Re: Theory why it's Symbian only
Nokia couldn't afford Eflop, he is why Symbian sales went off a cliff - that infamous burning platform email when Symbian sales at the time were actually increasing (sales were up though market share was down as more competition entered the market - market share at the time of the email was markedly higher than current iOS market share).
Microsoft does not allow Symbian the flexibility to do a repeat of the amazing camera on a windows phone. They've scrapped their linux (even the later incarnation of a cut down android platform), they now have a S40 developed in China but losing profitability slowly and an out of the box Microsoft offering that the market doesn't seem to have taken to. It is possible Microsoft may yet get it right, but they have been at it for years - since mid 1990's - and have still failed.
The sad thing is that Symbian actually is a good platform in a number of ways, slightly quirky in some as it was developed a very long time ago by Psion software - a British company - as 'Epoc32'. The S60 UI mess wasn't Symbian, it was entirely Nokias own creation. There was a touch screen version - way back in the '90's there were touch only, keyboard only and a combination UI's designed and built. UIQ - Sony Ericsson - made a decent touch screen only variation - long long long long before apple or google did anything at all.
Apple and Google have both done decent enough jobs, they learned what was and wasn't working in a mature market and did that. The Symbian devices were cutting edge, they were the original smartphones, but for a little more get up and go in the management at both Symbian and Nokia the UI could have been fixed many years ago. As usual though the management became too bogged down in their own importance, in having engineers filling in timesheets, project managers explaining why over Christmas the timesheets showed they didn't have enough people on the project (doh - people didn't work on Christmas - as I explained every single year I worked for Symbian). The product managers spent too much time drinking wine with Nokia and not enough time working out what needed doing. The whole thing stagnated with it taking months to do stupid unnecessary things and no time at all being left to do the obvious. Its a shame, under different management things could have been so much better.