Symbian on its last legs as Nokia confirms no more updates

+Martin James Oct. 13, 2012 at 12:30 More articles by Martin James

Symbian on its last legs as Nokia confirms no more updates Ah, Symbian, we knew you well. The once-dominant mobile OS is finally being put out to pasture, with Nokia responding to a developer request by confirming “Symbian is in maintenance mode”.

In other words, we'll only be getting bug fixes from now on, meaning Belle Feature Pack 2 is the last full update the platform will see.

When Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced last February that the company was moving away from Symbian (and MeeGo) in favour of Microsoft's Windows Phone, Elop promised a gradual phasing out rather than an abrupt cull.

But when Symbian's popularity plummeted more quickly than expected in the wake of the announcement, Nokia decided to speed up the process, rolling up what were supposed to be the Carla and Donna updates into Feature Pack updates to Belle.

And that, it seems, is where things will be left for good. Responding to a developer suggestion on how to improve Nokia Drive, the company said “Symbian is in maintenance mode and no new features will be implement[ed] without extremely good reason.”

The message ended with the slightly surreal: “We have written down your ideas for future development if there is a chance that new features will be released.”

Via Daily Mobile

'more quickly than expected' hahaha

Heh, typical Nokia management. Elop said Symbian would last until 2016 with a "gradual" out-phasing but we all knew, and now know it was tosh.
Meego would be kept for "disruptions" - again, lies.

The fact they have scrapped meltemi/smarterphone too, they are just left with S30 and S40 which is under attack from the cheap droids. Otherwise, their in-house software development is nothing apart from WP application developers.

Long time Nokia fan - won't be buying another Nokia now. I have an N9, which was their swan-song but these ridiculous decisions have cost you dearly and I can't trust a company full of lies and false hope.

I'm with you, betas.
But they never said they'd release new phones or FPs until 2016. Software support as in 'bugfixes' and network relevant updates.
In most territories that means contractually they have to come for 3 years after sales. Some stores still sell Symbian, and probably will until after Xmas - so 2016 it is.

Elop's latest thing is network exclusive deals for the new Apollo devices. That, imho, may well kill any chance of a comeback.

All feelings aside, it'll be interesting to see just how far out to sea they let him steer the wreck...

Networks were part of the reason why symbian popularity dipped so quick in the UK. I wandered into a voda store just before the N8s release (Sept/Oct 2010 I think?) and was talking to the guy there and he said bar the N8, he would not be stocking any other S^3s as the demand was not there. Before the lumia 800 released, most UK phone shops only sold s40 handsets - no symbian phone in sight.

Operators helped put Nokia in their current position and now they scramble for exclusivity deals? Funny how Nokia and Elop specifically always bang on about operator support whereas it was pretty much non-existant until folk thought of giving wp a chance. True symbians demand was low but operators did not give a hoot seeing as they were selling data plans left and right with the hungry droids and iphones as opposed to the modest symbian data use.

Im still fascinated one of the US operators (Verizon I think) wanted a branded version of the N9 - shows they were open to something new and different unlike the rest of the thieves!

Popular Phones

Active Discussions

Related News