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#1
Hi guys,

I was recently at a talk by Brian Kralyevich, who was the product lead for the N9. He told some stories about the development of the N9 and I thought you guys might be interested.

He loves the N9 but was obviously very jaded from his experience at Nokia. He complained that the Finnish were very slow and their product cycles took way too long, apparently the N9 took 3 years. Also, according to Kralyevich, the higher ups were all adamant that the N9 have a hardware keyboard (what we now see as the N950), and he kept telling them no, that was the wrong choice, but they wouldn't listen to him. So he flew to Espoo (he was based in London, like Peter Skillman, etc), and had a one on one meeting with Elop and convinced him to ditch the hardware keyboard, and that's how we got the N9 we know today.

 

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#2
So now we know who was behind that decision. Too bad he was such a smooth talker; could be the world would be just a bit different if he hadn't interfered there...
 

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#3
Wow. That's interesting. Would love to hear more stories. Funny how it was Elop that helped deliver the device as it was delivered.
 

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#4
Well that was common knowledge (or so I thought?)
The development team of N9 went through crazy number of iterations and was not really going to release anything until Elop put down his foot and ordered the current OS package to ship.
 

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#5
Originally Posted by sixfingeredamish View Post
I was recently at a talk by Brian Kralyevich, who was the product lead for the N9. He told some stories about the development of the N9 and I thought you guys might be interested.
Was the talk recorded? Is there some place we can watch it?
 

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#6
To me it was common knowledge that there was nothing to praise ("beautiful industrial design") in the 5 minute dummy design of the N9.

Saw a new 7110 early on the flee market last Sunday. It sold in 15 mins. These things hold memory. N9 nobody would not recognize in a bucket of nails.
 

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#7
Originally Posted by sixfingeredamish View Post
Also, according to Kralyevich, the higher ups were all adamant that the N9 have a hardware keyboard (what we now see as the N950), and he kept telling them no, that was the wrong choice, but they wouldn't listen to him. So he flew to Espoo (he was based in London, like Peter Skillman, etc), and had a one on one meeting with Elop and convinced him to ditch the hardware keyboard, and that's how we got the N9 we know today.
I knew Elop will be involved onto ditching business.

I kind of understand ditching keyboard for general public. But I don't see the reason N950 and N9 cannot be selling at the same time. Nokia has put so much effort on designing N950 and it went to production then all cancelled? And N9 isn't much thinner than N950 anyway...
 

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#8
Originally Posted by gerbick View Post
Wow. That's interesting. Would love to hear more stories. Funny how it was Elop that helped deliver the device as it was delivered.
Well, Elop did also want it for the Lumia 800. Any hardware or design breakthrough Nokia accomplished could be carried over to Windows Phone hardware.
 

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#9
Originally Posted by chenliangchen View Post
Nokia has put so much effort on designing N950 and it went to production then all cancelled? And N9 isn't much thinner than N950 anyway...
They didn't want to market two phones. Heck, the N9 was only released to create excitement for the Lumia 800 and to keep the employees happy.

Also, according to Kralyevich, everyone agreed that the future of the smartphone was a full touchscreen with no keyboard.
 

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#10
Originally Posted by Venemo View Post
Was the talk recorded? Is there some place we can watch it?
Unfortunately it wasn't recorded and was partially an Amazon Design recruitment event, which was pretty good because Kralyevich was able to answer direct questions on design decisions.

Last edited by sixfingeredamish; 2017-07-01 at 19:21.
 

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