A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world • Hacker News Board

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#51

Post by guruz » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 2:59 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #35

pavlov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to do productive Symbian development in a non-deprecated environment is to use Qt. Run away from anything that says "Symbian" but isn't Qt. The latest Symbian ships with a version of Qt (4.6.3) that isn't the cutting edge, but is good enough. In typical Nokia manner, they've managed to make a dog's dinner of the SDK options: there's a regular Qt SDK, a Nokia-branded Qt SDK, a Symbian^3 SDK, a technology…

Easier of cross platform development is a good reason to use JavaMe in lieu of Qt when developing for Symbian because Android does not fully support C++ development. [edit] eSWT provides access the GPU under Java.

I don't think this is true anymore. Just check out http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/01/gingerbread-n...

There's an unofficial Qt android port too. http://code.google.com/p/android-lighthouse/

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#52

Post by TheUSMarshall » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:02 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #2

What is the chart measuring? The article implies that it represents App Store visits. Do they buy anything, though? That's the metric that's important to developers.

Agreed. There is obviously a huge Nokia/Symbian user base, but it would be interesting to learn more about the demographics/buying habits/Internet-usage habits for those users. If many of them are in rural or developing areas, their ISP may only offer a capped bandwidth plan which may cause them to shy away from using data-intensive apps, or they may just not be as motivated to use some apps that ultimately lead to revenue generation (either directly through app purchases or down the line via upgrades or services that compliment the initial app download).

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#53

Post by eru » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:05 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #17

alxp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Betting against high-selling low-margin products would be like betting against Wal-Mart. You can co-exist with them but you can't beat them at their own game, and their game is around to stay.

Betting that learning an app development framework plus Mandarin to sell apps on $35 phones probably isn't the best strategy for developers is more reasonable though.

China has developers that already know Mandarin.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#54

Post by ernestipark » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:22 PM UTC

I was in Rwanda last summer teaching a class on programming/entrepreneurship centered on mobile devices. The ubiquity and penetration of Nokia phones there is pretty incredible. Even some of the poorest of people have cell phones. Essentially, they are the only form of computing device for many of them, so it IS their smartphone. There are many services and businesses centered around SMS applications that are very useful. Rather than expensive plans, there are people lining the streets selling prepaid "airtime". Their 3G network is also just as fast as any I've had in the US despite not being connected to SEACOM (although this may be due to lack of traffic on the 3G network, I had a Nexus One Google provided while I was there). Nokia was one of the sponsors of my program because they see how valuable the African market is with their explosion of cell phone growth in the past few years.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#55

Post by gacba » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:24 PM UTC

Maybe Nokia has 41% of the market today, but back in 2006 they had 76% of it (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian). They're losing ground like an avalanche, Symbian is quickly becoming irrelevant in this world.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#56

Post by TylerBrock » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:28 PM UTC

Nokia has always made great hardware so they should have bought Palm. Would have been a match made in heaven.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#57

Post by maguay » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:33 PM UTC

Hey, we still keep a prepaid Nokia around for basic phone calls. If you're just needing to call someone, they still get the job done, and oddly enough, the calling experience is often better (better sound) than on a smartphone.

Plus, it has a built in flashlight. Who can argue with that? ;)

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#58

Post by Tichy » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:39 PM UTC

bergie wrote: post #43

tdoggette wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but not in a way that approaches the usefulness of a desktop browser.

Yep, Nokia N900 is the only phone accomplishing that :-) For example, Android and iOS browsers skipped the rather useful contentEditable functionality. On my N900 I have it.

what does it do?

Edit: OK, not that I know what it does, what do you use it for on your N900?

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#59

Post by S_A_P » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:46 PM UTC

While I understand the need for a metric to see where you should allocate R&D resources, most of these types of articles(as in not just this one, most of the iOS or Android as well) seem to be more interested in a branding popularity contest than providing any sort of useful info. Personally I dont care if swarms of people love or hate the device I use as long as it serves my needs. It just seems sorta tabloid-y to me.

Re: A brief glimpse of Nokia's popularity outside the Western world

#60

Post by wvenable » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:55 PM UTC

latch wrote: post #6

Isn't there quite a bit of data though to make this very static picture of the market somewhat irrelevant? I'm not trying to spread FUD. I would seriously like enlightenment if I'm wrong, but these are the conceptions that I have with respect to the more fluid nature of the market: -The trend, throughout the world, is going heavily against Nokia -Nokia's margins on each unit is a fraction of the competition -Nokia's…

Nokia's quarterly profits have dropped 40 percent year-on-year. Symbian lost 10% of it's marketshare in one year and Android's worldwide marketshare is now quickly approaching that of Symbian.

I think the future (and the profits) are undoubtedly in smartphones and that's an area where Nokia has, so far, been unable to compete and they don't seem to have a working strategy going forward.