The UIQ Evangelist

Cellphonesoft (CPS) is one of the independent software houses that specialises on developing utilities for UIQ smartphones. And they released quite a few unique applications like Swiss Manager. Interestingly, CPS is still committed to UIQ even after it’s been put to death by the shareholders. We took the opportunity to talk with Zoltan Gyorgypal and you can read this VERY Exclusive interview here, only in this blog. Watch out for a few surprises and future plans he mentioned… (We brought some EXCLUSIVE product related stuff from CPS - made public for the first time in here!!!) I dont want to spoil the mood so here it is… Enjoy!!!

1. Tell us briefly about your background.

Originally I’m a biologist, holding a PhD in molecular genetics. Programming came to my life as a need for custom software in the lab. Then I gradually switched to full-time programming. For a few years I worked on compiler development and various Windows projects. Developing for mobile phones has started as a hobby, and then became my current profession. The scientific background still serves well when applying organized and systematic approaches during software development and testing.

2. What made you choose UIQ? And most importantly, support it?

In 2004 I glanced at the first appearing smartphones (notably the P800) and decided I need such a multifunctional pocket device. I realized it was a computer which can be further customized to my exact needs. After writing a desktop enhancer application called FrontView, I thought that other users might be interested as well, and thus CellPhoneSoft (CPS) was born.

3. Our readers would like to know the history behind CPS. How many people inside CPS now?

CPS has always been a small-scale venture. In the beginnings a few friends contributed with ideas, and there was Lisa doing customer support. Currently, however, CPS is a one-man-show. There are obvious disadvantages of being a software tent rather than a house, such as limited man-power and restricted budget. On the other hand, I enjoy having full control over everything related to software manufacturing, from application design to customer care. I try doing my best to maintain a professional operation, in terms of product quality and user relations.

4. You are one of those developers who actively participating in user forums. What’s the justification?

A proper “user interface” is as essential for a company as for a phone. I consider communications with users of paramount importance, not only to satisfy existing customers, but also to monitor the market and collect ideas for enhancing the portfolio. Therefore, CPS has a tradition of being quite active on some of the most visited phone forums, like My-Symbian and Esato. Users who publish their comments help making the products by CPS better, and I’m grateful for all such feedback. The contribution by beta testers is invaluable.

5. What’s the most popular CPS apps? How is the sale (if you can share the figure, we would be honoured)?

The applications released by CPS generally belong to the system utility category, aimed at power users in the first place. The most popular product is clearly Swiss Manager, meaning both the Free and the Pro versions. Quite probably the majority of UIQ users have one of these applications on their phone.

Other successful programs by CPS include Tweak Peaks, BigBen, LinkBoy, AutoCam and BallRoom. These products are for anyone who wants to enhance their UIQ3 phones. Further applications, like Bunch Launch, Process Explorer and File Associate are more like niche products, written for quite specific demands. The recent and upcoming products are inevitably less exposed due to the decreasing number of remaining UIQ users.

6. What’s your favourite UIQ 3 apps from other developers? Why?

To tell you the truth, on my private P990 I try to use only CPS applications. This is intended as a “self-therapy” that increases the motivation to write programs for filling in the gaps. Needless to say, on the test phones in the lab I evaluate all software that looks interesting.

My personal favorite is the same like almost everybody else’s, that is GDesk by Gary Leach. He made a major contribution to improving the overall smartphone experience. I also like the well-known applications by Lonely Cat Games and DreamSpring. Several other developers made important contribution to UIQ, let me just mention Lars Persson and Malcolm Bryant, but there are many more.

7. You (CPS) concentrate on a single Symbian platform. UIQ. Dont you want to expand your portfolio to a bigger market? Say, porting your existing apps to S60? Or even WinMob? What say you?

Unfortunately available resources have been a limiting factor in determining the product range by CPS. So far I could not help but exclusively develop for one selected smartphone platform. The choice is based on what I consider the technologically most advanced one amongst the available platforms. When judging this, I look for the ability to provide the complex appearance and versatile interaction characteristic to modern desktop computers, without compromising the phone-related and other features of the converged device. UIQ came closest to these requirements.

A selection on such basis may not  coincide with the most popular platform that provides the best marketing opportunities. Actually, the unification of Symbian could become a lucky turn for CPS, provided it results in a larger variety of compatible phone models. That would act as an expansion for CPS.

8. In one way or another, SymbianSigned is considered as something essential as well as troublesome for developers. However, it is important to protect applications from being tampered by adventurous users. What is your stand on SymbianSigned?

GSM operators want to protect the integrity of their networks, and OS manufacturers follow their demands. However, a way of implementing security without hurting the interests of users and developers is yet to be invented. Users are restricted in their decision about what they install on their paid private property. Developers are forced to participate in a procedure which is inconvenient and impredictable enough to severely hamper project planning. These conditions deterred many developers, and even contributed indirectly to the slow death of UIQ. Under such circumstances CPS products will remain tailored to avoid going the Symbian Signed route.

9. UIQ 3, in my opinion, was designed better than S60 3rd Edition. However, we have yet to see UIQ 3’s full potential. Limited 3rd party apps, limited UIQ 3 smartphones etc. What’s the cause & how to address this?

The strong feature of UIQ is providing a computer-like appearance and behavior for the mobile phone. Its weakness comes from its virtue. Most contemporary people are apparently not prepared to handle the resulting feature set. Therefore UIQ was destined to be a niche platform, mainly on the borderline of techno-geeks and businessmen. The limited marketability resulted in a relatively small number of third-party developers who support the platform.

About seeing UIQ’s full potential… It’s a bit too late. However, if we are lucky, the best traditions of UIQ may gain a new life once the Symbian Foundation platform grows up. Until that happens, for those who persevere and keep using their UIQ phones for a while, a new set of applications by CPS is in the pipeline, all designed to come close to exploring UIQ fully.

10. UIQ is considered dead. Sony Ericsson will use Symbian Foundation’s new UI which is based on S60. Your comment?

I think the fact that UIQ has been abandoned by its licensees does not necessarily characterize its technological value. True innovators can easily become casualties in an opportunistic or otherwise hostile environment. In my opinion, UIQ provided a wonderful contribution to technology, but became a victim of an unfortunate economical situation. Nokia’s hegemonistic strategy worked well, while Sony Ericsson and Motorola could not preserve their past position as innovators and thus failed to maintain the economical balance. I feel sorry for the fine people at UIQ.

After having lost UIQ, Sony Ericsson seems to follow a logical route by chosing the Symbian Foundation platform for the long term, and filling the gap with Windows Mobile. Motorola does not seem to know what they are doing since a while. Having Apple and Google on the palette will pretty surely keep on speeding up the overall progress, which is good.

11. One of the reasons why Psion was out of business was a project with Motorola codenamed ”Odin” 10 years ago. And historically speaking, Motorola has it’s foot in (almost) all smart mobile OS ever known to mankind. And with UIQ, they also played a big role. And recently they announced they dropped UIQ for Android. Your thoughts?

Motorola have a fine track record of once being an innovator, and also had great financial success with some of its past products. However, in recent times they seem to have neither a clear long-term plan, nor an ability to properly adapt to changes in the ecosystem. This again does not appear to me as a technology issue, but as a management-related one.

12. Who’s to blame in the UIQ failure? The manufacturers? Telcos? Developers? Users?

It might sound as a surprise, but in my opinion UIQ’s sad fate ultimately depended on the users. Not the users of UIQ, but of mobile phones in general. All the other players more or less follow what customers dictate by using their wallets.

UIQ was apparently “too advanced” for the average phone user, even most smartphone users. For the majority of people it is still more important to be able to type SMS fast with one hand than to have a true mini-computer in the pocket. UIQ was aimed at those people who want a converged device with a computer inside, preferably providing the complexity, versatility and input methods seen on desktop computers, with as little compromise as possible. Apparently those people are few.

The small number of users made the platform less appealing for developers, so the variety of third-party applications for UIQ3 has always been much less than for S60, not to mention Windows Mobile. There was a big additional drop with the introduction of UIQ3 and Symbian Signed, at which time many vendors left UIQ for more promising alternatives. These conditions, in combination with mis-treatment by phone manufacturers, resulted in the collapse of UIQ. It may be interpreted by shareholders as a general failure, but I would rather call it a business failure instead, not truly generated by UIQ as the developer of the technology.

Sure the story could have been different if manufacturers, GSM operators and developers were more concerned about tech progress than business. But on this planet they inevitably go after customers.

13. What can be learnt from UIQ demise?

Before learning anything, one should realize that the subject of failure was a series of end-products (that is, mobile phone models), whose components included UIQ. What users saw and did not like was the overall product outcome, not to be confused with UIQ, which was just the interface platform. So, the first thing to learn is to see clearer – well, pretty hard to achieve.

There are certainly many things for the big players to learn from the case. However, I rather stay with a topic that belongs to us, that is users and developers. Namely, the issue of software piracy.

Anyone who refuses to pay and instead uses illegal software should realize that he contributes to putting the developer out of business. Which means killing the software in question, and also other related software. When this happens, it is like deleting a color from a palette, thus making the overall picture less attractive. When appeal for customers severely decreases the manufacturer may stop the entire product line. Those supporting piracy ultimately endanger the whole platform, especially if it is weakened by other factors as well.

A related observation, collected on phone forums, is that people who loudly demand “expensive-looking” phones tend to also ask for cracked software. Can a phone (and its owner) truly look cool when all installed programs are “free” illegal copies?

14. What elements of UIQ would you want to see implemented into the new Symbian Foundation UI? 

As a developer, I’d like to see a large variety of optional customizable interface elements that can be used to enhance the appearance and the interaction. Such elements include two-dimensional menus, buttonbars, complex dialog windows, various interactive controls, and so on. All these should support both touch- and key-based input.

UIQ can serve as a good starting point for developing enhanced appearance and interaction over the S60 traditions. In case the open source principle will be realized at least to some extent, the progress could be brought to wider grounds by contributing third-parties.

15. In general laymen terms, what are UIQ default applications would you like to be integrated in the new SF UI? I personally think UIQ default applications like Messages, Contacts, Calendar (just to name a few) are better than the S60 counterparts. Your opinion?

I agree with your list. The programs you mention are the ones that cry out for a touch interface. Just like any application that displays long lists, tables, or other complex stuff. Their screen elements are much easier accessed by pointing than by scrolling. We all expect similar programs on the PC to support a mouse. UIQ was the first to show that complex applications on a phone do not need to be inconvenient to use.

16. Symbian Foundation is born with strong emphasis on developers. And to compete with other platforms like Android. Will you still be producing Symbian apps in say, 3-5 years from now?

This depends on how Symbian performs in future. CPS has a tradition of supporting the platform that it recognizes as the most advanced one. Platforms and manufacturers may come and go, but this basic principle for CPS is intended to be constant.

In the coming period CPS will continue supporting the UIQ platform with new programs and product updates as long as active users keep the venture financially surviving. By the time the marketability of UIQ applications falls under a critical level, CPS must be ready to switch to another platform at full speed. The transition has already started with research and planning.

17. EXCLUSIVE : Can you share with us some future UIQ applications that are now cooking inside CPS Lab? Or maybe some hints

Okay, let’s have a glance into the lab. The first upcoming application is a virtual D-pad, approaching the beta stage. Two major upgrades are expected next: BootMan 2.00 with unrestricted autostart, and Tweak Peaks 2.00 with lots of novel phone tuning. Later plans include a universal macro recorder/player, possibly a profile manager, and probably one more update to all existing products. I predict that, at the end of the game, the UIQ phones still in use will perform better than ever.

18. Say something to our readers please.

I wish to your readers (including myself) good and better phones in the future. I also wish that economy will not confront the progress of technology too much in future. I thank the editors of UIQBlog for the opportunity to talk to readers, and wish continued success in reporting the news for the next platform – hopefully possible to call the successor of UIQ.

Visit CPS at www.cellphonesoft.com

 

Categories: Comments, Development
Tags: cellphonesoft, interview, UIQ 3.0