[Ben]

With reference to my incendiary blog posting here (https://talk3g.co.uk/blog.php?b=43), do you think that the mobile phone manufacturers have been complacent in recent times?

Do you think they have failed to innovate and adapt to a changing market?

Please vote in the poll and comment.

[gorilla]

In a simple word, yes!

But...

In the mobile phone market how many people demand innovation? How many are happy to just have a PAYG sim and make a few calls and send the odd text?
At a guess, I'd say a sizeable chunk.

That said, it's not a valid point. They (the handset manufacturers, networks etc) have settled on their laurels, just like other major companies, and what happens? A new competitor enters their market causing ripples. Not waves, not even harming sales, but Apples iPhone really has caught the imagination.

So what now? Nothing. I don't believe these companies are equipped to change. Just look at Motorola as an example. SE will no doubt follow.

The incumbent handset manufacturers are no longer innovators, but rather suppliers of handsets that consumers know and can use. After all, they are in the business to make a profit and R&D is expensive and slow to make a return.
Cash in now, don't think about the future.

Maybe I'm cynical, but hey, this is a discussion forum!

[miffed]

absolutely 100%

look at the difference between the iphone UI and any other device (at the time of its launch )

They palmed us off with clunky scrolling etc. Since then they have proved that they are quite capable of providing better - but couldnt be bothered

it was only a kick up the ass from Apple that made them move their game up a notch !

[Hands0n]

I went for "yes" also ..

I have long held a rather sceptical view of Nokia's S60 OS, having found it clunky, cumbersome and downright unreliable to say the least. In its N95 incarnation the S60 OS was horrible. The OS had to go through several revisions until it reached V12 when it improved somewhat, and then V20 when things started to begin to look better for it. But even now, in V21, S60 is an [at best] awkward tool to use in comparison to the iPhone's OS X.

But my view on all mobile manufacturers with one sole [recent] exclusion is that they simply have not got a grip on the overall software package. Instead, as Ben has made mention, we have seen even the likes of Sony get it wrong. Seriously, if the maker of the Walkman cannot get the handset/desktop integration working sufficiently well, then what hope is there for the others.

To see why the Apple iPhone succeeds you have to take a view beyond OS X in the handset alone. With iTunes Apple have managed to perform a complete handset-to-desktop integration, and bring simplicity together with disproportionate functionality. By this I mean not only a very efficient and effective method of managing your media on the desk top as well as on the handset - in this iTunes is unbeatable. But also in terms of handset firmware updates, of which Apple have shown themselves capable of releasing several in short time periods (Agile software development demands this).

Yet look to the competition and see how poor their desktop integration is. Sony even, at one time, would only install on non-OEM versions of Windows XP, refusing to work on the latter. This was by their design in their Walkman devices and carried over into their handset devices also. It was the end of my relationship with Sony.

Then take a peek at Nokia's "suite", a hotchpotch collection of applets all designed to do "stuff" but not integrating very well. And their software updater has been known to brick their N95 series [at least]. I suffered that fate with my N95, which was still under warranty so I got it replaced.

So, yes, the manufacturers have lost the plot at the moment. They need to take a rather large step back from the table and review what it is they are trying to do. For the last thing they can afford is complacency.

Apple may well be a brand new upstart in the handset business, but they have taken the world by storm in just the first two iterations of their first attempt at building a mobile handset. It is not unreasonable to expect Apple to continue their development across a [small] range of these devices, in time.

It is not so much the iPhone itself as what Apple have, perhaps inadvertently , done with it. I cannot recall the statistic, but some 90% of all mobile web access is with an iPhone (and that was before the 3G). The incumbent mobile manufacturers ignore that single statistic at their peril.

[Ben]

Looking at the poll and the responses so far, it looks like my blog posting was less incendiary than popular opinion!

Are there any SE/Nokia die-hards left out there? Or did they all buy iPhone 3G's? ;)

[gorilla]

To bring balance back to this discussion, I still like the N95. Sure it was a dog and all, but it did everything I wanted it to. I have a lot of friends with Nokia's and they just love them. Whether secretly they want an iphone is a different matter. They do like the iphone, but I think its beyond them. Everyone seems overwhelmed by it and all it can do. Plus cost is a factor.

Those few people I know with a SE walkman phone hate them. They tell me that the keypad is a shocker for a start, then it's not that intuitive. I can't believe they're that bad, but I've not used any!

I think phones should be judged on just that - the ability to make calls and send sms. This being the case, most manufacturers will be pleased as they have products that do that and very well indeed. But, phones are much smarter than that, and it's here where the trouble seeps in. As pointed out above with S40 and S60, nokia just didn't quite finish the job and OS problems are abundant.

Where does the iphone fit in? Is the iphone a smartphone? Yes it does lots of cool things, but is it 'smart' in the current market sense? Has it created a new niche that only it currenty sits?
I don't class it as a traditional smartphone. For me it is all entertainment: games, ipod, photos, internet, email. Sure it has exchange ability, but I don't need that. Added to the fact that Apple don't want you downloading files and saving them to the phone, or browsing the phone using 'my computer' or using the device as external memory really makes this a closed device and therefore not smart :)

But I suppose this has just added weight to the original post and proves that the incumbent manufacturers are in fact complacent. :D