Symbian Horizon: Here we go again…
Criticising awful application stores has been a hobby of ours for some time now. Symbian Horizon‘s not an application store, but it should be much, much better… On this performance Symbian apps will soon be little more than an enthusiasts’ playground and a commercial train-wreck.
Launched this week, Symbian Horizon is both a developer-support programme and an application directory intended to promote developers’ work and aide the magic term ‘discovery’*.
*‘Discovery’ is the thing people using poorly-designed and poorly-promoted mobile platforms have to do in order to find useful or entertaining software. This is often confusing for iPhone users familiar with iTunes App Store and the phrase “there’s an app for that”…
And it’s the ‘discovery’ bit that fails to impress already (we can discuss how the software signing and development process pains developers another day). Symbian seem to have confused the term ‘discovery aide’ with ‘list’… and sadly not a very comprehensive list either.
It commits a number of sins…
It’s not easily accessible on a mobile – Whilst it says it does in the FAQ, Horizon doesn’t detect mobile browsers or offer an easy-to-find mobile interface.
Also, because it’s only a directory (not a store in its own right) it will just redirect users to the developers’ own sites (of varying qualities and mobile accessibility) or one of the app stores participating (Nokia’s Ovi Store, Samsung’s Application Store, AT&T’s Media Mall, China Mobile’s store, Handango, Orange’s Store or Sony Ericsson’s Playnow)… A confusing and inconsistent experience.
Tip: Try to find someone who writes English competently as a first language to copy-edit your front-page.
The content is dire – See if you can spot all the errors in this, the front-page ‘featured developer’ panel above. Whilst I’m sure Martin the (I assume) ex-paramedic is a super chap, should the featured developer not be (a) promoted with some actual promotional content, not just an irrelevant bio and (b) be a major developer of interest to many people?
This site is supposed to be promoting Symbian software to users, remember…
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