Hi there. This blog post has the telling title “Stuff You Should Know When You Are Writing About Nokia” and was created because I often read and blog about Nokia...

Hi there.
This blog post has the telling title “Stuff You Should Know When You Are Writing About Nokia” and was created because I often read and blog about Nokia and it’s not uncommon that there are some easy facts simply wrong.
I don’t know why, but errors are human and I want to believed in the good in man. So if you found a link to this post under another blog post, it could be because there was some mistake. Feel free to link to this blog post when ever you see some of the common mistakes.
If this post has an error in it, please inform me via the comment system. I’ll fix it as fast as I can.

If you know other common errors, please tip me about them and I will integrate them into this post.

1. S40 is not Symbian!

Yes, thats true! Nokia just used the same name scheme for all their user interfaces. Symbian knows Series 60 (~S60), Series 80 and Series 90. S60 was the latest incarnation.
Series 40 is also one of Nokia’s User Interfaces but stands also for their feature phone OS. Even if it looks very similar to Symbian S60, it is not Symbian. Call it Nokia OS, if you want to differentiate between the UI and the underlying OS, but don’t call it Symbian. Because… well… it’s not.

If you want to know more or don’t believe me, check out the following links:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/Devices/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_40
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S60_%28software_platform%29

2. Nokia has not discontinued Symbian!

Edit: Okay, they have. I am sorry for Nokia and all who defended them the last years.

2.1 Not even for the N-Series.

You heard other stuff? That does not make it more true. I know where these rumors come from.
On June 24, 2010, Reuters wrote: “Nokia’s next flagship smartphone, the N8, will be the last N-series phone running Symbian software.”
But Reuters was corrected by the following statement from Anssi Vanjoki (Nokia’s Head of Mobile Solutions):
2nd of July 2010: “There has also been some confusion about Symbian and Nseries. The Nokia N8 will be our only Nseries device on Symbian^3. Of course, we ‘never comment on future products’, but a Symbian^4 Nseries device is a strong possibility. A very strong possibility ”

2.2 And not as a whole.

When Nokia announces – “In fact, we will no longer be talking about Symbian^3 or Symbian^4 at all” – you can easily say that they have canceled Symbian. But only if you decide to ignore the rest of the quote: “- it will be one constantly evolving and constantly improving platform.”
This sentence is taken from Nokia’s announcement that they will focus on Qt. If you want to know what this means for Symbian, read the article and/or watch the following video. The important stuff about Symbian is at 2:33.

Yeah… “doubling down the efforts” sounds like dumping…

Edit: Okay, they have. I am sorry for Nokia and all who defended them the last years.