Is Symbian Trying to Kill Off Small Developers?
Welcome to another stop on the turbulent train ride that is Symbian. I try not to post too many rants on this blog because I don’t want to become one of “those guys”, but the current state of Symbian - and the direction Symbian is moving in - has me a bit worried.
We’ve all noticed some changes in Symbian Signed over the past month or so. At first, it seemed that they were planning to restrict developer certificates only to developers. Then after a public outcry they changed the message on their homepage and have since restored all existing accounts, with automated new-account registration expected to be restored sometime soon. Let’s stop for a moment and think about WHY we need developer certificates in the first place…
I don’t what to get into too much detail here so to make a long story short, Symbian Signed does not treat small developers well. When small developers submit freeware applications it can take MONTHS for the approval and signing to take place. There are also many restrictions on the capabilities granted to freeware applications so if a developer wants to add certain restricted capabilities to an app - even an app they would have offered for free - they have to pay hundreds of dollars to Symbian Signed and application testing houses in order to enable this functionality. The developer then of course cannot offer the app for free because they have to recoup this money somehow.
As you can see by looking at many of the applications that I’ve reviewed here on SiMo, it is much easier and cheaper for a developer to simply release their app unsigned and rely on the user to sign it with their own unrestricted developer certificate. This however has several draw-backs:
- Limited reach - Many end-users have trouble obtaining and using developer certificates.
- Security - Users get so used to signing their own apps that they’ll sign and install anything they come across.
- Limited delivery channels - A signed freeware app can be posted just about anywhere, but the big distribution houses like handango would likely reject unsigned apps.
So let’s say that a small developer concedes and decides to pay all of the fees and get their app signed. Well if they are offering a small utility like some of the apps I’ve reviewed here recently, they can only charge so much for it. The developer will have to sell so many copies of their app just to break even that it’s no longer worth their time and effort.
For a first-hand account of these trials and tribulations from the eyes of a developer, have a look at these posts on the Mind-Flip blog:
Death of the Bedroom Coder Part 1 and Part 2
Beyond these issues, something that is even a bit more alarming to me is the fact that I’ve noticed that functionality provided by several third-party developers is now being offered as OEM functionality in FP1 devices or as free apps offered directly by Nokia! Woh there, that’s just bad business for a provider of an open platform. Scary stuff…
While I love my S60 devices and I wouldn’t trade my E61i for anything currently on the market, I worry about where Symbian is going. In my humble opinion, Symbian is leaps and bounds beyond Windows Mobile in terms of usability and capability but looking at the sheer volume of available WinMob apps compared to S60 3rd - I’m saddened to think about all of the lost potential. Some of the brightest programmers in the Symbian world will continue to be thwarted and deterred if Symbian Signed policies don’t change. That is bad news for small developers, and bad news for end-users like you and me.
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