A decade back, on June 29, 2007 Steve jobs founder of Apple launched iPhone 1 a revolutionary multi-touch mobile with advanced hardware and software that amazed everyone around the world as iPhone is super modern and futuristic when compared with keypad mobiles at that time thus people eventually named mobiles with advanced features as smartphones.
Most mobile companies started creating project road maps to create thier own smartphones like Apple iPhone even search engine giant Google within a year collaborated with HTC and installed Android a mobile operating system on HTC Dream that was purchased in year 2005 from Andy rubens.
Apple iPhone has iOS a closed source operating system thus no one can use it but Google smartly made Android a open source project inshort AOSP thus anyone can build his own version of Android OS for thier own smartphone for free without any permission from Google so almost all mobile companies preffered to pre-install Android OS on smartphones.
Google’s Android powered smartphones are available for 1/10 price of Apple iPhones thus people from developing countries like India, Vietnam, china etc preffered Android smartphones over iPhone due to that the number of Android OS users spiked to such extent that right now Android OS has 71% world wide market share while Apple iPhone iOS is struggling to dodge 5% in india.
Both Android and iOS are modern and advanced mobile operating systems with thier own advantages and dis-advantages like for ex : Android is very well known for ultra customization while iOS is closed eco-system with security and privacy as main priority thus you can’t Customize and install third party apps without jailbreak a rooting term for Apple iPhone iOS.
Eventhough, Majority of smartphones has either iOS or Android OS yet there are numerous mobile operating systems that we used to only get on keypad mobiles like Java, Symbian etc while Java sustained and available on most keypad phones even today but Symbian OS was discontinued which is best alternative to Java other mobile operating systems.
When mobile market is totally covered with Android powered smartphones still Nokia a popular and most trusted quality and reliable keypad phones manufacturer from Finland choosed SymbianOS over Android OS for whatever reason and unfortunately this decision eventually become downfall of Nokia.
The biggest mistake of Nokia is installing SymbianOS on it’s mobiles even though Nokia done alot of developments and improvements on Symbian OS still Android OS is much more capable and better with powerful softwares and advanced features so Symbian OS is no match for Android OS but Nokia with its brand name and trust from thier customers somehow managed to sell Symbian OS mobiles.
Nokia dragged Symbian OS for years to beat already well established Android OS that eventually leaded them to SymbianOS failure as Android OS since the launch gone through alot of updates and upgrades with latest security patches to not only become secure but also support advanced apps and high graphic games.
Especially, Android OS provided amazing support and user friendly procedure for developers to make apps for Android OS due to that with in few years Android OS got millions of apps on app market places like Google Play and App store etc, while Nokia didn’t provide proper guidelines for developers to make apps for Symbian OS due to that SymbianOS has only few apps thus even hardcore nokia users shown disinterest in SymbianOS.
Anyhow, Symbian OS didn’t work for long on smartphones so Nokia to re-stabilze and increase it’s sells partnered with Microsoft and installed Windows on Nokia Lumia series that worked for while but then Nokia done same mistake that they already done on Symbian like focusing high on hardware instead of software thus even Windows ended up as SymbianOS.
Symbian OS is open source mobile operating system like Android OS but Android OS impressed developers more then any other open source operating out there on market thus developers around the world contributed immensely for the development of Android OS like finding and reporting bugs to Google or building Android OS apps or custom roms thus gradually Symbian OS was sidelined that dropped sells of Nokia keypad phones like never before and Nokia from top mobile and profitable company went to losses.
But, this doesn’t mean Symbian OS doesn’t have potential it does but only Nokia was interested in installing SymbianOS on it’s mobiles while remaining companies even Nokia all time competitor south korea mobile company Samsung choose Android on it’s smartphones over any other operating systems even though they developed linux based Tizen OS for low end mobiles that failed like Symbian OS.
+ Here’s why, Tizen OS failed to beat Android OS on smartphones.
If by any chance Symbian OS got more partners like Nokia and support from third party developers then for sure Symbian OS will not just become best alternative to Android or iOS but also more successful then any other operating systems because of Nokia huge world wide customer base.
There are some developers who tried to provide little support for Symbian OS by tweaking and customizing it’s software for improvisation which many people like but this modifications are not comparable to Android custom roms like CyanogenMod that are integrated with awesome features build by third party developers who are most likely from XDA.
There are numerous open source mobile operating systems which tried to become best alternative to Android OS like for instance MeeGo, Firefox OS but end with failure just like SymbianOS for almost same reasons thus it’s now become hard task for any OS to surpass Android OS world wide market share.
+ Here’s why, Firefox OS failed to beat Android OS on smartphones.
Finally, this is how Symbian OS failed to beat Android OS on smartphone, are you an existing user of Symbian OS? If yes do say your experience and mention why do you think Symbian OS failed with any one feature you like the most on SymbianOS in our comment section below, see ya 🙂