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Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

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Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#91
post #61

As a kid, this phone was like my dream gadget, I still remember really wanting one and staring at it at the store. To be honest, I don't know what I wouldv'e done with it, being 12 years old. Anybody remember those "organizer" gadgets, with a screen and a calander and notes, but not a phone? I got one of those and didn't really use it for anything useful. I did now just order de Fold 3. Comparable.

When I was 12 I remember really wanting my dev environment (turbo/free pascal) on a PDA but not being able to find one with good support. Eventually I got a Zarus but I wasn't good enough with Linux to get Free Pascal working on it.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#92

This article kind of misses out the later Nokia N900, which had great hardware, but suffered from Nokia's lack of support (IIRC they stopped supporting it about 6 months after launch). If you like that kind of form factor/functionality, there's current devices too like the cosmo communicator https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/cosmo-communicator

Related, the Neo900 project apparently gave up. Does anyone know why?

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#93
It's quite a trip on the memory lane when I am still using Nokia as my phone. The times when Nokia was the giant of the phone industry. But due to the rapid technological advancements, they struggle in the smartphone revolution, and since then, there has been a power shift in the industry.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#94
post #75

I used to work as product manager in a major telco and had one of every single model of those, and they were some of the best hardware I ever used. The peak was, I think, when I accessed Excel over Citrix while sitting in the airport waiting for a flight. In comparison, the N900 I have sitting in the bottom of a storage box someplace was a major disappointment--Maemo never came close to delivering half the functional…

Being at Nokia Networks during that last phase, I could observe in first person how many of those things went.

Nokia used to have internal shows to get employees feedback for future products, Maemo not having a radio modem was a common remark, naturally they couldn't add it due to Symbian.

Also think that Elop gets more blame than he deserves, as many see his connection to Microsoft and not the bonus from Nokia's own management board.

NetAct versus other networking products, also suffered from the same culture issues, by the way.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#95
post #85
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did, there are completely usable phones in the 100-200euros segment, which do at least 2/3 of what the 1k ones do, albeit more slowly.

Sure there are decent smart phones that only costs 100 euros, but I was referring to the fact that in 1996 communicator was deemed too expensive for consumer market, but now top of the line iphones sell huge volumes.

Phones have become so important in our lives. In 1996, you never needed the internet to do anything, as our society was based on other technologies. People could live their lives without the internet, or even without a mobile phone and it would be no problem at all.

Now the internet, and increasingly mobile internet is becoming the default way of accessing almost any service, so having a phone that works for you is something that people are ready to pay for. You end up using it so much, that people feel like it's not a waste of money.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#96
post #79
post #75

I used to work as product manager in a major telco and had one of every single model of those, and they were some of the best hardware I ever used. The peak was, I think, when I accessed Excel over Citrix while sitting in the airport waiting for a flight. In comparison, the N900 I have sitting in the bottom of a storage box someplace was a major disappointment--Maemo never came close to delivering half the functional…

>The peak was, I think, when I accessed Excel over Citrix while sitting in the airport waiting for a flight. I never had a N900, but I have a similar memory of fixing a work problem while traveling in the late 90's. I used a terminal on a Palm Pilot over a dial-up modem, typing into a shell using the "graffiti" handwriting. It was...painful and triumphant all at once :)

In the early 2000's, I did my company's payroll using a Sony phone (maybe an M600c — the one from the James Bond film), while on a hydrofoil between Hong Kong and Macau. At the time I thought, "The future is finally here!"

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#97
post #73
post #54

I see a lot of features re-used from the N900 in Android and iOS. I think Maemo/N900 changed the world far more.

I would say if you were going to elevate anything after the 9000 it should be the Symbian devices- i had a 6600 and a friend had a 6630 and those will to me always be the first "Smartphones" We played downloaded multiplayer games over Bluetooth in school, and though mine didn't have official mp3 functionality I downloaded the app used on later devices and used mine as an mp3 player. Even downloaded a bunch of roms fo…

I kept using Symbian until the end, Symbian Belle was quite nice, and with PIPS and Qt, Symbian C++ wasn't that bad.

Also jumped into Windows Phones, as its development experience was miles ahead (still is) from whatever comes out of Google.

With exception of Android, I never needed a "gaming rig/server configuration" for mobile development.

Anyway it is what it is.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#98
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I owned every generation of it and so did many of my colleagues. Can't recall it being regarded a curiosity. More like, serious business machine.

I had the 9110, 9210, and 9500. None of them really made sense as connected devices because data services were so slow. Web pages would literally take minutes to load, and for heavy use you were paying by the byte. The main benefit was a nice(ish) keyboard for texts and emails. I once wrote and emailed in a consultancy report from the back garden of a pub, just to prove I could. But it's not something I'd have been h…

Seeing as Symbian descended from EPOC32, the later Nokia Commicators are kinda Psion Series 5s with radio. Of course the mad multiple UI layers Symbian had means they aren't software compatible...

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#99
post #26
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How well do the Android apps run on it (using Anbox)? I'd need that for running my banking app.

Do note that many banking apps use google safetynet, which means they won't work on anything that deviates too much from normal android and it won't work on anbox.

:(
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