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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

#171

Post by Nitramp »

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…

The problem is simply that the "differentiated experiences" end up being bad. Bad UX, bad integration in the platform, bad functionality, often gratuitiously duplicating existing features. If the manufacturer/carrier additions were actually good, people probably would be happy.

So the problem is boils down to Samsung/Nokia/... not realizing that they are not very good at building mobile phone software. That's probably also a hard sell internally.

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

#172

Post by eropple »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #135
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…

They kind of have to say that though, the same author wrote this: "While Android is open, it's more of a "look but don't touch" kind of open. You're allowed to contribute to Android and allowed to use it for little hobbies, but in nearly every area, the deck is stacked against anyone trying to use Android without Google's blessing. The second you try to take Android and do something that Google doesn't approve of, it…

I wouldn't read too much into that. I'll say a lot of things about Peter, but he's not exactly afraid to admit he's wrong.

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

#173

Post by throwawaykf05 »

Hmm, taking a cynical view, this could be a win-win for Nokia. Consider this:

1) The device does well: Nokia makes some money.

2) The device flops: Nokia can lay to rest the common criticism that they should have gone with Android. They can say, "See? We did Android. It went nowhere."

Don't blame the lack of a Play store, because remember, they were in discussions with Google and could not reach an agreement. I'm convinced it's because of Google's requirement that "all your location data are belong to us" [1] which would directly undercut Nokia's own location services. Because of Google's all-or-nothing stance, that took Google mobile services completely off Nokia's table.

Also, in the unlikely case that it does well, I wouldn't be too surprised if MS lets it live post-acquisition. After all, it's using their services, and these days there's probably more money to be made there than in selling software.

1. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/new-android-oem-licen... - "Google's Network Location Provider must not only be included, but set as the default network location provider; this is no doubt the clause that triggered a lawsuit from rival location company Skyhook."

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

#174

Post by lnanek2 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #135
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…

They kind of have to say that though, the same author wrote this: "While Android is open, it's more of a "look but don't touch" kind of open. You're allowed to contribute to Android and allowed to use it for little hobbies, but in nearly every area, the deck is stacked against anyone trying to use Android without Google's blessing. The second you try to take Android and do something that Google doesn't approve of, it…

They are kind of right. These phones are worthless in the US market or any high end market due to lack of Google Play. And that's where the profit margins are. Samsung is really the only player with enough vertical integration and scale to profit on the low end devices. Nokia is one of the very few vendors who can provide a competent maps app without Google Maps, but they are still producing a failure here due to not kissing Google's ring.

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

#176

Post by Aoyagi »

cdooh wrote: post #157
Aoyagi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It was abandoned because "internal politics"

Funny how those internal politics are internal only now that MS bought Nokia, isn't it?

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

#177

Post by hatu »

Aoyagi wrote: post #176
cdooh wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was abandoned because "internal politics"

Funny how those internal politics are internal only now that MS bought Nokia, isn't it?

Nokia's got a long history of internal turf wars. I'm sure it was Symbian vs Meego without Microsoft being in the picture.

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

#178

Post by MattHeard »

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…

Differentiated experience is the last resort of producers scrambling to avoid their products becoming low-profit commodities.

When all products look and feel the same way, competitors can only compete on price, at which point price wars lead to smaller profits for everyone.

Producers will always prefer selling ugly, profitable luxury products than standardised, razor-thin-margin commodities.

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

#179

Post by sliverstorm »

varjag wrote: post #120
sz4kerto wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel's contribution to the Linux kernel, is, AFAIK, limited to device drivers that make Linux run better with Intel hardware. So, they are not really improving Linux - they are using it as a bait for you to run your Linux workloads on your Intel servers, using Intel's hardware technology. Qualcomm's contribution to the Linux kernel, is, AFAIK, limited to software that make Linux run better with Qualcomm SoC. So, the…

> Intel's contribution to the Linux kernel, is, AFAIK, limited to device drivers that make Linux run better with Intel hardware. No, not really.

I'm waiting for the part where you say more than three words to support your claim.

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

#180

Post by MichaelGG »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #97
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…

> ... which would solve the app problem for the otherwise fantastic Nokia hardware ... The number of app on Windows Phone is no longer a problem. There are more than 240,000 Windows Phone apps as we speak.

While I don't care much about "app counts", the Windows Store is ... laughably bad. Common searches return tons of trademark violations, and obvious crap apps. Ugly junk.

The "number" was never a problem, and by optimizing for that metric, MS made their store into a gross place. A joke, as another comment puts it.

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