"The N97 coulda been an iPhone killer and the N8 and E7 all exhibited potential they might have been big... if Nokia ever really put their mind to it, they coulda crushed the iPhone"
I'll have two of whatever this guy is having.
Nokia doesn't just have a problem with execution it's not just about a features check list of touchscreen, appstore, music and gaming.It's about the attention to detail and ruthless application of quality in hardware build, software and UI. Nokia never even came close.
I think it is quality as you say, but also having a vision.
The iPhone comes from a perspective on the "right way to interact with touch computers" and everything follows out of that.
All the other attempts to replicate the iPhone are focused on replicating the iphone, not on understanding the iphone's vision and attempting to come up with "the best way to interact with touch computers". This is why android, for instance, is such a lower quality experience.
I think google engineers may not focus on fit and finish as much as apple engineers, but they probably are as good in terms of code quality. But even with quality code you can't have the level or quality of interaction when the hardware maker is some random company that downloaded the source from the net and then built a phone. Even when that company is a big one like HTC. Maybe especially.
On several occasions I've had feature phones built by nokia, including one I just happened to pick up a few weeks ago.
I find that the UIs have become less intuitive and ever more maddening over the years, with the latest one being a good example.
Build quality is fine for a plastic phone. Screen resulution- well it is a feature phone. But look of the UI is poor, and the discoverability of the UI is extremely poor.
All that said, you may well be right - they may still be a leader for the feature phone market, and thus that means the others are much worse.
If you read jacquesm's blog post, he mentions the Nokia 2110.
That thing was an F-in' beast. I had friends in high school who wanted their parents to buy them new phones try to destroy Nokia 2110's (or maybe it was one of the later Nokia bricks) and just fail. You wash it? No problem. You throw it down the stairs? No problem. You run it over with a car, no problem.
With my Android phone, which frequently and bafflingly fails to function (randomly changes ring tones, stops receiving incoming calls, battery life drops under 10 minutes) I look back fondly on the days of the indestructible Nokia 2110.
It's been a while since I bought a Nokia phone, but if they put out an ad that said: "Remember this?", followed by someone running a 2110 over with a car and making a call, "Well check this out!", followed by someone running a Nokia WP7 phone over with a car and checking their e-mail, I would buy the shit out of that phone.
Anyways, not really insightful, just the brand impression that Nokia has on this consumer.
The article treats MeeGo and Symbian synonymously, even though Nokia's announcement puts Symbian on a 2yr gang plank and says MeeGo is to be actively developed.
MeeGo development probably is doomed because Nokia is expected by its shareholders to cut R&D overheads, and the current plan doesn't look like doing that. I'm surprised that Nokia still is putting some of its weight behind it. The article seems oblivious to this point.
This article is probably the best analysis of the situation I've seen. I really do think that this is a wedding, and thus nokia is probably going to go the way of microsoft.
In short, I bet in 10 years both companies will be less relevant than they are now. (though I do have an open mind about phone 7, I just don't think either company has competent management.)
I'll have two of whatever this guy is having.
Nokia doesn't just have a problem with execution it's not just about a features check list of touchscreen, appstore, music and gaming.It's about the attention to detail and ruthless application of quality in hardware build, software and UI. Nokia never even came close.