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Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

engadget.com

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Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#151

Post by fidotron »

The cat is finally out of the bag: Android as a platform is a more capable service delivery layer than the web even for Nokia and Microsoft, especially in developing markets, much as Google and Mozilla like to pretend otherwise. These are going to prove exceedingly popular.

The sad thing is Android is essentially a dead platform at this point because Google recognise investment in the core system is helping their enemies, and they hold a veto over what counts as a fork and what doesn't. The only thing that can save Android would be Google letting go completely, which is simply not in their interests.

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#152

Post by CurtHagenlocher »

antimagic wrote: post #36
quanticle wrote: post #13

Ars Technica [1] put it best. These phones are dead on arrival. This is not the first time Nokia has done something like this. It released a Meego version of the N9, its long-in-development Symbian successor, before immediately abandoning the platform and switching to Windows Phone. This isn't a sign of some deep strategy. It's just standard Nokia platform craziness. 1: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/nokia-to…

I wouldn't be so quick to discount this move. It could be a classic Microsoft embrace/extend/extinguish move. They lost the first round on mobile phone platforms, but this would allow them to very quickly create a platform that has developer support - after all, porting your apps from standard Android to an AOSP fork is easier than than porting it to Windows Phone. Especially as Microsoft/Nokia is pretty much the onl…

> It could be a classic Microsoft embrace/extend/extinguish move.

The rules governing mergers actually prohibit Microsoft and Nokia from strategizing that kind of thing together until the merger is complete.

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#153

Post by josefresco »

sp332 wrote: post #101
josefresco wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Nokia kills one platform/smartphone in the recent past and that means that this new line of phones is doomed? How are the two events linked? I don't see a connection. Products are born and killed everyday, just because company X has killed product Y in the past, doesn't mean that every future product will be killed in the same manor. Also, N9 was an internally developed OS that was late, and Nokia was suffering. A…

Microsoft is about to buy Nokia. No way they're going to continue development of an Android phone.

Was this initiative started before or after the MS acquisition was planned and announced? While technically MS might not own them yet, it seems they have already built their product offerings around this partnership (and for some time now). Which would make the comparison to the internal N9 project being killed in favor of a new platform not as relevant.

This seems to me as a plan hatched after Nokia got into bed with MS as a plan to diversify.

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#154

Post by mdwrigh2 »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #121
antimagic wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount this move. It could be a classic Microsoft embrace/extend/extinguish move. They lost the first round on mobile phone platforms, but this would allow them to very quickly create a platform that has developer support - after all, porting your apps from standard Android to an AOSP fork is easier than than porting it to Windows Phone. Especially as Microsoft/Nokia is pretty much the onl…

> after all, porting your apps from standard Android to an AOSP fork is easier than than porting it to Windows Phone So is this REALLY Android if you need to port your applications to run on it? How much of what makes an Android phone Android is AOSP and how much is the Google services that sit on top of it?

This isn't necessarily Google services vs. AOSP. Since they aren't going through certification there's no guarantee they've gone through CTS tests (so they APIs may differ from stock Android, either in signature or functionality).

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#156

Post by fidotron »

pmr_ wrote: post #139

> differentiated experience I still can't believe that decision makers actually believe that customers want that. Sure, it makes for great bullet points on the packaging, but most consumer in the lower segment just want something that is familiar to all the other stuff they have. Things you will never hear an Android user say: "That Samsung Whatever Cloud App is really useful.", "That second App Store of my carrier i…

A Nokia device that supports Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook, Nokia's maps and so on has arguably the only competitive bundle of services to the Google one, even considering iOS.

I am amazed by the negativity around this announcement when the reality is Nokia should have been doing this from the beginning, but this is certainly going to make the low end market in the EU very interesting.

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#157

Post by cdooh »

Aoyagi wrote: post #16
quanticle wrote: post #13

Ars Technica [1] put it best. These phones are dead on arrival. This is not the first time Nokia has done something like this. It released a Meego version of the N9, its long-in-development Symbian successor, before immediately abandoning the platform and switching to Windows Phone. This isn't a sign of some deep strategy. It's just standard Nokia platform craziness. 1: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/nokia-to…

MeeGo was a) successor of Maemo on N900 (and other devices) and b) abandoned, because "burning bridges".

It was abandoned because "internal politics"

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#158

Post by rch »

antimagic wrote: post #36
quanticle wrote: post #13

Ars Technica [1] put it best. These phones are dead on arrival. This is not the first time Nokia has done something like this. It released a Meego version of the N9, its long-in-development Symbian successor, before immediately abandoning the platform and switching to Windows Phone. This isn't a sign of some deep strategy. It's just standard Nokia platform craziness. 1: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/nokia-to…

I wouldn't be so quick to discount this move. It could be a classic Microsoft embrace/extend/extinguish move. They lost the first round on mobile phone platforms, but this would allow them to very quickly create a platform that has developer support - after all, porting your apps from standard Android to an AOSP fork is easier than than porting it to Windows Phone. Especially as Microsoft/Nokia is pretty much the onl…

This is more about going after volume with Android and leaving Windows Phone to compete with iOS for the high-end market. But I guess that is exactly embrace/extend/extinguish except applied directly to the Android brand, which makes more sense than turning the screws on devs with constant platform headaches.

Re: Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android phones

#159

Post by Ologn »

igravious wrote: post #5

So Microsoft has a Linux distro. Interesting. Anybody care to hazard a guess what the future holds? My take is that this was well in development before the MS/Nokia deal went through (it has gone through, hasn't it?) and Microsoft were not (have not been) able to get it canned. Or, shock, horror, maybe Microsoft are testing the waters - they already make a bunch from Linux patents, maybe they want to see how much the…

Microsoft had a Unix distro for a long time - Xenix. It was built as Microsoft's next generation OS, originally Microsoft thought they were going to migrate to it as their dominant platform as computers got faster. It was the most widespread version of Unix around in the late 1980s in terms of machine installs. Microsoft sold it to SCO in 1987.
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