How different (or better) would Nokia be doing if they:

#1
Rolled out the N97 without the CLEAR shortcomings:

• No scratching on the camera lens by its cover
• Qwerty with better tactile feel and response
• More RAM (eg 256MB)
• Used a Capactitave multi-touchscreen

Do you think N97 would've been a geater success?
Do you think Nokia investors would've been more happy and continue on with support?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
#2 How different (or better) would Nokia be doing if they:

• MMS worked right out of the box
• USB-HOST works out of the box
• Used a Capactitave multi-touchscreen (ensures better finger-response but die-hards could always buy a cheap Cap-stylus if they desire)

Do you think N900 would've been a geater success?
Do you think Nokia investors would've been more happy and continue on with support?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
#3 (last) How different (or better) would Nokia be doing if they:

• Told N900 owners that a firmware update would be available to MeeGo 1.1 (or Maemo 6) - but probably after they launch the MeeGo phone

Do you think N900 would've been a geater success?
Do you think Nokia investors would've been more happy and continue on with support?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's talk and brainstorm this one-out people, I'm really curious about your views!

Let's not overly underestimate these paid guns.
They've probably underestimated the competition and overestimated the n97's perceived strengths, but those weren't the sole factors in Nokia's downfall.

Even with all those n97 'fixes' in place, i don't think it would've affected how the n97 garnered market mindshare all that much.

I don't think they'd do much that much better if they use capacitive screen on N900. IMO ovi (or lack of it) affects Nokia's market presence so much more than any spec/hardware deficiencies.

Healthy (content) marketplace can bring significant number of developers, other providers and new users which in turn will make waves in evangelizing the platform. What we have now are more people who wants to crucify Nokia for using 90s business model in 2010.

The market is liquid. People's communication (trends, hypes) move like waves.
Apple has generated significant interest and hype in 'AppStore, multitouch, iPhone, etc.'. It's not a coincidence that many huge players try to ride that same wave, because they can enjoy some of the already generated publicity and market interest for 'free' rather than try to start their own from scratch.

ps: capacitive, not capacitative.

The 'capacitive or not' debate is grossly overrated and wouldn't make or break any product or company. I don't know about anyone who cares about it enough to select product based on that feature alone.

I think had the N900 been a capacitative screen, that would've given me that much less incentive to buy it. I hate this capacitive obsession nowadays. Multi-touch capable resistive screens have already been invented, and the N900, in my experience, is damn sensitive in so far as touch screens go. I have never had a problem with it not detecting a press (the only difference is that when using the stylus in mypaint there's a tiny gap at the edge of the screen where you have to press harder. But a capacitive screen wouldn't give you the accuracy to make such a distinction in the first place, at least not without an expensive special stylus).

As for "downfall" - did I actually miss something about Nokia's stock plummeting, or is this just a response to (or expression of) the apparent unpopularity of Nokia on this forum?

I feel like Nokia underestimates how much they could gain by open sourcing drivers for their hardware. It wouldn't be immediate, and it may even be slow enough that for a while it might cut into Nokia's financial wellbeing, but I think it wouldn't impact them significantly enough to actually bring them down. Nokia can already produce great hardware, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. And even with all of its imperfections, I personally thought Maemo was a damn good phone OS even before that many programs/apps got developed for / ported to it. But on the other hand, I felt that way about it because I could see missing functionality and know that eventually someone would code something to fill that gap.

My optimism has worn slightly, as my naive notion about how open Maemo was was replaced by an understanding of how many proprietary blobs the N900 actually has. But therein lies my point. I have no doubt that the N900 has indeed set a new standard in the minds of a small demographic of users, myself included. I hope that most of them, will, in turn, slightly affect the market by favoring phones that at least come close to the N900 in versatility and modifiability.

Yet had Nokia at least documented the interactions and workings of the closed drivers (but, ideally open sourced them), the N900 would be so much more by now, and would actually have been able to reach full potential of what it could be. Projects to get NITDroid onto the phone would take that much less time (though would probably be less necessary), as would projects to get things like USB Host Mode working. And that would in turn feed back to the N900's popularity. It wouldn't just be people showing off to the other tech-savvy about what obscure thing their N900 can do, it would also been that much less time before projects like host mode and porting other OSs became mature, which would have meant more impressing those more enthralled in Steve Job's reality distortion field and the gimmicks of the other popular phones, without having to first drill into them various technicalities that they couldn't care for.

And this, in turn, lets Nokia devices that in the future are released with similar ideas be that much more popular. This way instead of playing catch up in the market of gimmicky devices, "just working" phones and app stores, Nokia would create an entirely different wave that wouldn't even need advertising - the wave of making phone manufacturing a truly "mobile computer" manufacturing business. When you look at a computer nowadays, unless you're a die-hard mac fan and it HAS to be a Mac first, you look at the hardware specs, and then if you happen to care about OS, you either get/keep the Windows you get with it, or you find a way to buy it Window-less and/or install Linux or make it a 'Hackintosh' (Apple's Cease and Decist letters be damned).

Nokia should still, unless something changes drastically, be in a position to make that change, and keep enough low end phones pumped out to keep themselves from serious financial troubles. One can hope that Intel and Nokia, with their MeeGo, will do something like that. If they do, it won't be long before the iPhone is in the niche market, popular only among diehard Apple fans, while the rest of the higher-end smartphone world moves into putting out high quality hardware and, if they so wish, closed-source drivers. The phones themselves could ship with either Android, MeeGo, or whatever other open source or almost open source alternative becomes popular, and most users would still buy them as such, once that model gets popular, but in order for that model to get popular, phones have to be shipped mainly as just hardware, and the ability for the savvy end user to install whatever other semi-open/open OS on that phone they wish will propel the phones themselves into popularity.

Thanks for all the input, does anyone else have an opinion ...? No?

A whole bunch of "should have, could have, would have" won't advance their past mistakes - many of the aforesaid mistakes have been done by other companies as well - and ultimately their silence and typical disregard from any other culture outside of Nokia's own culture (read: they ain't paying attention to even this)... so what do you want to accomplish that hasn't been done in a many places across these boards and internet already?

N97 would have been a better phone if the OS was more... complete and less buggy. There are other things; but it boils down to the OS. But it wasn't a better phone, it'll go down as the disappointing next of kin of the well-loved N95.

N900 would have been a better (anything) if it were supported and pushed. It will go down as the hacker's haven for an internet tablet/phone hybrid. Know Linux, can program Qt, you're in luck.

The rest... dunno. Nokia will do what Nokia does.

"Capactitave multi-touchscreens" might have caused substantial icreases in sales (not sure if they'd made the devices better or worse though). The rest, pretty much irrelevant.

The problem is that everyone's vision of the perfect device is different and always will be. Some of the often repeated shortcomings of any product don't matter to many users one tiny little bit.

I base my purchase decisions on what features a device has and what weaknesses I'm willing to overlook. I'm hard pressed to think of anything that is perfect.

The toughest lesson I had to learn in business was that just just because a thing was better didn't mean people wanted it.

IMO, Nokia lost because they don't finish.

Either they are ahead of times, or behind times. Most if not all their phones in the last few years (I'm not talking disposable phones) are a weird combo of futuristic and bloody old.

They saw how a phone should look like with the N97, and instead of sitting on it, perfecting it, and releasing something they could proudly call they own, they stuck Grandma's OS and apps in there, made it ugly, unfinished, and released. Chinese knock-offs look better.

N900 was a finished hardware design, sleek, rather durable, loaded with an unfinished, buggy, young, dead OS. Should they held the phone in another 3 months, and cherry-picked what they fixed, it would have been glorious. Maybe add the ability to hot-swap batteries.

N97 is a great phone, BUT
N900 is a great phone, BUT

Look at that lineup. N8. Large screen, nice camera and movie, BUT. Symbian 3.

X6? Nice design BUT Symbian 9. Lacking in video. No card.

See a pattern? They all have a flaw that makes them barely enough to get by.

If you don't want a dinner plate phone, you're REALLY out of luck, because Nokia's slides/flips are hilarious.

What Nokia Phone #245? It's cool, has that and that, but no THAT. Or, it has it, but OS is old. Or, it's underpowered. Or, it's beta. Or, no MMS, no conference call, no this no that.

I didn't even THINK to check for conference call or MMS when I decided to get N900. It simply never occurred to me that in 2009/2010 a phone would be missing conference. It's like buying a car and noticing it's lacking a damned trunk. You didn't ask because you kind of assumed.

Look at competition. Apple? Every one is a step in the right direction.
HTC? Every phone better than the last.

They all march towards the future, some faster, some slower, improving. Nokia's graph looks like the EKG of a seizure victim.

Ask you this: iPhone 5G comes out with no MMS, only 15 apps, Symbian and a few showstopper bugs. Do you think they'll start to lose ground?

You betcha.

So my vote goes to N900 with fixed bugs.

N97 would have been great, but has not the style, the horsepower, or the OS to be a flagship. Flagships don't have paddles sticking out.

N900 can't be THE flagship, because it has a few f*kn holes in the hull. The community is practically bailing water as fast as we can, screaming for patches.

Nor the few announced phones since some are missing the main mast, others have steam engines.

I just laughed out so hard because your analogy is true, accurate and funny! Thanks for that post, great read.


Ever since my "imate PocketPC" I felt that company (which later came to be HTC) is destined for greatness but I always thought, why can't it be as pretty as the flagship Nokias.

Now I'm saying, why can't Nokia be as pretty as HTC!!! XD