Richard Bloor talks to Ulf Wretling, general manager and head of the developer program and communications at Sony Ericsson
Another interesting information about how UIQ future will look like. In the interview, Ulf said about “We will continue to ship UIQ phones for quite some time and Motorola has publicly said it will do the same. So nothing will be stopping immediately. Over time of course we will be moving to the Symbian Foundation platform. This means that UIQ Technology will need to find a new place in the ecosystem. We are currently talking to Motorola and the management of UIQ Technology and exploring different options to find the best role UIQ Technology can play.”… Can anybody read between the li(n)es?… You can read the whole interview at SymbianOne.
Edit by ares: Here´s Simon Judge coment on this.
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“We will continue to ship UIQ phones for quite some time”
It means SE will continue to ship the already existing g700/g900 series for quite some time. He didn’t mention about shipping new UIQ phone models.
So the badnews is the possibility that g-series will be the last breed of UIQ.
And the worst news is if SE will use touchscreenless s60 for their Pnext LOL!
Indeed…that´s what it means…AFAIK
Q: Will all the advantages of UIQ be lost?
Ulf: Both ourselves and Motorola will be contributing technology from UIQ to the Symbian Foundation. [...] There will be a touch capability in the new Symbian Foundation platform and we expect that it will leverage the competence and technology that UIQ brings to this space. It remains to be seen exactly how this integration will happen, but I expect the best technology from every part of the ecosystem to make its way into the new platform.
Well, either he dodged the question (the SE way), or he is very naive, or simply doesn’t know much of what he’s talking about: the best development platform IS UIQ, but S60 will be used. I doubt they will use much of the excellent UIQ concepts, so what we will end up with a mix of S60 with the UIQ touch features, which I am not looking forward to.
I’n also curious to know what exactly Moto and SE will contribute with: the “original UIQ”, or their own messed-up UIQ version (especially the SE one)?
Yes I’m a bit bitter, but such hypocrites upset me.
Most of us are sad we the situation, but what can we do???
Make the best with the machines we have now, specially thanks to the UIQ3 scene devs, modders, hackers, and then when the time comes evalute if this symbian foundation is not just a nokia s60 transvesti
Reading between the lines: UIQ is fuckin’ dead. Nokia wants backward compatibility with S60 so they need just a touch layer over the S60 UI and they already have working prototypes without any UIQ contribution. SE will make feature phones (Cybershot, Walkman) and high-end Windows Mobile PDAs. Motorola mobile division is dead, they will sell it soon.
It’s apparent that this was a top-level decision without much input from further below in the organization. Staying backwards compatible with S60 applications in addition to incorporating good technologies from UIQ such as layout managers, command handling, focus handling sounds near impossible. UIQ’s graphical controls have evolved as well, while some S60 controls are comparable to UIQ 2.1. However, the UIQ controls depend on UIQ framework concepts so they can’t just be merged into the new platform.
If Ulf thinks that UIQ is about touch only then he’s badly misinformed. Well, it’s not the first time in history that a better technology is dropped for another because of non-technical reasons.
Hello
…SE is close to red. Profit is rapidly dropping. SE need urgently to launch high end phones, to increase average sales price.
G900 press review is positiv. So why, they should not introduce no UIQ3.x phones ?
I am still positive.
Best regards
Gerhard
sorry typing error …so why, they should introduce not introduce NEW uiq3.x phones ?
I agree. It makes no sense to disband the smartphone department when they have UIQ, exclusively, for as long as they like. Of course - sell UIQ off? Would be the best thing that could happen to UIQ at this point, imo. But I wonder if they won’t just end up making everyone lose their jobs instead.
..why choose just one? :p
Agree positively with G700 & G900. I probably buy one when they are available in my country. With 1 more reason to buy, the sake of UIQ history.
Hope SE continues this line of UIQ product, running on whatever future version of Symbian.
What about this wonderful site? Are going Asri to change the name of this blog?
I trust in SE smartphones, I think they are going to continue making superb phone for all of us!
Dorman,
Many thanks for your kind words. With regards to the revent Symbian FOundation annonuncement, I would like to share these words sent to me by a friend of mine from the industry :
“the dumb and ugly S60 wins over the smart and graceful UIQ (who would have thought that one day the Orcs would beat the Elves!”
As for this blog, it is too early to say enything. I would love to continue maintaining it and keep it alive as to show the world what a beautiful system UIQ was, and how helpful is the community. It’s my dedication to this wonderful and elegant system called UIQ (R.I.P)
Peace!