Taking out the aspect of Symbian C++ tooling, Symbian was great as OS.
Nokia's problem number 1 was the political internal wars between Symbian and Linux divisions that distracted management from what should be the main focus, and then Elop brought Windows into an ecosystem that was pretty much anti-MS to start with.
It remains to be seen if ARM management is going to have this sort of decisions.
I had a Sony P800 and it was a horrible phone. Adding apps was a pain, there were only very few good apps, the pen was a pain, UI was a pain (b/c desktop design moved to a mobile device).
I bought the first iPhone, no comparison (same app problem but the ones supplied were excellent).
Nokia's problem number 1 was the political internal wars between Symbian and Linux divisions that distracted management from what should be the main focus, and then Elop brought Windows into an ecosystem that was pretty much anti-MS to start with.
It remains to be seen if ARM management is going to have this sort of decisions.