on it.

The change in consumer perspective begs the question what led to such a change in the first place. The simplest answer to it is choice. Phone users now have a lot more options than before. We are not just talking about operating systems here, we are talking about phones in general.

A few years ago, if you needed a business phone your choice was limited to BlackBerry and maybe a few other manufacturers. Today, however, every major manufacturer has a product line of high-end as well as mid-segment business phones. Whilst buying a BlackBerry invariably tied you up with a proprietary BlackBerry operating system, manufacturers such as Nokia, HTC, etc now give you the option of using Symbian and Windows Mobile as well.

Such choice has also led to greater awareness amongst the buyers. They now know the pros and cons of each operating system available to them. Android gives them the freedom to modify the source code itself in any way they choose. While this doesn’t interest the average user, the ability to sync their devices with Google services does.  Symbian gives them access to the huge number of applications that have been developed for the operating system over the years. Windows gives them…well, that just gives them a headache, to be honest. But it does empower them to run some pretty useful applications that one wouldn’t find on other operating systems. I don’t think the iPhone operating system needs any special description here.

Sure, the average buyer still doesn’t consider the operating system to be a deciding factor in the choice of a mobile phone. But things are definitely changing. And the more the hardware part of a mobile phone improves, the more of a difference its operating system begins to make. Perhaps, within the next three years, people will start to think just as much about their mobile phone operating system as they do about their computer operating system.

Any gaming enthusiast will fondly recall memories of having played V-Rally on their mobile phone years ago. Developed in association with I-Play, it has been perhaps the best 3D car game to date, with accurate graphics that run smoothly even on the lowest-end phones. Fishlabs has been involved in the development of many other 3D games that have changed people’s perspective of mobile phone gaming. Apart from the detailed 3D graphics, all of its games have had one thing in common- they are fun to play.

After N-Gage’s sudden, and perhaps unsurprising, decision to shut down, Powerboat Challenge is the last game that has been released for the much hyped gaming platform. Nokia would have loved to go out with a flourish, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. Somewhere along the line, N-Gage seems to have gone terribly wrong.

The screenshots of the game themselves look pretty decent. Here’s a look at the screenshots provided in the review by Ewan Spence:

Powerboat Challenge for the Nokia N-Gage

Powerboat challenege Nokia N-Gage 2

Powerboat challenege Nokia N-Gage 3

Fishlabs seems to have taken good care of that particular area. Its graphics engine is functioning as good as ever.  Yet, the game is sadly unplayable.

Here, one is forced to asked the question, who is at fault? Is it Fishlabs, for not putting in a good enough effort in the playability department? Or is it Nokia, for not providing a good enough platform to an acclaimed developer like Fishlabs?

To some extent, Fishlabs is to blame for sure. It’s not as if all N-Gage games have lacked functionality. The best example would be One, which was probably the peak of the N-Gage as a platform. It had all the ingredients necessary for a good game- graphics, responsive gameplay and replay value.

But N-Gage can’t be let off that easily. For all its claims, it has never provided developers with a good enough platform. It has never taken developers to the point where they can make much more than a game that could just as easily have been made in Java. Indeed, many of the games look like simple java games ported to the N-Gage platform. And it is not necessarily the developers who are to blame for this. They have been screaming for hardware support and the like, features they were never provided. How then can one expect an enhanced gaming experience if the developers themselves are shackled by weird rules?

N-Gage could have been so much more. N-Gage QD was, many feel, the most promising and revolutionary phase in mobile gaming. It was the first time that an entire generation looked upon mobile phones as a possible gaming device. Lack of sales forced Nokia to turn N-Gage into the software platform that we see today. It held just as much promise as the initial QD, but somehow it failed to deliver.

The decision to shut down N-Gage has been made. Its entire fan legion can only hope that Nokia learns from its mistakes. What is needed is perhaps a clear view into its leadership and team to root out the problem and ensure that such a fiasco does not occur again.

Powerboat Challenge will remain a sad reminder of the mobile gaming revolution that could have been. Nokia were so close to the trophy that they somehow failed to clinch. And as millions of fans continue to hope for a better marketing sense in Nokia’s future ventures, no one will forget the monster that Nokia created for themselves. Eventually, they were devoured by their own failure to deliver.

R.I.P. N-Gage