Relevance of writing applications for Symbian

Question

Mobile development

Is writing applications for Symbian S60 and Symbian^3/Anna/Belle relevant now, or is it not worth wasting time?
An application is a client for an abstract site (habr, bash, something else), perhaps some simple toy (for starters). The goal is to explore this platform. But is the game worth the candle or not - I don’t know, that’s why I’m interested.

Answer 1

At the moment, Symbian is still relevant (on the vskidka 30% of the European smartphone market), but its share is rapidly falling. I think it will be relevant for another 2 years, and then complete oblivion will come - its competitors are too smart. Therefore, you can pee for Simba, but rather as a hobby, it’s too late to monetize such applications, and of course, be prepared for the fact that your application will soon sink into oblivion along with the old Simbian.

Answer 2

The relevance of applications for Symbian is directly proportional to the prevalence of this platform among the target audience of your project. It's hard to answer your question unequivocally without any specifics.

Answer 3

On the one hand, Symbian is still very common, especially in developing countries. On the other hand, even advanced Symbian devices are much less perceived by their owners as "smartphones" and, accordingly, the whole culture of downloading and installing applications is much less developed. My point is that even with a large number of devices potentially capable of running your application, there will most likely not be so many people who will take advantage of this opportunity. In my opinion, if you want your application to find its users, then you should choose one of the platforms with a developed content delivery system and a culture of using it, i.e. Android/iOS/WP7/Bada, with the first two covering most of the market.

Answer 4

I will express my point of view. For me, the phone was:
1. To be able to call
2. To have a normal address book
3. To be able to go to ICQ / Jabber at any time and so that they do not interfere with using the phone.
4. So that the battery does not die quickly from ICQ / Jabber.
Nokia E51 and 6120 Classic turned out to be the best options at that time. In addition, as an ardent Siemens'ovod, he really did not like Java for its buggy and gluttony. The same ICQ on ELF ate many times longer on Siemens S75.
A friend at that time was a fan of his old Nokia 6230 phone (sort of) and took a 5800 for himself.
Now we both have already left Nokia (although the phones remained). He's on Apple, I'm on Android.
If your audience is young people up to 32 years old, then I think it's no longer worth writing an application for Symbian.
If the audience - business people - stands. Many do not change the phone for years, because it works. And yes, there is so much written on it. And when is it all over? It's a waste of time to figure it out.
In general, it's worth doing. For their own development, so to speak. You will learn how to do it and how not to do it :) "New" platform - new knowledge - brain development. And, by the way, I would still go with the Nokia E51, if it weren’t for the keyboard that suddenly failed, and with the 6120 Classic, if it weren’t for the flimsy latches that broke off a long time ago and when you pull the phone out of your pocket, it’s more likely that the cover will fall off and the battery will fall out.