Oviapplications Weekend Hits 08.15.09

(BTW your poll is slightly misleading, Apple hasn't SOLD one billion apps, they've had one billion DOWNLOADS. As downloads include freeware, there's a big difference between that and actual sales.)

"Nokia says they are committed to Symbian and will continue to invest in the upcoming Symbian technologies"

Symbian is very misunderstood by smartphone commentators. It's not meant to be a competitor with high end devices, its main feature is the very low price hardware that it can run on, e.g. the Nokia 6120 is about 150 dollars unlocked (bought locked from an operator it would probably be free on absolutely any plan).

What looks like happening is Symbian moving to take over Nokia's cheaper mass market models from NokiaOS (aka Series 40), with Maemo Linux taking over Nokia's highest-end models from Symbian. In a way that would be demotion for Symbian as it would be only on less "sexy" models, but it would also be a promotion because its sales would probably go up significantly if it's on mass market models (Nokia's Series 40 phones outsell all manufacturers' smartphones put together several times over). Most global phone makers do this two-OS system because it allows them to serve both the global mass market and richer customers in developed nations. It's only niche manufacturers like Apple that stick to one OS, because they don't make any mass market products.