Nokia's Browser Based on Safari

[rlreif]

Does this mean that Nokia phones will finally become fully compatible with Macs? About time!

I have had 2 or 3 Nokia phones in the last 4-5 years that have worked very nicely with my Macs....

are there some that dont?

 

[whooleytoo]

I believe all Nokia Series 60 phones have a 6 as their second digit, ie: x6xx. Notice that almost all Nokia's that are iSync compatible follow this format.

Perhaps, but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't use Symbian - the Series 90 use Symbian as well.

 

[dashiel]

Who the hell said I was trolling? I know what I deal with and Safari sucks when it comes to web browsing. Who cares if the webkit is constantly updated, it's not updated in Safari as often. We're often stuck with an old, outdated webkit when it's necessary to update a bit more.

It's not the sites that require the changes...it's the fact that the websites are supporting standard-compliant features that aren't supported by an outdated Safari webkit. That's a problem that Apple needs to fix, not the websites.

how about some examples? i mean if this problem is so widespread and makes web browsing with safari so useless there mush be hundreds of these sites that safari breaks.

 

[gotohamish]

Incorrect, the iTMS uses a subset of a Quicktime markup language.

I seem to recall job postings for the iTMS asking users to be highly skilled in Macromedia Director. How is this used?

 

[otter-boy]

It's not the sites that require the changes...it's the fact that the websites are supporting standard-compliant features that aren't supported by an outdated Safari webkit. That's a problem that Apple needs to fix, not the websites.

And don't get me started about how Safari beachballs on every website I go to, no matter what computer.

Safari happens to be one of the most W3C compliant browsers available, beating even Firefox in some instances and matching it in the overwhelming majority of cases. I hope you're not implying that Safari support that other standard (MS IE).

I just switched from Firefox to Safari on my commputer. Firefox was running slow and hogged system resources (often above 50% of 768MB RAM, which seems downright unreasonable). Safari runs small and relatively fast, and I haven't noticed pages appearing noticeably different (which is good in my mind).

Safari usually gets improved with each OS X update and often with some of the security updates. I haven't been able to get a firefox update in the last 2 months (which is okay) or an IE update in . . . almost 5 years (since updates are only available for those using XP, which is not okay).

 

[Toe]

FYI, if you're not happy with the current Apple/Safari webkit... it is open sourced now. You can download, compile, and install the latest build here:
http://webkit.opendarwin.org/

 

[DeepIn2U]

sweetness. Progress.

Hey Stella thought I recognized your prose from somewhere - HoFo?
1stly you were correct the Nokia 8800/8801 IS Indeed a series40 phone - no support for more applications - unless Java-based (jar/jad) - as its not Symbian based. And secondly when Symbian was less powerful - figuratively speaking - when called EPOC there actually was a pc suite for Mac OS 8/9 I believe - I gotta search for it though.

Great that Nokia worked with Apple for SyncML support. If your hosting your Mac online, then you can sync wirelessly; thru the limitations of your data plan. I for one have unlimited so I do just about everything.

Most people that have a series60 phone (6600/7610/6670/6620/6260/N-Gage/N-Gage2/etc) do actually browse the Internet. The standard 2 browsers on any series60 phone are adaquate for WAP pages, and for raw HTML; even displaying animated GIFs. However I find the current Nokia browser limiting and slow in rendering. I currently use a 3rd party browser - NetFront. Its amazing by leaps and bounds! If this new coding that Nokia is using for the upcoming S60 phones, I'd like to see its improvement.

Didn´t Nokia also make a pact with Microsoft about their Windows for cell phones? Or some media player stuff? How does that fit?

Their recent pack with MS was about licensing for MS Exchange for Push Email support, I believe. Also they have a pack - admit horrible for web streaming - RealPlayer app from RealNetworks Inc.
PS anyone want to make small cash for hosting a web streaming service that can accept & deliver rtsp:// based calls and search out webstreams that support other formats?? Would be great for us series60 users!! .

Perhaps, but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't use Symbian - the Series 90 use Symbian as well.

Be very careful. Symbian OS is much like the UNIX core of Apple (excluding the Darwin part). The user interface makes it Apple OS X (I'm going extremely basic here), just like FreeBSD uses another UNIX gui. However when it comes to Symbian OS Series60 is a gui, and applications coded for it are NOT compatible to be run on Series90/Series80 based devices (Nokia 7700/7710 are the only ones for Series90,and Nokia 9300/9500/9210 for series80). Also the SonyEricsson Symbian OS devices (P800/900/910x) or Motorola (A1000/A920/A910) are both in the camp of UIQ gui. and are fully Touch-Screen based Symbian phones. They too are not compatible for software of Series60 or vice versa. However there are many applications that have various versions to run on the phones GUI that I've mentioned specifically; some of those versions of slightly different features.

Lastly, the OS version of your Series60 phone can have serious limitations on what you can do. Example the N-Gage's & Siemens SX -1 (that ugly phone with the numbers on the side of it) use an much older version of Series60 v1 (I think) compared to other series60 phones (Panasonic X700/x800/Nokia 6600 and newer). The N-Gages & SX-1, for one cannot use themes. You either have to use the ones that came with the phone, or like the SX-1 hack the Firmware. Also many applications, if not ALL written for the series60 have to have a different version for the N-Gage & SX-1; because the features of the core of the Symbian OS - in this case v6.0/6.1) didnt support what v7.0+ can. Oops sorry about going off topic. I love's my phone (6620).

Also note that the upcoming Series60 phones (N-Series: N90 Carl Zeiss 2MP Lens flip phone, N70 candybar style, and N91 - 4GB HDD + 802.11b/g WiFi) should or may have this new browser implentation. Also, you can use iTunes to convert Mp3's or your iTunes purchased tracks into .mp4/aac (normal) for ringtones .

Cheers everyone. Just remember with the right phone you can use it more than just calls, mms, and alarm clock.

 

[Stella]

What is HoFo?

I find it very frustrating that Symbian has fragmented. It is such a shame that UIQ and Series 60/80/90 are incompatible with each other, otherwise there would be such a wealth of software ( wealth of software for Series 60, but others, are lacking - espeically UIQ, imo).

The UIQ group licensed Opera which is pretty good, but as you say, Series 60 has a less than adequate web browser, which is the reason Nokia are going down this route.

Hey Stella thought I recognized your prose from somewhere - HoFo?

than just calls, mms, and alarm clock.

 

[pont]

I just switched from Firefox to Safari on my commputer. Firefox was running slow and hogged system resources (often above 50% of 768MB RAM, which seems downright unreasonable). Safari runs small and relatively fast, and I haven't noticed pages appearing noticeably different (which is good in my mind).

Firefox seems to run shocking on a mac ( I dunno why )

Safari is actully based on Konqueror or more so uses the khtml rendering engine so more so, the khtml rendering engine is more W3C complient then firefox.

 

[MontyZ]

This is very good. It's an example of how Apple's OS and technology can make other devices easier to use, more stable and more compatible. I hope Apple ports its OS to other devices, like digital cameras, digital videocams, PDAs, etc.

 

[MontyZ]

Firefox was running slow and hogged system resources (often above 50% of 768MB RAM, which seems downright unreasonable). Safari runs small and relatively fast, and I haven't noticed pages appearing noticeably different (which is good in my mind).

Really? I have the opposite experience. Safar is so slow, and Firefox is very fast on my computer. Still using 10.3.9, though.

 

[jaykk]

browser war is back on

Does this mean that browser war is not over yet.. M$ killed netscape, but browser war is still on. Now apple finally gets an upper hand because of Digital Media.. Steve Jobs indeed have a master plan this time ...Great time to be a Mac user..

 

[davetrow1997]

Examples

how about some examples? i mean if this problem is so widespread and makes web browsing with safari so useless there mush be hundreds of these sites that safari breaks.

Here are some examples:
Numerous websites, trying to access multimedia, eg Microsoft Media Player streaming files:
American College of Cardiology

Also, java seems not to work on all sites:
for example: Bank of America Military Bank
Defense Finance and Accounting Service

(these two have since been fixed)

 

[Brother Michael]

I have had good luck with my Nokia Phone (it's an old model). If this makes it integrate with OS X, I am all about it.

Mike

 

[Pistol Pete]

Does this mean that Nokia phones will finally become fully compatible with Macs? About time!

my nokia n-gage is compatible with with my mac....bluetooth and usb .

 

[Xtremehkr]

Apple has been a busy little company behind the scenes. I wonder what else they are up to.

 

[FreeState]

Ummm

Here are some examples:
Numerous websites, trying to access multimedia, eg Microsoft Media Player streaming files:
American College of Cardiology

(these two have since been fixed)

Could it be that American College of Cardiology has some BAD html on their site... simple little things like letting the browser know what version the markup language is?

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.acc.org/

It's really easy to blame a browser, however in most cases its the site that is testing their site in I.E. and does not show the errors because Microsoft feels its best just to correct the errors in the background rather than encourage good coding.

 

[The Truth]

Can anyone explain the difference between Symbian and Series 60? What do both of these actually mean?

 

[aswitcher]

Anyone used a Nokia 6260 and their Mac (and a logitech Mobile Freedom headset) ? Sync fine?

 

[Stella]

Can anyone explain the difference between Symbian and Series 60? What do both of these actually mean?

Basically, Series 60 is made by Nokia and is the GUI that sits on the Symbian OS ( much like the GUI layer that sits on Darwin that brings us OSX) . Nokia also have Series 80 and Series 90 GUIs that sit on Symbian.

more...
Symbian have a UI called Quartz or (IUQ) which SonyEricsson and a few other licensees use. Unfortunately the software for Series 60 is incompatible with UIQ.. Far more software for Series 60 than any other Symbian flavour.

There are other slight differences between the two implementations of the 'Foundation' classes for Symbian that the two run under, for example they have different Application base class names. This is a difference that goes waaay back... but thats a bit geeky.

Symbian started life out as EPOC - a PDA OS.. which Psion created and spun it out to create Symbian.. which was initially a joint venture between Motorola / Nokia and Psion. Moto screwed Psion which was the final straw and Psion pulled out of the PDA market ( a great shame - their PDAs were the best, bar none).. Moto / Psion were to create a smartphone together put Moto pulled out.

Notice how Moto don't commit to anything and forever screwing other companies over.. Apple another example. Unreliable bastards.

Symbian is now geared towards ( and has been really since Symbian 6 - moto did create another smartphone out of Symbian 5 / EPOC 5) cell phone OS than PDA OS, which is sensible because PDAs are dead.

Symbian OS is what Palm failed to follow when Palm spun out its OS to a separate company ( rumours of Palm pulling it back in again).

 

[The Truth]

That was a Stella explanation thanks.

 

[JFreak]

It' a series 60 phone but uses version 8 of the symbian OS not the version 7 of the older series 60 phones.

don't get confused. back in the day (year 2000) when nokia began advertising the 7650 model that was the first one to have symbian v6.0 operating system (before that the communicator already had v5.0 os) they cleverly invented the name "series60" to differentiate the symbian-based phone from regular phones, and to give a hint about its os. they began to sell the concept to other phone manufacturers too, and therefore had to stick with the name no matter what's the operating system name now. so symbian operating systems from v6.0 up are all series60 systems; just the same story when way back (1993 or so) intel chose to call all x86 compatible chips after 486 a "pentium" (series-five). when the new generation of chips was ready to enter market, the pentium brand was already too huge to drop, so the name monsters were introduced.

so what's in a name?

 

[DeepIn2U]

so symbian operating systems from v6.0 up are all series60 systems;
so what's in a name?

Sorry about the editing but your wrong. Symbian OS is the core of what Series60 or UIQ is. Not what you do to interract with it. All, and I do mean ALL Series60 phones do NOT have a touch screen! There also has only been 2 devices from Nokia that have a touch screen: 7700 which was more a prototype for cellular providers, which became the 7710! This device(s) is a Series90 GUI, based on the Symbian OS core. Nokia does however in the future plan to incorporate some features of the Series90 into Series60 phones; whether that means touch-screen or not no1 knows.

Nokia's Communicator line is Series80; however the very first in the lineup 9100 wasn't Symbian OS based. So was Ericsson's R380. But both designs of smartphones evolved to Symbian OS using UIQ GUI - 9500/9300Nokia, SE p800/p900/p910. But the hardware design philosophies remained.

Symbian OS v8.1 allows for Series60 GUI devices to have a wider resolution: as seen in upcoming Nokia Series60 phones ie N90. Goto Nokia.com's site to see what I'm talking about. Symbian OS v9.0 based Series60 devices allows for Nokia's N91 (an N-Series) for built-in WiFi support because of the Symbian OS version. Think of older Series60 phones like the N-Gage's like Mac OS X 10.2.5; and think of current ones like Mac OS X 10.3.7, and upcoming like Mac OS X 10.4.2+. Then you'll get the idea, every iteration has an improvement.

I believe ALL series60 phones; weather Nokia or licensed by Panasonic, Sendo, or Samsung have SyncML for syncing with Mac.

Now Stella (thought you were a member on HowardForums, sorry) is very correct with limited applications with UIQ models; I think this is due to the massive acceptance of Series60 GUI and just so much a variety of phones that have this OS GUI. EPOC OS was indeed incredible. Native support for viewing Word/Excel documents - when greyscale screens were around, even PC card support; this at a time when PocketPC's didn't exist or when Palm OS was on the Palm III.

I'm just hoping that Apple will convince to further this partnership to replace the RealPlayer video player/streaming app for series60 with a QuickTime like application.

 

[Evangelion]

Didn´t Nokia also make a pact with Microsoft about their Windows for cell phones? Or some media player stuff? How does that fit?

the deal was about Nokia phones being able to sync with Exchange. they also talked about using Windows Media in Nokia's phones. the OS is still very much Non-MS

 

[JFreak]

Sorry about the editing but your wrong. Symbian OS is the core of what Series60 or UIQ is. Not what you do to interract with it. All, and I do mean ALL Series60 phones do NOT have a touch screen!

that's exactly what i said. i never even mentioned touch screen by the way. series60 got its name partly from the symbian os v6.0 and despite newer operating system versions the brand name has remained the same; just as the intel pentiums - the name tells us it's a fifth generation intel chip, but what is a pentium4? a fourth generation iteration of fifth generation chip? no way, it's just marketing. something you can register a trademark of.

Nokia's Communicator line is Series80; however the very first in the lineup 9100 wasn't Symbian OS based.

first two lineups wasn't symbian os based phones. it was only the third generation communicator that was based on symbian os v5.0, which was called epoc5 at that time.

Symbian OS v8.1 allows for Series60 GUI devices to have a wider resolution

symbian os has always allowed wider resolutions. it has been a hardware limitation - something nokia hardware division has decided. although nokia very strongly participates in symbian development, the symbian headquarters are still independent and located in london, whereas nokia series60 r&d is located in tampere,finland. to say that series60 allows wider resolutions only by now is like saying that mac osx only now supports HD, which is not true. hardware limitations are not a feature of an operating system.

Goto Nokia.com's site to see what I'm talking about.

well... having been a part of series60 development team in nokia mobile phones i am quite familiar with what it is. thank you anyway.

every iteration has an improvement

i believe that's the whole point in investing to r&d, don't you think...

I believe ALL series60 phones; weather Nokia or licensed by Panasonic, Sendo, or Samsung have SyncML for syncing with Mac.

series60 supports syncML if phone manufacturer wants to include that in its products' feature set. it's not a mandatory feature, but imho it would be stupid not to include it.

EPOC OS was indeed incredible. Native support for viewing Word/Excel documents

epoc os was incredibly power effective and at that time only the best developers made software for it, so the apps too were very bugless. that is not the case anymore, so add a grain of salt for your statement.

word/excel support was not and is not a feature of symbian operating system. it's an included helper application as in any other os out there. powerpoint files are supported too, but that too is a helper application. not every app that is bundled with operating system belongs to the operating system itself.

I'm just hoping that Apple will convince to further this partnership to replace the RealPlayer video player/streaming app for series60 with a QuickTime like application.

i couldn't agree more. i wish whole realplayer format would disappear and be forgotten. quicktime is so much better. however, osx quicktime already supports 3GPP and 3GPP2 so one can create even more efficient media files for a phone; and, nobody forces anyone to actually use realplayer - it can be deleted and as soon as nobody uses it, nobody will bundle the player into any product. apple needs to win internet first, then the mobile phone industry follows. not the other way around.