back to article Nokia unveils Contractual Obligation Meego Phone



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  1. Plonkybear

    And the point.....


    1. Anonymous Coward

      Why oh, why?

      One night stand with a new platform?

      You do not change platforms at the wave of a magic wand. You stick with them.

      In sickness and in health until a force major tells you apart. Similarly, if you have to divorce yourself from a platform you have to prepare for a major spend. It does not matter if it is a civilized divorce or "Divorzo a la Siciliana". It costs in both cases. Nokia's financials and market share are a a testament to that.

    2. Anonymous Coward

      The point is ...

      Nokia isn't going to be a 'one trick pony'.

      Apple only offers one type of handset. Not everyone wants a touch screen phone.

      (My wife is one of them.)

      Nokia has always had multiple handsets and it looks like they will continue to offer them.

      While they've pushed out Symbian to Accenture, everyone said it was the death of Symbian. Its not. Had Nokia kept Symbian in house and shifted the developers to other things, Symbian would have died. Moving it to Accenture gives Symbian some more life.

      Releasing the phone is actually a good thing. Only don't tell the commentards that.

      Also you have to ask yourself... did Elop bring Microsoft to Nokia, or prior to Elop, did Microsoft and Nokia (or one of its wholly owned subsidiaries) have an existing relationship with Microsoft?

      Yeah.its real easy to jump to the wrong conclusions when you don't have all of the facts.

      1. xperroni

        Might as well have thrown it into the sea

        You obviously have no experience with Accenture hacks.

      2. Andus McCoatover

        Er, really..

        "Symbian would have died. Moving it to Accenture gives Symbian some more life*."

        Your'e having a fuc'king larf!

        What happened when Mokia Networks moved it's basestation software developers - on the eve of Nokia/NSN transition - to Aricent?

        Yep, read their CV's and stories on Linkedin.

        If '*Life', you're talking about a month, I agree. I await my latest and final Symbian update for my N8 next month. I won't hold my breath. If the last update is as crap as I'd expect from something giving no ROI, then I'll 'accidentally' drop the fuc*ker, and buy a Samsung with the insurance.

        NOKIA - Connecting People.

        Now, NOKIA - Disconnecting Customers.

  2. semprance



    In the same way that the N9 can be said to bear "uncanny resemblance" to the iPhone? Stretching it a bit I reckon..

    1. elaine

      Good-bye, Nokia





  3. Jedibeeftrix

    "Nokia unveils first and last ever Meego phone"

    You might believe that, but I certainly don't.

    It is widely believed that there can only be three mainstream smartphone ecosystems, in addition to niche platforms such as RIM, and with Android and Apple IOS occupying two of those positions the race to be the third depends massively on the perception of momentum.

    Nokia want to be (a part of) that third platform and they didn’t have confidence that MeeGo could take them there.

    But even if adopting Win7 mobile for smartphones was a ‘necessary’ choice for Nokia, what does it mean for open platforms like Meego whose competitive advantage is enhanced by its cross-platform development environment?

    On the surface it looks pretty bad:

    1. MeeGo is no longer a smartphone platform, it has now become a smartphone ‘project’ which will limit itself a single 2011 release before morphing into R&D for future concepts. What this means is that stage 5 of 5 will probably not attract much commercial developer interest, nor see investment in services expected of a tier one device.

    2. QT will not be offered as a development platform for Nokia Win7 phones, that will be in the hands of Microsoft, effectively killing Nokia’s ambition to see QT as the premier mobile development platform. What this means is that as far as Nokia is concerned QT has very little utility as a strategic asset and so investment will plummet.

    3. Microsoft Marketplace will replace Ovi-Store as the store for applications on Nokia Win7 devices, and this is unlikely to be made available to MeeGo devices. This may not matter quite as much as it initially appears however as an entirely separate app-store ecosystem has grown up around Nokia/MeeGo in the form of Project Bretzn.

    This is in no way a desirable outcome as far as this blog is concerned, for there is no dream of a mainstream open platform any longer, but perhaps it will survive as a niche platform?

    Nokia currently spends nearly three times as much on R&D as its peers. So when we see that investment by Nokia will decline by a third, and investment in MeeGo will be squeezed to less than half of what it was, perhaps we need a little perspective.

    MeeGo alone will probably see an annual investment of circa $200 million. If we likewise contrast that to the circa $800 million to be invested in “Windows Phone” then we can guess that “MeeGo” phones will attract as much as one fifth of the investment that Nokia will put into “Mobile Phones – Platforms” as well as “Services” which amounts to circa $350 million per year. That said, $350 million would be the upper ceiling given that MeeGo is now a ‘project’ rather than a platform, so lets halve that figure and call it $175 million a year in platforms and services.

    So, in a like-for-like comparison with competitors, a total investment of around $400 million dollars a year doesn’t appear too desperate, provided one understands that it is being kept as a niche platform and not promoted as a mainstream competitor to Android and Apples IOS.

    It should also be noted that Nokia show Win7 as replacing the Symbian platform which occupies the mid-to-high end of the companies offering, a total that represents less than 60% of Nokia’s projected future sales.

    Nokia were quite happy to show the death of Symbian in graphic format, the same would be true for Meego, but they didn't.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      errrr so how come ...

      "the departure of most of the developers and Meego boss Alberto Torres" happened?

      They didn't have a lot of confidence in Nokia's commitment to Meego. Well, less than you seem to have.

    2. ulbdd

      Customers will decide

      Yes. Also, whatever the plans of Elop and Nokia board (and it doesn't look as their plan develop exactly as expected so far...), it will be the customers who will decide the future of Meego at Nokia.

      If sufficient Nokia users decide to try the N9, it will have support. Particularly if WP7 continues to be the commercial flop it currently is. And whatever Elop preference is, because in the end it's the bottom line that counts.

      Another factor there: I'm sure a lot of employees in Nokia are rooting for the N9 vs. WP7 phones and don't see them as Microsoft OEM. They'll push all they can for the N9. If there is sufficient support in front from Nokia phone users, there can be a meeting of souls and money following to turn the big shots opinion in time.

      So in the crazy situation Nokia is right now the future is actually more open that what PR declarations from high on want people to believe.

      A beer, as a toast, to all the Nokia people who worked on bringing what looks like a nice phone is such an adverse context. I may get one myself.

    3. Lance 3

      Nokia App Store

      Actually Nokia will still have their own App Store when WP7 comes around. So you are quite wrong in that there will be no Nokia Ovi store; you are correct in that there will be no Ovi as Nokia has dropped that name. They will have a store though.

      Nokia still has Qt and is the main developer behind it. Qt still remains a part of Nokia and I believe I see what Elop is doing. Elop sees that the phone OS is not relevant in the future. HTML 5 will allow apps to run on the handset and not really be an app at all. So that does change the ecosystem somewhat. It doesn't require an app store. There will be a need for native apps though and this is where Qt comes into play. Microsoft may not have plans for Qt on WP7, but Nokia apparently has been given the go ahead for changes. Case in point, their own app store.

      Here is what Elop has said about the deal:


      At the same time we have to make sure we can differentiate within the Windows Phone ecosystem. Nokia has exclusive technologies – one example is our camera technology that you see on the N8 – and, because of this unique relationship with Microsoft, contribute capabilities like that to a Nokia Windows Phone 7 phone that you will not see on any other Windows Phone device.

      We have the ability to do customizations and extensions to the software environment that are unique and therefore differentiate. It’s very important to understand this is not a standard OEM agreement. Microsoft is placing a big bet on us.”

      So Nokia can do quite a bit of customization and make their products different. I expect that Nokai will take WP7 and put their UI on it along with Qt. This will allow WP7 apps as well as Qt apps to run on the handset. Nokis is just looking at having someone else manage the OS much like Symbian was and Nokia just put their UI on it. WP7 is their next Symbian and keeps Nokia from investing money into a OS, they just invest in a UI. If WP7 and future releases doesn't cut it, Nokia can take MeeGo or another OS and just put Qt and their UI on it and it will be transparent to the user. You have app portability at that point. So WP7 from Nokia will not be the WP7 that you currently know of. It doesn't take 8-months to get a handset out the door given the requirements Microsoft has for WP7. The manufacturers are just assemblers at that point and Microsoft give a rough reference design. Nokia is working on the UI/Qt port while they are waiting for Mango from Microsoft. That is why it will take 8-months for a Nokia WP7 handset.

  4. Rosco

    Microsoft licensing?


    What does Windows licensing have to do with MeeGo? Did I miss something?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      probably an observation that


      Or something.

  5. Ru


    I'd been waiting patiently for an upgrade to the N900. This is most assuredly not it. If they'd managed a physical keyboard on the thing they'd at least have managed to sell to enthusiast types, but as it is this offers absolutely nothing over an Android device. Who'd going to bother buying this? Unless it comes out at a bargain basement price, no-one. I'm sure that'll be used as a justification for abandoning the platform.

    What a disappointment. Nokia deserve to be MS resellers.

    1. Anonymous Coward

      Observe the past

      "I'd been waiting patiently for an upgrade to the N900."

      If by that you mean an actual software upgrade for the N900 hardware, you need to study history a bit better.

      N770 came out. Had one update. N800 came out, N770 abandoned - no system updates from Nokia (yes, there was the Hacker edition, largely done by the community).

      N800 came out. Had one update. N810 came out, N800 abandoned (at least from a system level. True, the N800 and the N810 were compatible at the application level, but no real system updates.)

      N810 WiMAX came out. Nobody really cared, as WiMAX was stillborn due to the cell carriers being afraid to roll it out.

      N900 came out. N8?0 abandoned.

      That was a large part of why Nokia failed in the smartphone market - they would abandon older phones and OSs in a cocaine heartbeat, as soon as 'teh new shinee" came out. That may work for dumb phones that people don't expect to upgrade or even to really hang on to, but for a smartphone it was the kiss of death.

      (says a bitter owner of BOTH a N770 and N800. Now I have an Android phone).

      1. Anonymous Coward


        I have an N95 and an E71 and Nokia abandoned both about a year before let's say Apple abandoned the iDevices released simultaneously with them.

      2. AdamWill

        look before you leap

        "That was a large part of why Nokia failed in the smartphone market"

        erm, really? The N770, N800 and N810 weren't smartphones, in that they weren't phones (or barely were, in the case of the N810 WiMax). They were internet tablets and they were _specifically_ aimed at developers; part of this was that it was pretty bleeding obvious they weren't going to support them when they had a new developer device out. Most of the people I know who had those devices seemed to understand that perfectly well in advance.

        The N900 was a smartphone, but it too was very clearly positioned as a developer device, not a mass market one, with very limited support commitments. If you didn't recognize that going in, well, more fool you, really.

        1. Anonymous Coward

          Re: look before you leap


          By stating this, you indicate and yet excuse why Nokia have failed in the smartphone/tablet market: every Nxxx device was an excuse which said, "We're not ready to line up the ducks just yet. Here's another go!" Add the continuous platform reshuffling and you've managed only to capture developers willing to develop for one or maybe two models, the audience for which is at most a few thousand people (who are also developers, not the mass-market), who you then manage to annoy by not really supporting the hardware properly at all. (Stern Finnish voice: "You do not need to look inside this black box or question why it does not work properly! Why do you want it to work with a different kernel?")

          More fool Nokia, as everyone can clearly see.

    2. Tom Chiverton 1

      There's always

      There's always the N950 that was also announced that does have a proper keyb, but that's got 'for developer' all over the marketing, and afaik not even a hardware guaranty.

      Guess I upgrade to Android from N900 then...

  6. Syren Baran

    Burning plattform?

    If MeeGo is on par with the hardware, this might be pretty awesome.

    Will we get a review any time soon?

    1. Spearchucker Jones

      I've played with one.

      It's well impressive. It has the best maps app I've ever seen on a smartphone.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can't agree with Orlowski on this one ...

    Most consumers don't give a f**k what is running on their phones as long as it looks good.

    This phone, looks good, is well built and, for a smartphone, is very simple to use. There are three home screens, one for all your communications, one for all your apps and one for all your running apps. I think this makes this phone the easiest to use out of all others. Certainly a piece of piss to learn. Show someone the three screens and the swipe gestures to summon them and that's it. Also, the best AF 8MP camera phone on the market.

    It has, at least, the potential to sell like hotcakes. The market will decide is that is so.

    Samsung dumped a few million Bada phones on the market and nobody gave a sh!t, they sold lots of them, they basically created a whole ecosystem overnight. Meego is an easier play than that as it can already run all the QT apps (and probably Android apps before too long).

    I think Nokia will support this and release future models also, for no other reason (even though there are more than a few) to let MS know that Nokia do not depend on them completely.

    I also think Orlowski is confusing the N9 with the N950. The N950 will be for hobbyists and developers as Nokia intended. The N9 is quite obviously a mainstream play, I mean, just look at it FFS

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: I can't agree with Orlowski on this one ...

      Er. No.

      1. Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: I can't agree with Orlowski on this one

        Er. Yes then...

        Noted, Article Title Change.

    2. Paul 172
      Thumb Up

      @AC 09:51

      No, you are right, the n950 is a distinct device;

      I thought it was going to be called the N9, too.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Neil Hoskins

      I tend to agree

      The Maemo tablet series bubbled along quite happily in the background until they made the catastrophic decision to chuck it all in the bin and start again. This is the 'start again' and I must say it looks quite good. I agree the average spoilt-rich-numpty doesn't give a toss what OS his/her phone is running. The UI looks intuitive and simple. The third party apps look good (they've had plenty of time to get them right, let's be honest). If the price is right and it's bug-free on launch, I think it may well sell. Apart from anything else, it's an alternative if the first windows devices turn out to be crap. Certainly the flash support and tethering-out-of-the-box is one in the eye for the fanbois.

    4. tmTM

      Yes, they do.

      Some people may 'try' a meego nokia, but they will soon be very put off by the lack of apps and the inability to get hold of whatever app their iOS and android friends are raving about.

      They'll soon get fed up of the same niggling problems that the phone has and which never get fixed.

      Some people may try this Nokia, but you can be sure they won't return for the next one.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward



    Like what?

    For example....Camera - Symbian N8 12MP, Meego N9, 8MP. Both record/playback 720p, but I would be surprised int he N9 record is as good as the N8 (fps etc), given the device doing the encoding.

    Where are the spec deficiencies on the N8? I don't include processor power - Symbian doesn't need a 1Ghz processor to run at the same user speed as Android/Meego etc, so that's a red herring. What else?

    1. tmTM

      both are rubbish

      By todays standards both are poorly specced.

      The N8 runs an ARM11 processor, so no native flash there.

      The N9 runs something that can be considered a mid-range chip from one of last years models.

      Compared to the recent rash of super powerful dual-core android releases, or even Sony's single core (but very pretty) phones, the spec of the N9 is almost comical at how far behind the pack it is.

      Some people would say 'raw speed isn't everything', but would you really buy a slower meego phone when you can get a faster android one for equal or less money?!?

      1. foo_bar_baz


        I still don't understand the fixation with clock speed. If then N9 can play back HD video (Matroska FTW), the UI is smooth and multitasking works nicely (many Ifs there), then what do you need more megaherz or cores for?

        This coming from a gamer who's jumped off the annual PC update hamster wheel. The games I play look nice as it is ...

        1. tmTM


          I don't understand the great speed race either, how ever my point still stands:

          Would you buy this phone if another phone with faster graphics and processor was available for equal or less money??

          I'm thinking most would go for the faster phone.

          Although this N9 packs NFC - wether or not thats interesting to people only time will tell.

  9. Puck

    looks beautiful

    why didn't its designers go to work on the preceding generations of nokia phones?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "This is something Windows licensees aren't permitted to do by Microsoft"

    Nokia, what have you done?

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      One Possible Answer

      ""This is something Windows licensees aren't permitted to do by Microsoft" .... Nokia, what have you done?" ...... enigmatix Posted Tuesday 21st June 2011 10:13 GMT

      Apparently cracked Microsoft Core Code Algorithm/Virtual Driver.

      1. Anonymous Coward

        cracked Microsoft Core Code Algorithm/Virtual Driver?


        > Apparently cracked Microsoft Core Code Algorithm/Virtual Driver, amanfromMars 1

        The author was makes the point that Nokia are abiding by the Microsoft licensing conditions. What was your point. Please translate into English for the benefit of us who haven't visited your planet.


        "Ekkeri-akairi, fillissin-follas. Kivi a-kavi, nakalas! Nakalas! Ukair-an ... jan, jan, jan"

        1. cd
          Thumb Up

          Better analogy

          Actually the analogy uses Butter and lake-effect snow, to describe a paradigm shift in the Microsoft Agreement Driver Alporhythym, wherein a change of recipe finds them eating their own dogfood (whereas their partners end up eating what comes out the other end...) Since it's obvious how those all work together to produce the current situation I won't bother to spell it out. Get with it!

  11. David Hicks

    Almost sold

    There are some good hardware upgrades there, but NO KEYBOARD?

    The physical keyboard is the only thing that makes using things like the python development environment and the terminal in any way tolerable!

    And no, there's not really a joke or any sarcasm in that. I actually like being able to do that sort of thing on my phone.

    The sad thing is that it's still probably the best phone on the market for the likes of me.

    1. Anonymous Coward

      Bluetooth baby

      "There are some good hardware upgrades there, but NO KEYBOARD?"

      Sorry, but my Android phone has a "keyboard" - I use scare quotes because it is too small to do anything useful on.

      You want a physical keyboard? Use a Bluetooth keyboard like the Nokia keyboard or the Stowaway. You will have an almost-real-sized keyboard, with real number keys that don't take a function key to work, and real symbol keys, that you can touch-type on.

      That's what I used on my N800, and were I going to get serious about anything command line like on my Android, I'd pair it to the keyboard.

      1. Tim Walker

        Apple BT keyboard

        I use an Apple wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard with my N8 - it works like a dream for remote-controlling the phone when it's linked up to our telly. Even more so when I add in my BT mouse...

        (if there isn't a pocket-protector icon down there, there should be ;-) )

        1. David Hicks

          Yeah, I know

          But it is an extra thing to carry. i like the slidy keyboard on the N900. I know it's a brick compared to a lot of the newest smart phoens, but that doesn't bother me all that much.

  12. bamalam

    Shows what could have been

    A classy looking phone that Nokia probably could have announced at MWC rather than the suicide note of switching to MS and WP7. Going with MeeGo would have meant that developers using Qt could have developed for the millions of Symbian S^3 phones already out there. It could have prolonged the life of Symbian and allow Nokia to keep their own app store and the revenue stream from it.

    It was Elop who set fire to the platform yet we now have a MeeGo phone about six months ahead of WP7 one from them. I believe MeeGo particularly because it is so open. Interesting to see if China Mobile make use of it.

    1. foo_bar_baz

      I'll want one

      Even if it's not 100% polished, it's a true Linux phone and buying one is a nice way of flipping the bird to Mr. Elop.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @I'll want one

        Me too, in a slightly sad, end of an era, linux fanboi kind-of-a-way

        sighs, looks wistfully to the middle distance, shakes head, sighs again

  13. Piloti

    Life Long Nokia fan............

    I have an E65 right now and will use this 'till it blows up.

    But what are the options : google with it's control and pseudo open source ? Nope. Apple with its..... everything ? Never.

    MS on Nokia hardware ? I doubt it.

    The thing that made Nokia so @#$!ing brilliant was the software made the hardware so simple to use, no matter how 'smart' the device was.

    I really hope my E65 last as long as it takes Nokia to realise MS is simply not the way to go.


  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    far from a dead end...

    ...using Alien Dalvik you can run any android app on Meego. this could be what I've been waiting for - a Linux phone without the Google lock-in.

    Just wish it was the originally envisaged N97-alike-QWERTY-slider that I wanted to replace my Desire Z

  15. GregC
    Thumb Down

    No keyboard = no sale

    Like many others I've been waiting for the N9 in the hope it would be the N900 successor I'm looking for. Then I heard the rumours it would be sans keyboard, and gave up hope. Then someone in another comment thread on here gave me some hope back that it might be a slider after all - sadly the first rumours were right after all :(

    I would have been happy going with it as a "first and last" Meego Nokia, as the community around the platform is reasonably strong and it appeals to my inner geek - but the lack of a keyboard is a deal breaker.

    The sad thing is the rest of the spec is pretty much exactly what I'm after and it's a nice looking bit of kit too, but no keyboard.... sorry Nokia, and goodbye. Back to the seemingly vain wait for the phone I want.

  16. netean
    Thumb Up

    why oh why

    Can't help but think that Nokia's Microsoft love affair will be the death knell of Nokia. A once mighty, lovely platform, Symbian was great in its day (and maybe still could be, I don't know as I haven't seen the N8 in action)

    Meego, on the surface looks a great idea, and a great platform, that Nokia could have developed to whatever specs they needed rather than retrofit Windows crapness.

    Sad to say but I suspect that in few years we'll be lamenting the demise of Nokia and they'll be the Singer Sewing Machines of the 21st century.

    1. hamlet

      .. oh why

      I got my wife a Nokia C7 (like the N8, but a bit cheaper), which in general has a much nicer feel to it than my Motorola Milestone, and doesn't crash as much. I do like the slide out keyboard on my Milestone though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        My wife has a C7 too...

        It really does seem to be a popular device with the ladies - sports many of the features of the N8 (which I own), but with what seems to me to be a bit more "feminine" style (whatever that may mean).

        When I think how close she came to owning a Samsung Tocco Lite... [shudder]... thank you, Carphone Warehouse, for advising us differently...

  17. cloudgazer

    That N9 is pretty darned pretty

    The pictures on the inquirer make the curved glass of the screen pop a bit more - it's a remarkable looking object. From a design perspective it seems that Nokia is capable of playing on the same level as Apple, which frankly Samsung and HTC aren't - so I can only hope that their experience with WP7 isn't a disaster for them.

    The omens aren't good though, I can't think of a case of a microsoft phone platform being a serious success, but hey - nothing is impossible.

    1. Rosco

      Depends on your definition of success

      Windows Mobile had, at one point, 24% market share of smartphones. Over the course of a decade many, many millions of handsets were sold. In the US in particular, it was hugely more popular than anything Nokia made. Of course, it was a shit platform but it's hard to define 24% market share as not a serious success.

      1. Goat Jam

        It Would Be Wise To Remember

        That the 24% market share was when the smartphone market was relatively tiny.

        At the time there were no credible platforms, consumers had no interest in smartphones at all and the only people buying smartphones were the odd geek, some tech obsessed executards and workers such as courier drivers that were required to use one for job scheduling and box tracking etc.

        It was a tiny niche market in comparison to todays market.

        RIM blew MS out of the water and then apple crushed them into tiny little pieces.

        Why? Because they made platforms that people actually wanted to use and put Windows Mobile into stark relief as the unfriendly and unattractive platform that it really was.

  18. Pseu Donyme

    Must wonder

    ... why not keep Meego on the back burner if for no other reason than to keep Microsoft honest (or moreso than insisting on the exclusive use Windows). A handful (ok, a few tens) of people would suffice to keep the option open by targeting an occasional device.

    1. bamalam

      Elop is an MS stooge...

      ... and because he is, he would have allowed MS to block this sort of option off in the agreement with MS. Elop buried Symbian and stated that the MeeGo phone would be an experimental device killing off a lot of interest from potential devs. Qt and QML in particular makes MeeGo an excellent platform for Devs and MS would like to see that buried.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Must wonder

      "to keep Microsoft honest" errr sorry what?

      good luck with that.

  19. Anonymous Coward

    Elop = wtf ?!?





  20. Neill Mitchell

    Bloody hypocrites

    So Nokia are currently running a glossy big money ad campaign saying how the N8 is the best phone in the world and yet they are dropping the Symbian platform. Shameless hypocrisy.

    This jump to Microsoft is typical of Nokia's floundering. Here's news for you Nokia - there are no quick fixes. Stick to your guns for once and see something through properly instead of knee jerking when things get tough. It never works, as you keep proving.

    1. Philip Lewis

      Flioundering? Hypocrites?


      Elop is a Manchurian candidate

      He has burned all the R&D and software bridges at Nokia, climbed into bed with MS and those moves waxed 40% of the market cap.

      Elop just forgot in his eagerness that he still needs to sell phones while he waits for MS to deliver a working OS for new Nokia badged toys - therefore the plans in place before Elop made his monumental announcement need to be executed.

      Note also, that Elop has been backpedalling about symbian, where 2016 is now bandied around as EOL.

      I am sure these new devices are fine phones and plenty of people will buy them. Most people do not give a FF what OS is running on a phone, as long as the price is right and the device meets the user's percieved needs.

  21. Hypnotist

    Nokia as an innovator

    Everyone focuses on the Windows Phone stuff, but disappointingly few analysts are looking further than that. Having both Meego and S40 running QT apps in the very near future, free to do whatever they want with them, while getting credibility from the American investors for going with a company those investors have actually heard of, is actually starting to look rather smart (assuming this isn't just a flash in the pan).

    Nokia is the firm that made the 7110, the 3650, the 7600, the 7280 and 7380, the 7370, the 9500 and the E70. About time they got back to just putting phones out to see what works and what doesn't, rather than worrying about every phone being a blockbuster success. (Of course they need the blockbuster successes too...)

    1. Charles Manning

      Nokia was an innovator

      There. Fixed your typo.

      As a customer or developer, I don't really care what a company did ten years ago. I care what they do now and what they are going to do in the future.

      I don't care if they switch to Meego, or whatever, so long as they show me a reasonable roadmap showing some commitment to the platform.

  22. Lars Silver badge

    I wonder

    if Elop knew from the beginning that Nokia would loose half of its value as soon as he announced the killing of all Nokia platforms.

    Did he actually believe that the Microsoft deal would be such a success for investors.

    Has he lived within Microsoft and its balloon for too long.

    Why not just tell that Nokia has a deal to (eventually) deliver WinPhones too.

    I cannot see why this fast and abrupt killing of other platforms was necessary.

    I hope I am wrong, but I have this feeling that his capacity to run Nokia is just not there.

    An elephant in a china shop.

    And yes give us a review of the Meego phone.

    has something about it.

  23. introiboad

    This actually looks pretty good...

    Engadget has videos of this thing running, and I am impressed for the first time in ages with regard to Nokia.

  24. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Look on the bright side

    Nokia might not bother setting up app ecosystem for it now but it it's not as much of a dead end as it seems, it runs Dalvik.

    This is the differentiator that Nokia could have used to set their phones apart from the other mobile OSes and yet have an instant large app marketplace while developers pick up speed with Meego/QT.

    A minute's silence for what could have been.

  25. Herer


    It looks great. Sure I would like a qwerty, and that may come (N8 and then E7), but just look at it..

  26. AB

    <Various talking heads> putting the anal back in analyst

    Is it just me who's sick of hearing tech analysts trash-talk that which they barely understand? One reason that things are sometimes hard to sell is a load of simplistic quotes from Gartner et al.

    ...of course, Nokia haven't helped themselves much these last 10 years either. But still: the N9 has fantastic potential. And I am gonna buy one.

  27. MS Rocks

    @ herer

    It already looks out of date (huge list of icons to scroll through anytime you want to do anything anyone?). Most of the other 'innovative' features they showed exist on other phone OS's with possibly the exception of that view of running applications. That was quite neat. But hardly a reason to buy a phone.

    What they did not show are the email clients (at all) or the web browser (in any level of detail). These are the features I use most on my phone.

    They also probably only have about 10 apps in their app store as no developers will target the platform.

    So all in all, a huge fail for the OS.

    The hardware looks nice though. I may buy one when they put a decent (WinPhone) OS on it.

    1. Tim Parker

      @MS Rocks

      "So all in all, a huge fail for the OS."

      Huge fail for the OS or the review ?

      "What they did not show .."

      "They also probably only .."

      Look at your qualifiers - what was not shown and what you suspect. You may be correct in your conclusion, but I really don't think you, me or anyone could make that call from the video plus your guesswork.

      "I may buy one when they put a decent (WinPhone) OS on it."

      Given your user name, that comment wasn't really that surprising.. perhaps what might be - to you at least - is that different people actually quite like a few different operating systems, phone-based or not, regardless of whether you think them decent or not.

  28. Christian Berger

    There is no difference between developer and user

    High end users automatically write their own programmes. On the Windows platform this leads to horrible VBA scripts. On Unix(oid) platforms this leads to horrible shell scripts. But those scripts get their job done way more efficiently than doing it per hand. The languages allow to write a program which is efficient even for only a single use.

    That's why we need proper computers in such mobile devices. That's why we need shells more than finger gestures or facebook screens.

    Unfortunately there is a lot of hostility against computers in our societies. People have stopped to learn how to program. I've seen graduated engineers _complaining_ they cannot find a job and furiously trying to refute it's because they don't understand programming.

  29. tin 2

    Typical Nokia

    I really like the look of the phone - kind of an iPhone cross iPod nano 2g mashup. For some reason my interest is piqued. I hit up the link in the article. Presumably it has been checked, or even cut-n-pasted from the URL bar of someone actually visiting the page at the time.

    "OOPS It looks like the page you're trying to find isn't available"

    so I stuck N9 in the search box, and got a nice bold this-is-definitely-what-youre-looking-for type search result at the top of the list. Hit that link and "OOPS It looks like the page you're trying to find isn't available" WHAT? from your OWN search engine?!

    VERY VERY typical of Nokia. I saw many of these pages when I was trying to sort out my CWM subscription, which also aptly demonstrated that Nokia employ a bunch of morons in their support function. CWM/Ovi music (pretty much the only bit of Nokia I have interacted with in recent years) displays popup windows full of jibberish and locks up until I pay attention to it, and has old-school fat client software that actually gets buggier and slower with each new release. Their support site is full of these kind of 404s or links for detailed information that plonk you back to the most generic of FAQ index pages.

    Bumbling idiots can mash a working website together these days, it's a pretty well established art. If Nokia can't manage it, my confidence they can manage much else is severely dinted.

  30. Herer

    MS Rocks? Is that a joke?!

    No. Just.. no. "Looks" fine to me - slick UI, but I prefer function and usability to be the measure of such a device.

    This N9 is the successor to the N900 which is a truly excellent phone. Maps, great camera, flexible OS, no need to use the bloated zune app as your interface with the computah. Being an open (and evidently not burning) platform this looks just as versatile to me

    Have you actually used a WP7? If so tell me how it was innovative compared to what you have just seen. You try and get the photos off your WP7 and you'll see it's terrible.

  31. Andus McCoatover

    And I thought Andrew Orlowski was scathing...


    (Icon == Burning platform)

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