Embedded Linux: why I have to buy a new mobile phone..

Prologue. When I moved back to TIM, the most important Italian mobile operator, I got a 3G handset by Motorola, the sleek and stylish E1070 (software version R25221LD_U_85.83.E2P, DSP version 407B0000).
I have never been fond of the Motorola style user interface, and I didn’t appreciate that I need to buy a special USB cable to connect the E1070 to my laptop, but I could manage to live with that.

I understand that in spite of its 64 MB of internal memory the E1070 might asks the user to erase short-messages even if it’s not running out of memory, but what I can really stand it’s that its rubric simply doesn’t work.

Bugs. I can add new contacts, at random but quite often I can’t take any advantage of it, because when I access my rubric and I try to call it crashes. I did find a workaround, I keep short messages received from such contacts and I call them through them, it’s crazy but works. What I couldn’t fix it’s another bug that doesn’t allow me to see either last calls, even if I switch it off and on over and over. After hours or days the E1070 starts working properly again for a while.
It’s an harmful bug, I do loose business contact because of it.

Shared Standards. Do you rembember the Symbian promise?
It was established in UK as a private independent company in June 1998, the original shareholders were Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia.In October 2003 Motorola withdrew from Symbian as a shareholder by selling is stake to Nokia and Psion, becoming a simple licensee.

I had already some doubts about the Symbian technological club in the beginning of 2003 (Italian), the idea was good but the implementation was poor, since even the most important shareholders were using their own dialect of Symbian. As a matter of fact, at the end of the day different symbian-based mobile phones turn to be not compatible.