Top Reasons Why Symbian Failed

Till date, there were 8 versions of this operating system which were – S60, S60-version 2, S60-version 3, S60-version 5, Symbian^2, Symbian^3, Anna and Belle. Nokia has always been one of the successful players in the mobile industry, but according to the current conditions Nokia and Symbian are losing their appeal. There are many reasons behind the failure of Symbian. Some of the reasons are –

Lack of Applications

Symbian does not have ‘cool’ apps. If we compare the applications with Android and i-OS, Symbian does not withstand the race. May be Nokia Store has a bigger collection than Android or Apple Store but it doesn’t mean that every app works perfectly for the devices.It is very difficult to imagine a mobile device which does not have good apps. The Nokia store is good but really ancient. Most of the applications in Nokia’s store are slow, leggy and have a horrible interface. Currently with Symbian, it is difficult to see developers wanting to develop for Symbian when better options like i-OS and Android are around them.

Feel and looks

There is not much improvement as far as the looks of menu. Even the other features of the Nokia devices have not been improved since the first Symbian version. The only improvement is the home screen, in Symbian^3 and Belle versions.

Outdated browser

Today, Surfing the web on the go is the way we prefer to operate our mobile devices and the default browser on Symbian is slow to put it mildly. The Checkerboard patterns are common to see while scrolling the web pages quickly. This problem can be solved up to some extent by downloading a third-party app like opera or Safari, but the internet surfing is not much comfortable with Symbian based devices.

Perpetual hanging

It is a known thing that users become addicted to the smooth interface of the i-OS or Android and a delay of any app or function is a major drawback. With Symbian one can guarantee hangs and late responses. The touch is not as smooth and sensitive as the android or i-OS devices. It has been greatly improved in the Nokia E-7 and N-8 devices but still is not up to the mark.

Symbian is outdated

We can define a Symbian OS as an outdated operating system. With the growth and development of today’s technology, we can say that it has nothing ‘special’ to beat the popular OS, i.e. Android and i-OS. In other words, we can say that it feels like a Windows XP in front of Mac or Vista.The major disadvantage is the lack of QWERTY in N-8, as it is a basic feature and not having it in N-8 is a glaring miss. Another disadvantage is there are plenty of widgets, but none of the widgets are properly implemented.

Today, it is very difficult to find users who are Symbian friendly. Other giant companies like Apple and BlackBerry are offering plenty of advanced and user-friendly apps and are therefore, taking the limelight for every user. Despite of these drawbacks, we can say Nokia is still making the best hardware, awesome camera and great battery life which will have its followers.