The UIQ Evangelist

I dont know how many current UIQ users are aware about this. UIQ was a concept first developed by Psion when it approached phone manufacturers to develop an advanced smartphone Operating System for the future. Later on, the Quartz concept is developed further by Ericsson in a small lab in Ronneby, Sweden (Ericsson Mobile Application Lab) which later on acquired by Symbian in 1999. UIQ Technology became a wholly owned subsidiary of Symbian Ltd until Sony Ericsson bought it in 2006.

One of the first working UIQ prototype that was presented to media was the Pamela aka the Ericsson Quartzpad Communicator. Which you can see in the picture below. It has 16 bit display on it’s 240 x 320 screen, GPRS, BLuetooth and SD-Card for external memory and most importantly, UIQ 1.0 (Quartz) on top of Symbian OS v6.

It was the real deal back then but it did not make out of the lab to the mass market. IMHO, it stays true to Ericsson’s design philosophy with that huge antenna and the “Yes” / “No” buttons.

If you find any other old UIQ prototypes, do share with me, it’s cool to see all the technology that didnt make out to the public and we can measure how we have developed…

Categories: Comments, History, Operating Systems, UIQ
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