Why I am buying an N9

[FONT="Tahoma"]<praise target="Nokia">
Absolutely I'm buying an N9. As soon as I can find</praise> a sane and reliable method of getting a 64GB to me in Toronto, I will do just that.

Of course, no thanks whatsoever to Nokia on the sales & distribution front, I am sad to say.

Nevertheless: why wouldn't I? Based on everything I have read and seen, I consider that the N9 is the closest thing to the phone I actually want that exists now or that will exist during the foreseeable future.

Of course, the N9 is also a bittersweet taste of what might have been... but that doesn't mean it isn't sweet and delicious. It is both of those things and more.


Why is it so hard to buy an N9?

<rant target="Nokia,Ballmer">
So why oh why is it so f... antastically hard to buy one? I have money set aside just for this (and I have done for some time). As others have said: "Nokia, please, take my money!" Do you really expect me to pay you anything (other than a scant disregard) if you try to sell me the idea of Windows in my pocket? Yeah, right. Don't count on it. WP's unreleased sales figures would probably second that.

Please tell me that Microsoft's survival plan isn't the reason I will have to go through so much to get an N9. Please also tell me that Nokia management know their current long-term strategy from a hole in the ground.

I mean, who wouldn't love to believe fervently in both of those concepts?

In the end, what's done is done. I'm just not buying what Microkia is selling. Windows? On my person 24/7? Really? No thanks. I use Windows both at work and at home, but I always have the feeling that there's stuff going on which no sysadmin tool will show me. That's why it doesn't belong in my pocket, and also why Windows does not belong in the world's pocket either.
</rant>


The N9 isn't perfect

So: back to the N9. It's pretty awesome, but it's far from ideal.

Parts of it are closed and probably always will be, it has no microSD slot, it has no hardware keyboard, and has sacrificed a removable battery for some sexy curves. Some people have complained of dead pixels or poor battery life. Many, many people have complained of how hard it is to find the N9 they wish to purchase.

A more cynical individual than myself might well wonder if there was a certain lack of corporate enthusiasm from Nokia globally with regards to the N9. Probably best that I stop this line of thinking here, because my tinfoil hat is at the cleaners.

Consider instead that all current successful devices across all platforms and form factors have these or similar problems (apart from availability & distribution, naturally). It's normal.

In addition, some current devices are slick but require outside approval for your every action; still others require outside approval for every important development decision made by their manufacturer.


Internet, you're often wrong about stuff

Moving on from manufacturers to the observers and critics: don't ever forget that when you trash-talk what you don't understand, you're really just dissing yourself.

So here's a thought for you: yes, you:

• the lazy bloggers pushing out insufficiently fact-checked screeds
• the analysts from Gartner inter alia who say what they think will please the shareholders
• the carriers and distributors who didn't have the courage to grab on to something special
• You most of all, Nokia the corporation for producing a masterpiece and then making such a D- effort at promoting it and getting it into the grubby mitts of the public (e.g. me).

Yes, all of you! Here goes: define "dead OS" before you sling that term around, whether directly or indirectly. The very idea makes no sense to me - not after seeing what I've seen on TMO and beyond over the last two years since I transferred my SIM card from my N95 to my N900.

Optimism still! Despite the muted efforts of Nokia; despite bloggers and most media blithely writing off the N9; despite the perception (amongst those who are even aware of its existence) that the N9 is running a dead OS. Where might they have picked up a view like that? More than likely from a few bloggers who have signally failed to comprehend or even notice what has happened across the internet and on our Nokia tablets.

The N9 has its share of baggage - not least being that it has been annointed as "the last of a dying breed" - but we can fix it! We have the technology!


No apps? Guess again

I'm confident that the software will be there for both the casual user and the hardcore power user of the N9. History supports the assertion that the community around the N9 will do amazing things. The N9 will live, so long as we can get our hands on the damn thing.

Focus on the positive! Well, why not? CSSU knocked my socks off and continues to do. There's no doubt plenty more where that came from.

Donning the uniform of Captain Obvious for a moment, let me start by reminding anyone who had forgotten that there is a Linux kernel just millimeters below the Swipe UI.

Further to and because of that, it is demonstrably true that the community has already taken Maemo development to exciting new places. Nokia - as a corporate whole, and despite the decent and focused efforts of many employees - seems to have little will to explore these exotic locales.


You don't know what you got 'til it's gone

The N9 makes more sense than anything else out there for me. Make your own decisions; mine is made. It may well be my last Nokia, unless something good and unexpected happens. You know, like Nokia coming to its senses and fixing all this mess. Probably starting no later than 2006/2007...

<face class="sad">
...which is in the past.
</face>

Yeah.



Ah well, I'm still buying the N9!

Edit: been living with the N9 for a month and I'm enjoying it more than any other device I've ever had.

Just because I'm a geek who spends hours in the office every day working in bash/csh, doesn't mean I don't appreciate a personal mobile device which is fantastic at music/photos etc. (while maintaining some sort of OSS credibility!)

(N.B. if your first instinct on reading the above is to send me a link to "csh programming considered harmful", don't bother; this is the corporate world, and I still use IE at work too, but not through choice)

Nice post,

I agree, why is it so freakin hard to get our hands on one of these, at first I was like I'm gonna hold out for the 64gb, but I really like the cyan and getting a hold of 64gb I fear is going to be a tougher task. Why the hell is spending this kind of coin on a device so hard to do? Blows my mind.

I know seeing Elop's stupid face at NWC touting the wp7 lineup is only going to infuriate me more. You said it all very well my man, the educated consumer knows the potential shortfalls of the device, but to make it such a struggle to get one is totally absurd. Nokia has nothing to lose by opening up the distibution channels on this device, other than more sales and respect if that is even possible at this point.

IMHO the floodgate will open around mid November. The main reason is probably due to their manufacturing bottlenecks. So right now they're churning out the products to stock so they'll have enough for the 'worldwide' release by next month.

This situation is made worse for TMO users, because we've been following the N9 for quite a damn while: even before it was officially announced, and through numerous delays, up to the trickling of products available here and there.

Sadly, it's those who care the most will be afflicted with the most pain. Heh.

I'm continually aghast at this.

I wish that the Nokia board saw it the same way that you do, especially that bit about them having nothing to lose. I really, really do.

Unfortunately, their stance is:

Now take into account that by far the most substantial phrase in that load of corporate gibberish is "Decisions are based on an assessment of existing and upcoming products".

For anyone who don't speak corporate:

Sucks, don't it?

looking for 64gb cyan too here in Toronto, but nowhere to be found. expansys.ca is taking advantage of this shortage and offering it for 900 CAD +tax. thats over 640 Euro

Originally Posted by Translation of the above

We couldn't care less what you think. We're a corporation and we are pursuing our goals. Whether those align with yours or not is incidental at best. The polite tone of this message is a thin veneer over our utter disregard for anything which does not further the goals of this corporation.

And what is the goal of this corporation called Nokia? A hole in the ground by ignoring consumer demand?

i started lookin two weeks ago and got it ten days ago you guys r slackin

Not according to them. Please see Burning Platform memo and subsequent Microsoft partnership agreement for further details.

Let me guess, you wandered down to a local phone shop and picked one up...?

Didn't think so.

Maybe we are slacking, maybe not.

The goal of the CEO and his stupid, smug, gheylop'd face and his cronies is a MS buy out, or at the least making Nokia a meandering puppet of MS slowly plodding off into that ashen tinted sunset called oblivion.
(no offense to those of different sexual orientation, to compare your orientation to Elop's face is like comparing the Mona Lisa to a pile of feces I flung at the wall. Just using slang.)

Nokia's market share was shrinking because it failed to produce innovative phones which excite users. Their hardware wasn't cutting edge even for the flagship N8; CPU, memory and display were behind the competition. The Symbian os was considered a dog. No wonder it lost market share. Then Nokia finally did something right with the N9. Hardware was in the ballpark. It was sleek and attractive, like a breath of fresh air in a world of similar looking phone. The Meego os with innovative swipe technology excited users and won accolades.

Nokia should have taken this success and run with it but unfortunately the misguided Elop (ex-Microsoft) decided to beat down the mass market appeal of the N9 by stiff pricing, omission of major markets and death pronouncement of the last Meego phone. Meanwhile he wound down Symbian and bet the farm on WP7.

If Nokia's WP7 phones doesn't take off with a bang Nokia will go down with it. All the eggs are now in one basket. But will denying consumers access to N9 make them flock to WP7? In his dreams! This is a strategy of desperation. The success of iphone 4S is a body blow to Elop's wet dreams.

Nokia is shaping up to be a Greek tragedy. A tragedy is something you inflict on yourself. Maybe one day Elop will be a textbook case study in business school of how to bring down a corporation.