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Nokia made too many phones

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Re: Nokia made too many phones

#301
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to Apple specifically because Androids I owned aged quickly and badly. Some people can’t drop the kool aid drinking caricature view on iPhone users they hold.

Interesting. I have 3 years old Pixel 6 Pro I use as a phone, 6 years old Redmi MIUI I use to control my various gizmos and 8 years old Galaxy S6 Edge to do yet another set of gizmos. So far all work like charm. Do tell me what kool aid did I drink?

I guess downvoting confirms how superior Apple smartphones are.

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#303
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Symbian, then called EPOC32, was developed there was no C++ standard library There was no standard to begin with (actually the first release of Symbian and the first C++ ISO standard are pretty close on the timeline), but STL and likes existed. Then again, Symbian was on the market until 2013, but programming for Symbian always sucked. Especially in the later years, when Nokia completely missed the advent of t…

At that point you would use Qt on Symbian though, which would be a great strategy if it was executed a few years earlier and if there was no Maemo.

Qt was always a bad strategy. Sure, in some aspects it was better than anything native Symbian could provide, but in general it was many years behind iOS and Android UI frameworks.

For example, one of the most frequent patterns in touchscreen UI design is an infinite list of views with dynamic data loading and filtering. A lot of use cases fit into this abstraction - social media feeds, storefronts, messaging apps, dictionaries, streaming music players, etc. Android supported this pattern in UI framework from the very beginning and continiously improved it, while Qt's answer at the time was "oh, just write it from scratch".

And the fact that Qt uses highly specific dialect of C++ doesn't really help adoption.

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#304
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I have 3 years old Pixel 6 Pro I use as a phone, 6 years old Redmi MIUI I use to control my various gizmos and 8 years old Galaxy S6 Edge to do yet another set of gizmos. So far all work like charm. Do tell me what kool aid did I drink?

None at all. I switched since my personal experiences with Android phones were lackluster, typically the software becoming sluggish and unresponsive, usually within 3 years.

I'm using the Essential PH-1 - hasn't had a software update since 2019 and I can still play games that just came out

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#305
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point you would use Qt on Symbian though, which would be a great strategy if it was executed a few years earlier and if there was no Maemo.

Qt was always a bad strategy. Sure, in some aspects it was better than anything native Symbian could provide, but in general it was many years behind iOS and Android UI frameworks. For example, one of the most frequent patterns in touchscreen UI design is an infinite list of views with dynamic data loading and filtering. A lot of use cases fit into this abstraction - social media feeds, storefronts, messaging apps, d…

Are you sure you know what you're talking about? Or maybe you were using a very ancient version of Qt. Today's Qt C++ and QML are extremely capable. And I'm building one of those "long lists" (ListView) in my block editor[1] that was straightforward to implement in Qt.

[1] https://www.get-plume.com/

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#306
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qt was always a bad strategy. Sure, in some aspects it was better than anything native Symbian could provide, but in general it was many years behind iOS and Android UI frameworks. For example, one of the most frequent patterns in touchscreen UI design is an infinite list of views with dynamic data loading and filtering. A lot of use cases fit into this abstraction - social media feeds, storefronts, messaging apps, d…

Are you sure you know what you're talking about? Or maybe you were using a very ancient version of Qt. Today's Qt C++ and QML are extremely capable. And I'm building one of those "long lists" (ListView) in my block editor[1] that was straightforward to implement in Qt. [1] https://www.get-plume.com/

In case you've missed, we're talking about an operating system whose last release was twelve years ago.

The first Qt version for Symbian was around 4.6, and IIRC QML didn't even exist then. The latest was around 4.8, and it did have QML and Qt Quick, but it was too little, too late.

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#307
post #157
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course the implication with these fashion devices was that they were almost disposable, and you'd buy a new one for the next season. This would be great for Nokia's business. Unfortunately their design department seemed consumed by becoming a fashion brand and forgot that they're still a technology company. Everyone knows what happened next. Maybe Nokia was simply too early for the vision, or the execution was s…

Any other company, if they had the iPhone, would have failed selling it in numbers. Because only at Apple it was preceded by the iPod that set a unique precedent in how much more expensive than all competitors a device could be. And that shift in price perception was deeply connected to the brand. It's easy to forget just how much more expensive the iPhone was than other phones that reached a meaningfully wide audien…

The success of the iPhone was not due to a price anchoring effect. Sure, if you just wanted to make calls the iPhone was (is) rather expensive. But they were really selling a computer in your pocket, which among other things could browse the web like a computer, display maps from pretty much any location on earth, and replace those bulky Franklin Planners. Not to mention take phone calls. There was nothing like it for multiple years.

I am a pretty late adopter, but I bought the original iPhone. Totally worth it. Two years later when everyone's phone contract was up, they all got iPhones.

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

snake was fine

Snake predates Nokia mobile phones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_(video_game_genre)

We are talking about apps and games on nokia phones; of those apps and games, snake was fine.

Point to where I said snake was novel, or nokia invented snake

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#309
post #89

I can confirm this as I worked at Nokia in the Helsinki head office in 2006 and they made so many phones, which were not tested properly and were just thrown out to different market segments. It was obvious at the time that they had no passion or craftsmanship for their products anymore (as a company, as there were still some brilliant individuals)

It's interesting. I was exposed in a low level kind of way to Nokia technology around 2002, working for a former subsidiary of Nokia that had been sold. Then it seemed there was a legacy of technical excellence - Nokia pcbs were instantly recognisable for their neatness and having all the components on one side. Did that get lost at some point or did I have a flawed impression?

I don’t know what happened at Nokia as I was only there for a year, but nice to hear that they had nicely laid out PCBs in 2002. Shows me that someone had pride in their work

Re: Nokia made too many phones

#310
post #266
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar type of thing has been happening to fashion wristwatch manufacturers, although at a slower pace. Customers no longer purchase as many wristwatches, and instead purchase a single Apple (or Garmin) a smartwatch plus different straps to change the look. There is a still a strong market for luxury mens' mechanical wristwatches as jewelry. But I expect that will gradually die off as the population of men who gre…

Some people just want a watch that works for 10 years or more with 1 charge. And to not be harassed by notifications.

Sure, but that's a small and shrinking market niche.
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