Sorry to say so, but that’s the truth. And if not going down, at least they are in trouble.
I don’t think I will be buying a Nokia again. Actually, the Nokia phones I’ve had have all worked pretty well. There might be exceptions, but at least all the Nokias I’ve used have been sturdy and even battery life has been ok.
The problem is not the hardware, but the software. Or actually, it’s not even the software that’s the real problem. It’s time. Nokia hasn’t been moving fast enough. And now it might be too late. To be a market leader makes you arrogant, it seems, and sooner or later arrogance will cost you. It’s just a law of business.
Syncing my phone never worked for me, because I was on a mac. Ok, so I stubbornly don’t go with the flow and all that, but with all the money Nokia raked in you would have thought that they could have afforded a programmer or two to make a syncing software for the mac, since they were building that kind of software for the pc-people. But no.
I still stuck with Nokia, because they didn’t really have any competition. I felt. I’ve tried phones from other companies but have only had bad experiences. I won’t go into the details. At least in my mind, there was no good alternative, although there must be some decent phones out there that can very well compete with Nokia.
I’m getting an iPhone. They should start selling them everywhere. I believe they have to take the lid of this restriction really soon. They would be hindering sales and market growth otherwise. Apple is not the nicest of companies, but they sure are good. Ever since the iPhone came out, I’ve been amused by all the “we’re not worried” comments from Nokia (and others). They are all scrambling. It’s like somebody pulled their pants down in public. I just think they had it coming, all of them, for not caring enough about the GUI and the user experience.
Phones have been gathering features so fast, the user experience was walked all over. The iPhone doesn’t even have all the features many of the other ones do. Yet. Version 1.0 has what they deemed as the most important features. But what it does have makes all the difference.
It’s nice if your phone can tell you where you are (GPS), but we usually do know where we are. It’s also nice if the phone fits in your pocket, but if it becomes too small, it defeats it’s own purpose.
The iPhone is cool - practical - easy. And Apple is thinking beyond the phone. To the computer, and further to content you might want on your phone.
Those are the three keywords.
Cool, it is beautiful. The touchscreen with multi-touch is a stroke of genius, and it’s very well executed. It’s using capasitance instead of pressure.
Practical, it does what you need really well under the circumstances. A tiny screen sucks, unless it’s your watch and you just want to see what time it is. If you want to surf the web, read your email, etc. a tiny screen is worth nothing. So Apple made the screen as big as possible. Should have been a no-brainer.
Easy, they really sat down and rethought the interface a phone could have. Why is that so hard to do for all the other companies? Does Apple have all the GUI people of the planet working for them? I would think not. Probably what happened before, was that the other companies just didn’t care about the GUI. The people who called the shots kicked their local GUI people in the nuts. Now Apple is kicking those shot-calling-people’s nuts, and it must be painful.
Apple wasn’t first with any of the technologies AFAIK, and it sure didn’t invent the touchscreen. But it knew what to do with it, and they understand what the user experience is all about. The first hardware race (who has the fastest computer/gadget with the most features) is over. Right now what counts is the experience of order and ease. Every computer and gadget is now fast enough, speed is not what we need most anymore.
One of Nokias responses, although they said Apple was no threat, was that they showed a picture of a future phone of their own that look suspiciously like the iPhone. The whole phone was a screen, and it was thouch sensitive. No threat? (here’s some more discussion). The phone will be released maybe 2009, and might not have touchscreen. But there will be a more high end version that will feature touch screen. Maybe. Whatever.
Nokia also needed a new portal, Ovi (means door in Finnish), where they will host photos, music, maps and games. They suddenly realized that users want content. And people seem to like music, Apple has iTunes, so let’s get some music on there. And photos are hot! And maps. People love maps. The iPhone has maps, so we should have maps. They should have capitalized on their huge user base many years ago, but they have handled it sloppily.
They are really scrambling. And they really need the portal to take off too. So they do this. It just underlines how they are not getting what’s happening. (here’s another article)
The idea is you get free music (from one of the 5 big music publishers) for a year, download as much as you like. To your phone. Let’s me say that again. Buy a new expensive phone, then download as many songs as you can fit on your phone’s tiny memory card, and you can even keep them for a whole year. Sorry, can’t transfer them anywhere else (iPod, PC, etc.) Then buy a new phone to keep the download thing going after 12 months. The marketing word is free. Like that wouldn’t make users suspicious.
They are still insulting the user, but they found a new way to do it! The GUI in the phone still sucks, but now you can also get your content-leg pulled, if that’s what you want.
Amazingly, they even invited Apple to join Ovi. That’s so outrageously stupid I can hardly believe it. It would be a smart move for Nokia if Apple would be so dumb that they’d join. But why on earth would they? And since they won’t, the invite just puts Nokia in a bad light by showing how desperate they are.
Nokia won’t go away tomorrow yet, it’s a huge company. They were caught sleeping, and now thaty they’ve woken up, they try to just brush it off as nothing big. But they have seen their peak. There’s the door Nokia. See ya.
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