Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#501

Post by 7thaccount » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:26 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #487

7thaccount wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this hurt Windows Phone a lot as a lot of people thought it was just the PDA interface on a smart phone.

I don't think so. As I recall, the different UI (not just from older MS stuff, but also from iPhone) was really front and center of Microsoft's pitch at the time. Besides, WinCE PDAs were very much a power user / enthusiast device, with relatively few around. People who used them and thus were familiar with the old UI would be well aware that WP7 was completely different, and people that didn't use them weren't expos…

I think the issue was some people never even got around to seeing the different UI. They heard Windows + Phone and immediately thought of the older tech and noped out.

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#502

Post by scarface_74 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 2:04 PM UTC

seba_dos1 wrote: post #490

scarface_74 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a popular misconception. The first iPhone had a 400Mhz processor and 128MB of RAM. It was so resource constrained that you couldn’t put a picture on your home screen because it would have taken too much memory. It could barely run Safari. If you scrolled too fast, you would see checker boxes while trying to render the screen. When Flash did finally come to mobile on Android, it required a 1Ghz processor and 1G…

> When Flash did finally come to mobile on Android, it required a 1Ghz processor and 1GB RAM. It worked on Maemo years before that though, with 600MHz Cortex-A8 CPU and 256 MB RAM. Nokia N900 had out-of-box support for Flash in its Gecko-based browser. I believe Symbian had some support before that too, but I don't remember and haven't checked the details.

That was “Flash light” not full Flash.

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#503

Post by scarface_74 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 2:06 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #460

scarface_74 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a popular misconception. The first iPhone had a 400Mhz processor and 128MB of RAM. It was so resource constrained that you couldn’t put a picture on your home screen because it would have taken too much memory. It could barely run Safari. If you scrolled too fast, you would see checker boxes while trying to render the screen. When Flash did finally come to mobile on Android, it required a 1Ghz processor and 1G…

My 90s PC had similar specs and ran Flash websites just fine. It also supported desktop backgrounds and animated screensavers just fine.

Your 90s area PC also had disk swapping and wasn’t running on a tiny battery. The Flash of 2007 was much more processor intensive and in the 90s, I doubt you were streaming quality video with Flash.

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#504

Post by scarface_74 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 2:09 PM UTC

tgma wrote: post #470

scarface_74 wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never said that about wallpaper. They did say that about Flash - my original comment. And he was proven correct https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_Flash But back to wallpapers - while the jail breaking community didn’t care, between performance (lot easier to redraw a black background), memory and battery life, background images would have adverse affects on the iPhone. it wasn’t that it couldn’t be don…

> It was so resource constrained that you couldn’t put a picture on your home screen because it would have taken too much memory. This is the sentence in your original comment I had responded to (and I quoted it in my original comment, not sure where's the misunderstanding here). iPhone was resource-constrained, but not that resource-constrained. I do agree with your characterization of Flash being slow and clunky at…

And it made the UI slower - as confirmed by another comment and used battery.

> Untrue. There was a noticeable UI lag when scrolling between app pages. I've tried it in both the iPod touch and previous generations iPhones. It felt like how Android used to feel like back then.

How was Jobs going to force Adobe to get Flash to run on a first gen iPhone when they could barely get it to run 4 years later on phones with 8x the memory and 2.5x faster?

Apple struggled to get Safari to run.

As another counterpoint. Google and Motorola tried to release an “iPad Killer” with the Motorola Xoom promising it would have 4g and Flash. Adobe was late releasing Flash for Android tablets leaving the Xoom in the unenviable position that you couldn’t visit the Xoom product page from the Xoom itself because it required Flash.

Adobe Flash on mobile was always a clusterfuck

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#505

Post by xp84 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 2:59 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #504

tgma wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was so resource constrained that you couldn’t put a picture on your home screen because it would have taken too much memory. This is the sentence in your original comment I had responded to (and I quoted it in my original comment, not sure where's the misunderstanding here). iPhone was resource-constrained, but not that resource-constrained. I do agree with your characterization of Flash being slow and clunky at…

And it made the UI slower - as confirmed by another comment and used battery. > Untrue. There was a noticeable UI lag when scrolling between app pages. I've tried it in both the iPod touch and previous generations iPhones. It felt like how Android used to feel like back then. How was Jobs going to force Adobe to get Flash to run on a first gen iPhone when they could barely get it to run 4 years later on phones with 8…

Haha I remember the Xoom. Company bought one at the time to test our product on, since it might be a big deal. Several of us were intrigued and negotiated who would get to take it home after work. After about 3 days it became clear that it was terrible and it was relegated to a drawer.

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#506

Post by 7thaccount » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 3:36 PM UTC

kernal wrote: post #447

7thaccount wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buttersmooth UI is how I'd describe it too. I loved the themes at the time too.

I had a few Windows phones, and butter isn't a word I'd ever use to describe the performance of the UI. Heck, I wouldn't even use the word margarine to describe my experience with it.

Out of curiosity...why did you have several? Were they budget models?

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#507

Post by bityard » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:17 PM UTC

wiether wrote: post #129

bityard wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had one of those. It was interesting in that it ran Linux and you could (at the time) browse most web sites with it. Otherwise, it was slow, bulky, and had a pretty terrible resistive touch screen. (The stylus was NOT optional.) And you still had to carry your flip phone in another pocket. In the end I was mainly using mine to listen to podcasts (before they were called that). An iPod Touch eventually replaced it u…

> In the end I was mainly using mine to listen to podcasts (before they were called that) I'm interested in understanding what you meant here? To my understanding, the N800 was released in 2007 according to Wikipedia[1] and the first craze of podcasts was in the first half of the 00's, with the most notable fact being the official support of podcasts in iTunes in 2004[2]. They then lost their fame before knowing a se…

I temporarily forgot that the iPod came out way before the iPhone. So yes, I guess they were called that then. But in my defense, I listened to MP3 files of radio shows that I downloaded manually, so I guess I wasn't quite using them as "podcasts" at that point.

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#508

Post by _wire_ » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #345

jandrese wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time Steve Jobs was putting his foot down against allowing Flash on the iPhone because the performance was so pants, Microsoft was going all in on Silverlight which had exactly the same problem.

That’s a popular misconception. The first iPhone had a 400Mhz processor and 128MB of RAM. It was so resource constrained that you couldn’t put a picture on your home screen because it would have taken too much memory. It could barely run Safari. If you scrolled too fast, you would see checker boxes while trying to render the screen. When Flash did finally come to mobile on Android, it required a 1Ghz processor and 1G…

Wait, it wasn't about performance, but it was about Performance?

It was that a pseudo-machine/VM approach put the VM IP owner (Adobe, Sun/Oracle) in driver's seat for control of the product's precious HW resources while letting their affiliates define the UI. What could go wrong, knowing that to invite in the vampire of their bloat & risk was to give those IP owners a competitive leg up to override all your design choices and serve their own markets, contrary to everything Jobs had done to rescue Apple from its clone wars.

Oh, and that Flash and Java were the world's most popular malware/APT delivery vehicles at that that continued to wreck PCs for many years after 2007.

But it wasn't about performance!

Or why Jobs choose to not drive a stake into his own heart to defend from vampires.

It would be interesting to see a companion presentation from the POV of Cingular/ATT. They likely also were very surprised and entertained by Jobs' device!

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#509

Post by hnuser123456 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 5:39 PM UTC

stephen_g wrote: post #464

b8 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't Nokia go bankrupt afterwards? They have Bell Labs, but don't make any interesting products.

Nokia has a pretty successful business in things like cellular base stations, carrier networking, etc. - for example they brought their joint venture with Siemens (Nokia Siemens Networks) back in-house by buying Siemens' part out, and that does a lot of optical network stuff (DWDM backhaul equipment, etc), already had a cellular base-station business but then also bought competitor Alcatel Lucent, and a lot of provid…

So they gained a reputation for reliability/durability and pivoted to infra?

Re: Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]

#510

Post by photon_lines » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 6:03 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #59

2007. The presentation reads like an eerily accurate crystal-ball prediction of what actually happened in subsequent years. Evidently, Nokia executives knew well in advance what the iPhone could do to their company. Evidently, they knew they needed to do "something" to avoid an implosion of their mobile-phone business. Evidently, despite their prescience and best efforts, they were unable to avoid disaster. It's as i…

The whole report shows that it was a company being run by bearcats and middle-managers who focused on sales rather than product. The detailed out exactly what was coming and why it was great and their general response is atrocious. Some of the highlights of the presentation which stood out to me (on page 12):

  1. "Work closely with T-Mobile"

Your competitor just launched a superior product and your response is to 'work closely' with T-Mobile?? Are you kidding me?.

  2. "Prioritize touch UI development, simplifying basic functionality and PC suite development very high."

Response here was spot on and highlighted that they needed to hire a new chief UI-designer and work on prioritizing touch development -- this should have been number 1 without a question and it looks to me like they put it on the back-burner.

  4. "Analyse what could be Apple’s next release of “iPhone mini” to mass market price points and plan counter-measures for it."

Anytime you're focusing on your 'response' to a competitor, you're behind in the game (by miles) and you've lost already -- especially if you're responding with 'counter-measures.' Once again - are you kidding me?

  5. "Kill market for such an expensive device by filling mid-range with own/Google/Yahoo experiences"

Incredibly stupid response -- you're planning to kill something the market may demand massively by...filling your product / experience with 3rd party integrations. Idiocy at its very finest.

  6. "Accelerate Nokia's own free push e-mail project and make it less hidden within the company."

This is a great sign of a company being run by middle-managers - secret projects with no evidence that they will push your product boundary nor satisfy consumer demand and why in the world would you keep anything here 'secret' - sheer idiocy.

  7. "Investigate and play hard in possible IPR infringements"

Another sign of a company being run by idiots.

  8. "Drive key partnerships to highlight Nokia's superior strength in the market, keeping things in perspective."

Wow - use partnerships (i.e. relationships / sales) to counter a superior product. These guys sure are on the ball /sarcasm.

  10. "Highlight potential weaknesses of the iPhone"

Whenever you respond to a threat and one of your highlights is to once again 'talk' your way our of it by highlighting your competitors' weaknesses -- it's usually an indication that your organization is being run by middle-managers or absolute morons.

This whole report shows exactly why Nokia failed.