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
Yeah, Apple today really do look like Nokia did in 2006, particularly their self indulgent tendencies. (If you were in Europe at the time this is far clearer - the north american cellphone market was nothing like as advanced pre-iPhone).
The N95 is a great example because the internals were superb, but the software was just so poorly conceived. S60 started in the wrong place and the more they worked on it the less it seemed like making it remotely usable was a priority.
The noise from Symbian at the time was that Nokia would get a new chip in and then come up with some lunatic scheme that involved using all the new CPU power in the stupidest way possible, causing newer versions to have even worse performance over time.
Their lunacy wasn't confined to S60 ( <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3650" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3650 ), they also released madness like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7600" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7600 . It's no surprise that during this time SonyEricsson started making serious inroads on them with things like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_K750" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_K750
from my memory, the OS on Nokias was just fine. it was great. it just wasn't a smartphone OS
which makes sense because they had these half button half touchscreen hybrid phones
the internet browsing features were something akin to like paid phone numbers which you'd avoid using because it was like special stuff
it wasn't first class in any way, it was perpetually stuck in the past. and as you can see, their entire business model was based on iterating on the same thing in a million ways, so there's no way they were gonna do something from the ground up to focus on a first class experience for one form factor which could support 3rd party developers etc.
> from my memory, the OS on Nokias was just fine. it was great. it just wasn't a smartphone OS
Nokia had at least three tiers of OS: Series 30, Series 40 (which had subseries) and Series 60. It was S60 which was the smartphone Symbian based one which is where they went especially nuts.
S40 was actually really good and solid, and if someone remembers the UI of a Nokia fondly it's almost certainly a S30 or S40 device. A bit basic, but for a feature phone of that era it was great. The reason SonyEricsson started gaining market share was their phones were more like improved S40 devices (like higher fidelity UIs) than Nokia's S60 lines which were . . . not.
The E61 had S60v3 and it was weird but really very usable. A device that was in many ways ahead of its time. VoIP, Webkit, fully usable IMAP email.
But Nokia smartphones were essentially shut out of the US phone market by the toxic carrier-exclusives situation and their corrupt allergy to on-device Wifi (Nokia couldn't get a major carrier to take the E61 until they repackaged it as the E62 without wifi)
There was also s80 for the 9200/9500 and the s90 family of devices that didn’t get much beyond 2005.
Sad really as I worked several of the UI parts. We had a fully customisable Home Screen where you could add and remove pages, move app icons - long before iPhone or android. It all got bined due to management preferring keyboard devices over touch screens.
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
adev_ · · focus · HN ↗
You mean like Apple today ?
The Apple watch is from 2015.
What new product Apple produced since Tim Cook took over ?
The iPhone Duo ? Ironically it has quite a smell of Nokia N95 all over again.
fidotron · · focus · HN ↗
The N95 is a great example because the internals were superb, but the software was just so poorly conceived. S60 started in the wrong place and the more they worked on it the less it seemed like making it remotely usable was a priority.
The noise from Symbian at the time was that Nokia would get a new chip in and then come up with some lunatic scheme that involved using all the new CPU power in the stupidest way possible, causing newer versions to have even worse performance over time.
Their lunacy wasn't confined to S60 ( <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3650" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3650 ), they also released madness like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7600" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7600 . It's no surprise that during this time SonyEricsson started making serious inroads on them with things like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_K750" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_K750
r_lee · · focus · HN ↗
which makes sense because they had these half button half touchscreen hybrid phones
the internet browsing features were something akin to like paid phone numbers which you'd avoid using because it was like special stuff
it wasn't first class in any way, it was perpetually stuck in the past. and as you can see, their entire business model was based on iterating on the same thing in a million ways, so there's no way they were gonna do something from the ground up to focus on a first class experience for one form factor which could support 3rd party developers etc.
fidotron · · focus · HN ↗
Nokia had at least three tiers of OS: Series 30, Series 40 (which had subseries) and Series 60. It was S60 which was the smartphone Symbian based one which is where they went especially nuts.
S40 was actually really good and solid, and if someone remembers the UI of a Nokia fondly it's almost certainly a S30 or S40 device. A bit basic, but for a feature phone of that era it was great. The reason SonyEricsson started gaining market share was their phones were more like improved S40 devices (like higher fidelity UIs) than Nokia's S60 lines which were . . . not.
dofm · · focus · HN ↗
But Nokia smartphones were essentially shut out of the US phone market by the toxic carrier-exclusives situation and their corrupt allergy to on-device Wifi (Nokia couldn't get a major carrier to take the E61 until they repackaged it as the E62 without wifi)
markb139 · · focus · HN ↗