Unwired View
To say that rise of Android over last year was impressive, would an understatement.
A year ago, Android still was more of paper tiger, then an actual full fledged mobile platform. About this time last year, six months market, only 1 million G1/Dream handsets had shipped. The second (HTC Magic) third (Samsung Galaxy) smartphones were just showing up.
Android 1.5/Cupcake, running these devices, wasn't yet truly stable versatile OS, worthy even 1.0 number, traditional software labeling sense. In post "Understanding Android", called Android 1.5 – Release Candidate version, and that's precisely what it turned out be. The first true, market and vendor adoption ready version of Android, will not come until September – Android 1.6/Donut release.
And open smartphone OS competition wasn't too shabby either. (by ”open smartphone OS”, I mean an OS that is open for adoption any third party vendor)
There was Windows Mobile, still smartphone OS of choice for HTC, Samsung, LG, and smartphone wannabes from PC world – Acer, Asus, Toshiba, etc;
There also was Symbian, holding almost 50% smartphone market share back Nokia, also looking good Sony Ericsson Idou (later renamed Satio), and Samsung Omnia HD. Nokia has recently bought Symbian Ltd., a promise make Symbian OS open source, and freely available use all. As a mobile OS, Symbian was much more mature and technologically advanced then Android, had pretty good potential and vendor interest. About only thing missing, was new, touch optimized user interface.
Now, fast forward to June 2010.
Windows Mobile almost dead, hoping to reborn as Windows Phone 7, and rise to former prominence sometime the next couple years.
With the help of Nokia, Symbian alive kicking, but it has been completely pushed out of trend setting, headline grabbing high end smartphone category. And, despite becoming an open source foundation, Symbian is still 90%+ Nokia effort, almost completely ignored every other vendor who matters, with even biggest former fans -Sony Ericsson Samsung – now refocusing their efforts on Android.
Meanwhile, Google says that they activating 100K Android devices day (that's 35 million devices year run rate). The number almost doubled in the last 3 months – Google was activating "only" 60K Android handsets in February. Every independent handset vendor has adopted Android as their primary smartphone OS, developer interest and number Android Apps soaring, and, it's almost forgone conclusion that Android will be the main iPad rival in newly emerging tablet category.
Quite shocking change period 12 months. Ever wonder how why did it happen?
Most the credit, course, goes to Google. But it's smartphone OS competitors –Microsoft and Nokia/Symbian – did their best to help the rise Android.
Nokia and Microsoft pre-2007. A happy dinosaur couple.
Until 2007, competition in mobile was mainly design and hardware features. With relatively slow – 18-24 month product/platform development cycles, and general user experience, more or less as an afterthought. Both, Nokia and Microsoft probably had their mobile platform development plans mapped out 5 years into the future, and were working on them at their usual leisurely pace.
Also, as strange as it might sound today, mobile platforms were more of an afterthought for both Nokia Microsoft back then.
For Microsoft – Windows Mobile was small, unimportant, management attention resource strapped division, trying tack tired PC/Windows paradigm small screen device. People who mattered Redmond, were busy milking their Windows Office cash cows, or chasing another big trend they already missed – like search, or iPod.
For Nokia – they were (and still remain) a hardware company at heart. S60, and the rest the software people, were mostly subordinated to the needs hardware guys, who were producing superb pieces equipment called NSeries, no competitor could match.
But while Nokia device hardware moved really fast, the software was barely keeping up. The rushed and buggy first versions of firmware became thing expect on the latest and greatest Nokia smartphones. Consistency, intuitiveness and ease of use be damned, we've got the specs! Integrating the newest things in Symbian OS (produced independent Symbian Ltd. back then) into Nokia handsets? Well,that usually took months, if not years.
Nokia and Microsoft both have seen coming convergence of computing and mobility. Their Symbian/S60 and Windows Mobile platforms were tools make the convergence happen. But both of them were going about it trying adapt decades old device/UX interaction paradigms new category.
Nokia wanted to grow phone, making it into multimedia computer. Thus T9 keypad input optimizations, great battery time, focus device specs, multimedia features, etc;. Microsoft wanted shrink Windows/PC into pocketable device, viewing telephony as just one more application. So we got bigger screens, styluses, Windows like navigation and ridiculous WinMo dialer problems.
But neither of these old UX paradigms were well fitted to real mobile user needs, and usually only added additional level of complexity to device. To most users, Nokia S60 smartphone was just an expensive mobile phone, bought for better camera, looks, or prestige. Windows Mobile handsets were great portable organizers, PDA's with telephony, for business men and women.
(Btw, this can also explain why Symbian was so much bigger then Windows mobile – phone has much bigger target market then PDA).
Third party apps, or internet browsing? Due to underpowered browsers, high mobile data rates, crappy user experience abysmal discoverability, 90% of smartphone owners neither knew, nor cared about that stuff. Moving music, pics or videos from/to your PC? With complexities involved, time it took to accomplish anything prepackaged software, who could be bothered to do that?
Neither Microsoft, nor Nokia/Symbian were too worried about such mundane thing, as end user experience: This is a smartphone for god's sake. We made it, so it can do all those cool things like browsing, multi-tasking, mobile apps, playing music, etc; And it really does all that. But now, that you shelled out hundreds of $$ for our masterpiece, don't a pussy, use a bit of effort and figure out how 5 click access and use all these amazing features, by yourself.
Still, that might have turned out OK for Nokia/Symbian, and Microsoft.
After all, 2006, they were biggest, strongest kids block. Yes, there was Blackbbery, annoyingly interfering Microsoft's enterprise ambitions U.S. There was Symbian/UIQ camp Sony Ericsson Motorola, keeping Nokia smartphone people their toes. But all these competitors were doing more or less same thing – adding computer capabilities phone, or shrinking PC. Both, Nokia Microsoft knew how play this game were pretty good at it.
For anyone wanting make "smart" mobile devices, Symbian and Windows Mobile were only game town. Every major player industry have chosen one or other, or even both. Every new entrant had chose from them too. Everyone was happy status quo, and the chances of some new player, coming up the better mobile computing/communication device and platform, and messing things up for everyone, were remote at best.
At end 2006, there were a lot rumors that Apple getting into mobile biz. But, especially after ROKR/iTunes phone demise, Apple's mobile ambitions were viewed more curiosity then worry. And while everyone knew that Google may have some ambitions mobile – they have bought mobile OS a year ago, nobody expected anything that.
Everything felt familiar, warm peachy for incumbents 2006. Just, imagine, as it was was for dinosaurs, before asteroid hit.
Then, January 2007, Apple unveiled iPhone, things changed.
(continued part 2)
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