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Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

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Re: Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

#91

Post by jcsager »

afavour wrote: post #36
RiverCrochet wrote: post #6

From the article: "Elop oversaw the 2011 launch of a Linux-based smartphone, the Nokia N9. The N9 ran on a distribution of Linux called MeeGo. Reviewers at the time praised the new smartphone direction the Finnish phone maker had taken. 'Possibly the most beautiful phone ever made,' wrote one reviewer about the N9 for Engadget. But the N9’s accolades did not ultimately carry the day. Nokia announced its Lumia line of…

> We were so close to having literal plain Linux phones. Sad to me. I wonder where this could have gone without Microsoft. Sadly, I strong suspect it would have gone nowhere. Apps became the name of the game and iOS and Android built up strong app libraries quickly. If Microsoft failed to compete I don't think a Nokia Linux phone would have stood a chance at all. Maybe if it added Android compatibility but that would…

Assuming that a plain Linux phone had succeeded early on, once banks, retailers and media companies refused to provide apps because of security concerns, then either the phone would die in the marketplace or it would have developed security solutions similar to those provided by iOS and Android today and no longer be a 'plain Linux phone'.

Re: Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

#92

Post by ulfw »

msh wrote: post #77
purpleidea wrote: post #66

What a badly written article. How could you leave out the N900 and the development history that came before it? If it wasn't for Elop and Microsoft, Nokia could have dominated and we wouldn't be stuck with mostly proprietary phones. We're still waiting to solve that problem...

Nokia was already in deep trouble before windows phone. If they did not go windows phone they would have ended up a android OEM (still better for them than what ended up happening) but there was no realistic way for them to "domination" at that point. That would have required them to change strategy years before they first saw the iphone.

As an Android OEM they'd have zero chance in the Asian market due to cost/features but they'd likely compete very well in the shut-out-from-most-competition US market and a good chance to be a secondary player in the European markets. Not a leader anymore but a significant player for sure.

Windows Phone was dead on arrival. Throwing yourself behind a losing platform was Nokia's death knell.

Re: Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

#93

Post by ACCount37 »

regularfry wrote: post #89
mjg59 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The N900 shipped two years after the iPhone while still having a resistive touchscreen. In the story of Nokia resisting Apple and Android it's basically irrelevant - it's part of the history that led to the N9, but it's not until we get to the N9 that there's a meaningful response to the market shift they represented.

Resistive touchscreens get a lot of criticism but even back then that was partly down to Apple propaganda which caught on because people were used to cheap screens with rubbish resistive sensors. The touchscreen on the N900 was good : high resolution, rigid, fast, accurate, sensitive enough for fingertip use.

Resistive touchscreens get a lot of criticism, and all of it is deserved.

Apple has, correctly, recognized that for a touch-first UI, a resistive touchscreen will always feel worse, wear out worse and perform worse than a glass-integrated capacitive touchscreen. This was a big part of how they got their touch-optimized UI to work and feel this good - which was how they differentiated the first iPhone from the sea of contemporary PDAs.

Nokia sticking with the most half-assed touch UI adaptations, Nokia sticking with resistive tech - all of is symptomatic of Nokia either not understanding what Apple's edge was, or being too slow to react to it.

Re: Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

#94

Post by ACCount37 »

no_time wrote: post #68
purpleidea wrote: post #66

What a badly written article. How could you leave out the N900 and the development history that came before it? If it wasn't for Elop and Microsoft, Nokia could have dominated and we wouldn't be stuck with mostly proprietary phones. We're still waiting to solve that problem...

>Nokia could have dominated and we wouldn't be stuck with mostly proprietary phones. In an alternative timeline with Nokia winning, linux would still have GPLv2 which has no answer for proprietary drivers and tivoization. Also, the desire to dominate enduser devices by corporations/governments would still be there.

Tivoization should have been strangled in its crib. "Secure boot" as it's used today is the death knell of user freedom.

Re: Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

#95

Post by ahartmetz »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #82
RiverCrochet wrote: post #6

From the article: "Elop oversaw the 2011 launch of a Linux-based smartphone, the Nokia N9. The N9 ran on a distribution of Linux called MeeGo. Reviewers at the time praised the new smartphone direction the Finnish phone maker had taken. 'Possibly the most beautiful phone ever made,' wrote one reviewer about the N9 for Engadget. But the N9’s accolades did not ultimately carry the day. Nokia announced its Lumia line of…

Every time a Linux sprouts out somewhere, Microsoft flamethrower comes over. Consumer market, academic environment, public office. I heard that Bill will cure malaria and covid just anytime now, the day after universal healthcare will be introduced in US.

I think that's over now, Microsoft is focusing on cloud and AI and doesn't particularly care which OS you run as long as they somehow make money. Plenty of reasons left to dislike and distrust them, though (cf. "cloud and AI").

Re: Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

#97

Post by mjg59 »

ACCount37 wrote: post #93
regularfry wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resistive touchscreens get a lot of criticism but even back then that was partly down to Apple propaganda which caught on because people were used to cheap screens with rubbish resistive sensors. The touchscreen on the N900 was good : high resolution, rigid, fast, accurate, sensitive enough for fingertip use.

Resistive touchscreens get a lot of criticism, and all of it is deserved. Apple has, correctly, recognized that for a touch-first UI, a resistive touchscreen will always feel worse, wear out worse and perform worse than a glass-integrated capacitive touchscreen. This was a big part of how they got their touch-optimized UI to work and feel this good - which was how they differentiated the first iPhone from the sea of…

The N900 was never really intended to be a mass market device, more something to attract enthusiast excitement and serve as a reasonable developer platform - so in that respect it being kind of half assed isn't too much of a surprise. The problem was it taking another two years until the (in theory) mass-market hardware was ready and also there having been another basically pointless upheaval in dev experience (the shift from Maemo to Meego, which included changing packaging formats), and in that respect the experience was incredibly half assed.

Re: Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

#98

Post by ACCount37 »

mjg59 wrote: post #97
ACCount37 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resistive touchscreens get a lot of criticism, and all of it is deserved. Apple has, correctly, recognized that for a touch-first UI, a resistive touchscreen will always feel worse, wear out worse and perform worse than a glass-integrated capacitive touchscreen. This was a big part of how they got their touch-optimized UI to work and feel this good - which was how they differentiated the first iPhone from the sea of…

The N900 was never really intended to be a mass market device, more something to attract enthusiast excitement and serve as a reasonable developer platform - so in that respect it being kind of half assed isn't too much of a surprise. The problem was it taking another two years until the (in theory) mass-market hardware was ready and also there having been another basically pointless upheaval in dev experience (the s…

Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic were Nokia's first mass produced, mass market "iPhone killers", and they were half-assed responses at best.

Nokia N8 was their first device that was truly competitive with iPhone, and by then, the image of Nokia as a cutting edge smartphone brand was already in decline.

A lot of iPhone's edge, by then, wasn't just in the touch-native UX, but also in app support (developers! developers! developers!), and they had the mindshare advantage there.

Nokia N9 was even better in a vacuum - but was even more late to market, and had even worse app support.

Re: Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

#99

Post by pavlov »

msh wrote: post #77
purpleidea wrote: post #66

What a badly written article. How could you leave out the N900 and the development history that came before it? If it wasn't for Elop and Microsoft, Nokia could have dominated and we wouldn't be stuck with mostly proprietary phones. We're still waiting to solve that problem...

Nokia was already in deep trouble before windows phone. If they did not go windows phone they would have ended up a android OEM (still better for them than what ended up happening) but there was no realistic way for them to "domination" at that point. That would have required them to change strategy years before they first saw the iphone.

> still better for them than what ended up happening

Microsoft paid $7.2 billion for Nokia's loss making phone division in 2013.

There's no way anybody would have paid that much for just another Android OEM.

As much as Nokia fans hated it, the Windows Phone strategy actually extracted the best value out of the rotting assets of Nokia Mobile Phones.

And Nokia the networking company remains a $70B corporation today. The cash from Microsoft enabled the investments that made them a network leader.

Re: Nokia’s years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon

#100

Post by brookst »

ACCount37 wrote: post #94
no_time wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nokia could have dominated and we wouldn't be stuck with mostly proprietary phones. In an alternative timeline with Nokia winning, linux would still have GPLv2 which has no answer for proprietary drivers and tivoization. Also, the desire to dominate enduser devices by corporations/governments would still be there.

Tivoization should have been strangled in its crib. "Secure boot" as it's used today is the death knell of user freedom.

It’s all tradeoffs. Secure boot sucks for enthusiasts but wow would the phone security / root kit scene be a nightmare without it.
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