I think browsing this gives you a good idea of why Nokia failed. they really thought they had it all figured out and it was now time to lay back and just try out random shit.
they would never have the same kind of focus or philosophy as Apple, nor the willpower to pivot to real smartphones and a proper OS for them
> and it was now time to lay back and just try out random shit
To be fair we hadn't yet decided that phones should be a flat tablet with a screen on one side that ran apps - they were mostly for calling (possibly sending messages) and were being sold to everyone from subsistence farmers to western teenage girls who had vastly different requirements/desires - there were bricks, clamshells, flip-phones, camera phones, phones with changeable coloured covers.
point is they weren't pushing the technology, they were pushing the existing form factor, not thinking ahead.
I could be wrong, but I recall an exec at one of their events on stage doubling down and saying they know better than Apple - that people want buttons (or something like that), which basically means their decline was inevitable due to the culture
I thought something different. If I recall correctly, they did already make a full touchscreen phone prototype 3 years before, but they dismissed the idea because of how clunky the UX was. So they dismissed the iPhone because of that experience, they already researched the form factor, the hardware, and deduced it was a dead-end. But I am no Nokia engineer, I have no insight on that (and that may have lead them to developing Maemo/MeeGo, but by the time it arrived the corporates already decided the fate of Nokia).
r_lee · · focus · HN ↗
they would never have the same kind of focus or philosophy as Apple, nor the willpower to pivot to real smartphones and a proper OS for them
helsinkiandrew · · focus · HN ↗
To be fair we hadn't yet decided that phones should be a flat tablet with a screen on one side that ran apps - they were mostly for calling (possibly sending messages) and were being sold to everyone from subsistence farmers to western teenage girls who had vastly different requirements/desires - there were bricks, clamshells, flip-phones, camera phones, phones with changeable coloured covers.
r_lee · · focus · HN ↗
I could be wrong, but I recall an exec at one of their events on stage doubling down and saying they know better than Apple - that people want buttons (or something like that), which basically means their decline was inevitable due to the culture
dadoum · · focus · HN ↗