A Few Thoughts On UIQ 3.3
UIQ Technolology announced UIQ 3.3 a few days ago and so far no manufacturer has announced any phones with this platform. However, this does not mean that there won’t be Sony Ericsson-branded smart phones running UIQ 3.3 - there will! I had it confirmed earlier today that both manufacturers (Motorola and Sony Ericsson) will be announcing products making use of UIQ 3.3. I’m guessing this will happen within a month’s time.
BeiBei is one of the unannounced smart phones from Sony Ericsson that is most likely to use UIQ 3.3. Lots of signs point to this as being the platform used.
G700 and G900’s operating system and platform (UIQ 3.0) includes parts that are very much like BeiBei’s platform, so it is not unthinkable that a future firmware update could bring the UIQ 3.3 platform to these two phones (maybe also P1 and W960?).
I tested out a beta version of UIQ 3.3 yesterday and it generally seemed pretty stable with a few exceptions. Opera Mobile 9.5 crashed time after time and Bluetooth as well as WLAN wouldn’t work (hardware problem?). Other than that I am really liking the UIQ dashboard and HTML widgets. It’s a fun feature that’ll work great!
That’s it for now. Will report back when I hear something new 
Can we expect P5i annoucement this year??
I think everyone must understand that UIQ is different from lets say S60.
Previously, UIQ Technology was a fully owned subsidiary of Symbian (the company) and with limited resorces.
Sony Ericsson bought UIQ Technology before ssplitting the ownership with Motorola with 50/50 stakes.
S60, on the other hand, is fully owned by Nokia with virtually unlimited fundings.
It will take some time before UIQ can be one of the driving force behind smartphones.
However, we have yet to see efforts from Sony Ericsson and Motorola to bring UIQ to the mass. There’s no media-friendly attitide, no specific developer competition for UIQ and it seems like instead of SE and Moto, it is done by UIQ Technology.
SE and Moto needs to vhange that attitude. Put more efforts in promoting UIQ, release more UIQ devices, organise UIQ events all over the world and last but not least, make friends with people like us bloggers (who are doing their PR JOBS!).
Sending a Z10 or G700 or G900 to us wont make them goes belly up aint it?
Hello
as a happy and convinced user (P1i) it is a great news for me, that R&D for UIQ3 is going on. This is a must in order to keep competivness against the other systems, which are also regulary updated. I hope we will see new phones in the near future and that the SW support from 3th parties will continue or even improve.
I am still waiting for a bluetooth keyboard driver for UIQ3 for other layout than english; I need german. (how about UIQ3.3?).
Br
Gerhard
Nice insight Michell! And yes…all points to alot of UIQ 3.3 phones announced soon
About SE backporting some UIQ3.3 and G series features to P1/W960, that past is against this…but who knows, Nokia N95 classic example and changes in SE might actually make it happen…or not
If anything else…i am sure Opera 9.5 will be available for all UIQ3.x phones
Otherwise…i second Asti…we know UIQ, SE and Motorola people read us…we are almost the only ones blogging about UIQ and spreading the word…we could use a little attention from Pr departments
Well, the problem is still that SE sells UIQ phones in the way they sell feature phones. I.e., they do not develop software for specific types of phones, they develop solutions for a single phone, and then forgets about it.
And unless they change that, then every UIQ phone is going to be doomed as an expensive and ultimately unsupported experiment.
The same will be for the latest versions of UIQ - it will be a selling point for the new phones. But instead of making a seriously quality phone - again, they will make an “inupgradeable” feature phone with some extra functions.
We’ve seen this with the m600 through p990 and the p1, as well as the w960. There’s no interest in patching the deficiencies with the platform, and hardly any interest in fixing the physical limitations on the designs. And after that, SE chooses to focus on creating shells for the same (incomplete) platform, in order to have something new to sell.
In other words - the cheapest, and the quickest solution in the short term.
Now - does this mean they will keep the new shell and run this on the new UIQ version? Hardly - it’ll be difficult to integrate with the widget- design. And again we see the astounding lack of planning, and ineptitude when it comes to even attempting to create a good solution.
Because every unit becomes an under- developed platform with various bugs (as we saw with the m600, p990 and the p1 - bugs that were fixed on the m600 before the p1 launched, returned on the p1) that need to be fixed after the unit is released, if at all.
And that’s what SE is doing to UIQ - reducing it to a second- rate platform with no future. Always making sure that the UIQ users are stuck at least a few versions behind when the new devices turn up - all in order to sell the UIQ phones, unsuccessfully, with the same return- strategy as with feature phones.
Now I don’t know what you people think about that, but I’m not impressed. In fact, I’m furious. Because once again, I’ve seen, not first hand this time, but still, how greedy mental midgets have made sure available technology is not used, in the belief that they will earn more money by holding back - and holding fast on the old, tried and true ways. Even though they never were a real success lately for any number of painfully apparent reasons. Never mind the opportunities either, of course - those are dangerous!
Really, if SE sat on a design for a steam- engine around 1600 - they’d make sure the machine was built in such a way that the boiler could only be heated once. And then the entire unit, and everything built on it, would have to be replaced. And the chief for the project would stand and declare that: “well, I believe the steam- engine might not be such a good idea, because it’s too expensive and we’re really having a hard time getting our stupid customers to buy new machines. It must be the market- conjuncture. And at the present, we are going to focus on adorning the boiler- plate with more chrome”.
The difference now is that we know exactly how good the tech is. As well as the capabilities of it. That SE refuses to take that into account, as well as work hard on promoting and supporting the platform in real terms - and thereby selling more phones - that is simply another variant on the usual tale about the bane of every engineer. Which I’m actually not going to spell out for you, in spite of myself.
But the bottom line is this: if SE does not change course drastically - then UIQ as a platform will not succed. It will never be more than a feature- phone with some extras, that will always be outdated and unsupported from the second after launch. SE and Motorola have both made sure of that.
Isn’t anyone going to say: “so what would you have done, smartass”, to put me in place?
nipsen,
For what you’ve stated above, I’m gonna say the following.
By limiting support for UIQ 3, SE made clear that it wont spend time and money on users’ requests for troubleshooting their UIQ 3 smartphones.
Dumbphones or stupidphones, whichever you prefer, are meant to be used with minimum user intervention. Packing as many functions as possible will make users felt those as the ultimate configuration for them.
In short, I am with you 100% for your comments.
So, what would you do if you were in their shoes, dumbass?
I’m glad you asked!
“Portability”. Any piece of software made by SE should be possible to use on all UIQ3 builds. In other words, a module written for one series of phones - if useful for adopting to any other series of phones, for functional or promotional reasons - should then be possible to simply switch over.
Bug- fixes should be categorised in two types - UIQ specific, dealing with the now magically portable programs that can be tested and debugged separately on the emulator for /every single device at the same time/. While another type would be the device- specific bugs, dealing with hardware- interfaces, input- problems clearly linked to hardware, and specific modules that actually are device specific.
Now - this would also make it possible to seamlessly migrate all of the UIQ platforms over to newer versions, if desirable. Such a thing could be accomplished now for two reasons: the phone- application, today- screens, etc - ..of course… I mean, if anyone wanted to keep any of it in the first place, but bear with me - could be simply added to the new build, becuase they are now generic and not dependent on specific addressing on that specific build. Any fixes put in place would - in this theoretical universe - also be possible to migrate with the software, since they would be clearly associated with either the previous UIQ build, or specifically with the added modules. (See how useful this object- oriented and portability- thing is? Amazing, isn’t it?)
So they question is: why would SE possibly want to save time and money on futile bug- fixing, and in return bring a better product to their customers while enlarging their portfolio of high- end phones? Good question - and I’m not sure I could really give a good reason myself. But some marketing dude would surely be able to help me out with this one.
For instance because if SE starts to focus on making phones.. - and embrace the possibilities UIQ gives when it comes to making units with different layouts, with different screens, with different resolutions, with different control- schemes - then they have a fantastic opportunity.
But the only reason that previous paragraph sounds so upbeat, is because I of course know that there will be no other manufacturer challenging SE on utilising UIQ like this.
A secondary concern is PR. I have been collecting problems on the wiki. And I, and others, will make sure it’s well known that SE is not fixing bugs on their smartphone- lineup, even on their new phones, when launching a new series. That - while it should not be even remotely as compelling as flooding the market with extremely modern and slick UIQ units, regardless of hardware- class or price, while SE still has virtual monopoly on selling UIQ devices - that is still something to take into account.
So - either piss customers off, and continue to make subpar products. Or make excellent products that will blow away anything from nokia to blackberry, even if the hardware- configuration is not outstanding. ..*tsk, tsk*.
A difficult choice, I know. And obviously you need to be on a vastly different salary than mine to be able to make such decisions. So I - as always - wait with trepidatious anticipation for the next [step] from SE.
Nipsen for Sony Ericsson president, anyone?…
With all due respect, the situation wont become any better if both owners of UIQ do nothing.
SE, is still pushing their dumbphones to the mass market and have not listened to their loyal customers. They didn’t learn from history. Becoming a leader in smartphone industry doesnt mean they have to be totally closing doors to critics.
Moto is still searching for the right strategy after so long been confused. Dwelling and investing in almost all mobile OS known to human is not good because they cant focus. Their investment in WinMob, Linux, UIQ etc wont bring them any good. And with all the turbulence surrounding Moto nowadays, they better focus on ONE platform, that is UIQ.
It doesn’t matter how advance a platform is. Say, UIQ 4 or UIQ 5. Without _ANY_ real device for consumers, it wont proove anything.
Why S60 leads? Many factors. One of them is the push from Nokia itself. If we dont see that kind of push for UIQ, we’re going to be very-very disappointed again and again and again.
I repeat. Nipsen for Sony Ericsson President, anyone?
Only if he takes us all to work there, with outrageous salaries of course!
Back to UIQ 3.3, this AAS podcast offers a great view on what it means
http://mediafiles.allaboutsymbian.com/aas_podcast_20080330_68.mp3
Maybe dear Nipsen could start as head of the smart phone department. I think the feature phone business is a different game, with its own rules and priorities…
lol. Done. First order of the day: neck- irons for the marketing strategy team. Then there’d be a new umbrella- department dealing with UI design - split into three parts. UI Technology(implementation of OpenGL ES libraries, other lightweight components, visual representation of generic UI objects, such as windows, buttons, screen- shifts, overlays), concept design(interplay between UI components, physical buttons, screen- sizes, keyboards), and software- integration(creating the awesome detailed stuff between representation and input that noone thinks exist).
And they would be complemented by Hardware- integration(looking at instruction sets, chip implementation, effective use of hardware- acceleration when it comes to power- consumption, etc), and Software- implementation (for projects now specified into detail well enough to be designed well, and outsourced if that’s an option).
But - there’s still awesome trout- fishing in the mountains up here. So I might be unavailable for the next five- ten years or so.