The slow death of Nokia

[Fnaar]

I used to swear by Nokia phones (as opposed to swearing at them)...until Android came along... seems Nokia's in danger of going down the pan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12403466

 

[Crackle]

Yep, Symbian has been rapidly eclipsed, not that it was that good to start with but Android is free to develop with and a Nokia Android would appeal to a lot of people, not sure about Windoze though.

 

[Simba]

I've always had problems with Nokia phones and I don't like the design of most of them.

 

[ianrauk]

My last phone was a Nokia, the 5800. It was total crap. Now have a Samsung phone and it's 100 times better.

 

[mickle]

I love my N97 almost as much as I hated my N96.

 

[John the Monkey]

I'm intrigued by Android, although my N82 and N97 Mini have been great 'phones.

 

[Alan Whicker]

My last phone was a Nokia, the 5800. It was total crap. Now have a Samsung phone and it's 100 times better.

Oh Lord, where do I start. My 5800 turns itself off for no reason, turns itself on for no reason, crashes for no reason, drops a signal with no reason, freezes, deletes text messages at its leisure. Sometimes mysteriously drains its fully-charged battery in half an hour. In short, can't be trusted. Other than that it's fantastic. Never getting another Nokia as long as I live.

EDIT: Oh yeah - it somehow turns the internet on all by itself when abroad, which costs £££££££££££. Utter crap.

 

[Dan B]

I was a (Sony-)Ericsson fan for the longest time, until I had the misfortune to buy one of their Symbian/UIQ phones, which I put up with for six months until the G1 came out. I had high hopes for Maemo (as an even more open development platform than Android), but I think the Meego merger pretty much has killed it.

My perspective on Symbian is that they ended up in a bizarrely contradictory place where their system was insanely hard (by modern standards) to program for because they still had the "embedded, must be able to run in 256k" mindset, yet somehow they didn't have the screaming performance that ought by rights to go along with the ridiculous over-optimization they were claiming to do. My SE M600 had 64x the RAM and 26x the CPU of my 1985-vintage Amiga 500, and was still slower. And the Amiga was a real computer in its day with real development tools. For some reason we'll probably never learn, the folk at Symbian apparently failed to notice that the platform had changed under them, and not surprisingly got their arse kicked by someone (Apple) who did.

Oh, and for my money Windows Mobile 7 will fail. MS's vision is "a computer on every desktop and microsoft on every computer" and, frankly, that's the only thing they've ever done well at. Every foray into other markets they make has failed - at least, by comparison with their desktop near-monopoly - and I see nothing sufficiently compelling in WM7 to think it's anything other than more of the same

 

[MrGrumpy]

My only fear with Android is that it reminds me of linux, in that there is a huge choice in custom roms to install on your phone once you root it. Also here stories of txts going awol on the standard Android install. I just hope that it just doesn`t end up a mess. I suppose thats where Apple seem to have things under control in comparison.

My next phone will no doubt be android, fancy a Blackberry as well,finding email on the move a godsend. Just can`t bring myself to pay an extra £5 a month for Blackberry services. Maybe see what retentions have for me nearer the time.

 

[dellzeqq]

My first two phones were Nokia, and they were simplicity itself. That, and a decent phone camera, was what persuaded me to get a Nokia 6700. It's a miserable piece of work. Texting (which is about as complicated as I get) is ghastly, with the predictive text switching itself off all the time. The speed dial thingy simply isn't speedy. Reception is pants.

It's as if they've lost the plot.

 

[John the Monkey]

Oh Lord, where do I start. My 5800 turns itself off for no reason, turns itself on for no reason, crashes for no reason, drops a signal with no reason, freezes, deletes text messages at its leisure. Sometimes mysteriously drains its fully-charged battery in half an hour. In short, can't be trusted. Other than that it's fantastic. Never getting another Nokia as long as I live.

Wow!

Not had anything approaching that with either of mine, although neither have the "enhanced" firmware provided by many UK operators. If I've any complaint with either, it's that they're a little slow, as noted above, but the email provided by Nokia Messaging, and stuff like their internet radio, podcasting & sports tracker apps make up for it, for me at least.

 

[martint235]

My only fear with Android is that it reminds me of linux, in that there is a huge choice in custom roms to install on your phone once you root it. Also here stories of txts going awol on the standard Android install. I just hope that it just doesn`t end up a mess. I suppose thats where Apple seem to have things under control in comparison.

My next phone will no doubt be android, fancy a Blackberry as well,finding email on the move a godsend. Just can`t bring myself to pay an extra £5 a month for Blackberry services. Maybe see what retentions have for me nearer the time.

Custom roms were around long before Android. I think the main problem with Android is the proliferation of different handset manufacturers all with different expectations. What Google need to do is come up with a way of satisfying the HTCs and Motorolas of the world whilst also ensuring that a native Android is available to run on any suitable handset (I actually prefer native Android to Sense and Blur).

Google will never be able to dictate the specifications of those handsets unless it decides to focus solely on its own phones (in collaboration with HTC or whoever). I think they also need to find a way to accomodate the ROM developers who modify Android rather than issuing Cease and Desist orders as they have in the past.

As to Nokia, as with all technologies, they were groundbreaking. Before phones became music players etc, the Nokia was the workhorse that everyone knew how to use due to its intuitive menu system. Unfortunately they were blindsided a bit by Apple and Android and now find themselves having to make up ground.

As Stephen Elop says, there are some difficult decisions ahead for Nokia. The first one should be to ditch all the OS it has at the moment as unfit for purpose and to move to the Android platform. I would expect this to just be a temporary move whilst they develop a forward plan. To their benefit, the market does seem to be settling slightly. Apple will always have their devotees but they don't seem to be quite so numerous or as vocal as before. Android has for now found it's level which is at the personal user level where cheap and numerous apps are required. RIM still have the email client sewn up due to their infrastructure, but I do think there is a gap in the business market where people want more than RIM seem willing to offer. Android doesn't really satisy the PIM market (have you seen what's available) and Windows Phone is unlikely to make inroads into this from what I've seen so far.

What I want from my phone is an integrated task, calendar and project manager client that talks to my desktop and to the cloud; touchscreen, battery life of around 2 days; decent web experience and apps that are developed well (even if I have to pay for them), one that springs to mind is Pocket Informant for Windows Mobile (the Android version is frankly rubbish but this is more to do with the Android API I think). So there you go Nokia, I've given you a plan.....

 

[Panter]

I used to love my old Nokia phones, ultra reliable and easy to use. Sounds as if things have slipped a little though.

A Nokia with Android sounds extremely tempting.

 

[Crackle]

Palm used to have PIM sewn up but lost their way. I've just moved from Palm to Android and although the PIM is more clunky, it works if you adopt Google apps too and! Not to be underestimated, I can actually share calendars, documents, pictures etc... with other family members, far, far better than desktop integration, which you can still do if you want with Outlook or Thunderbird and the always excellent, Documents To Go.

 

[John the Monkey]

That's the appeal of android for me, Crackle - I use google calendar a lot, and it's very much better than any offering from anyone else currently (which may be why other companies seem so reluctant to play nicely with it).