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Nokia World 2010 Thoughts

// September 16th, 2010 // 12 Comments » // Mobile

So Nokia World 2010 is over. I’ve already scored my predictions, but I wanted to also put together some thoughts on the event, including the stuff that was announced, as well as what wasn’t announced. Now, I wasn’t at the event, so I can’t comment on the feel of things or the atmosphere. I’ve been to the past three Nokia Worlds, so I can guess that the atmosphere was incredibly high-energy and positive.

Hardware

The hardware that Nokia announced this year is quite impressive, within the Nokia Bubble. The E7 is absolutely stunning, and I already want one pretty bad. I really like the design cues of the N8 and E7 and the keyboard on the E7 looks phenomenal. Unfortunately, the E7 is going to bomb in the U.S. market.

The E7 is planned to be available in Q4 2010 which, by Nokia’s lingo, basically means December 31st. It’s priced at 495EUR, which is ~US$645. It has a single-core ARM v11 processor at 648MHz and a paltry 256MB of RAM. Contrast that to the Samsung Epic and the Motorola Droid 2, both of which are available today, and for under US$250 with a contract. The Epic and Droid 2 both have a large capacitive touchscreen display, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and HD video capture. They both have a 1GHz processor and at least 512MB of RAM for a snappy experience. If you’re stuck on GSM, the HTC Droid Z/G2, which was announced recently (and will be available in October, not December), has an 800MHz processor, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and HD video capture, and will be priced right around the $200 point with contract.

Basically, the E7, within the Nokia Bubble, is freakin awesome. Unfortunately, once you look around at the current market, you realise it’s already available from other manufacturers, and with a better price and specs. Why wait?

What’s sad about this is that all of the smartphones that Nokia boasted at Nokia World – the N8, E7, C6, and C7 – are all pentaband 3G – this means the same handset is capable of using the 3G networks of T-Mobile US, AT&T, and European carriers. There is no other manufacturer on the planet (that I know of) that is using this same chip. And yet, poor Nokia can’t seem to get the American carriers to pay attention, so the effort is basically wasted. Of course, there’s still a chance that Nokia could convince AT&T or T-Mobile to carry the N8 or the E7. If they can get it on carrier shelves before next summer, it might do well.

Software

Considering that Nokia has been trying to transform itself into a software/services company for a few years, there sure was a lot of hardware announcements, and basically nothing in terms of software/services. Of course, we got the obligatory Ovi Maps upgrade and a new version of the Ovi Store, but that’s about it. As you can see from my predictions scoring post, they announced precious little about their Ovi services – odd since most of those services desperately need an upgrade.

With the renewed focus on photography with the N8, you’d think Ovi Share would get an upgrade, to entice users to upload there, as opposed to Flickr or YouTube. Despite its horrendous UI, Ovi Share is actually far superior, allowing you to put both photos and videos in the same album, and offering you easily-shareable links to your albums, such as http://share.ovi.com/album/rcadden.NokiaWorld2009.

There was also no upgrade for the Ovi PIM functions, including Ovi Contacts, Ovi Calendar, Ovi Mail, and Ovi Chat. These services are still using a separate contact list – they don’t talk to each other at all – and still have trouble with duplicates in your contacts and calendar. It’s sad, really.

So, do I have anything good to say about Nokia World 2010? Absolutely.

Anssi Vanjoki announced his resignation from Nokia just two days before the event kicked off. He’s not leaving for 6 months, though, and the man absolutely nailed his keynote speech. I wasn’t going to wake up for it (the speech started at about 3:15 AM) but my body woke me up anyways. I’m glad I was able to watch it. Anssi’s passion simply oozes from every pore on his body. Watching him present is an awesome experience. I laughed, I might have cried, and I was rendered speechless. Anssi’s passion increases gradually, too – by the time he got around to the E7, he was absolutely firing on all cylinders, and the look on his face reminded me of a proud first-time dad, whose kid has just hit their first home run or something. He was positively beaming, and….well, it was just awesome.

Anssi’s part starts around 9:00, and is well worth watching. He’ll be missed. If you want to watch the full, unedited video, click here.

Unfortunately, the low point of Nokia World 2010 came at the end, with a bit of a pissing match between HTC and Nokia. HTC decided to host an event on September 15th, the second day of Nokia World. This is all fine and well, of course, until HTC made the tasteless choice of sending buses over to Nokia World to pick up journalists and bring them to the HTC event – before Nokia World had officially ended.

This put Nokia in a pretty tough situation – obviously they needed to respond, and I’m not sure there was any way that their response could have been appropriate. It was a lose-lose situation, without question. Thus, Nokia hired some folks to go stand outside the HTC event with red balloons pimping Ovi Maps. They also quickly put together a ‘survival kit’ for people to take with them to the HTC event.

As I said, I think Nokia’s response was pretty lame, but at the same time, HTC was out of line sending buses over. Both companies were acting like children. The whole situation looked very much like two toddlers fighting over a box of crayons. Some have applauded Nokia’s response, seeing it as signs of more aggressive marketing from a historically reserved team. I sincerely hope that, in the future, they look to more….mature ways to get the word out. I hope the same for HTC’s marketing team.

Overall, Nokia World was………well, it was.

If OPK was still leading and Anssi Vanjoki hadn’t resigned, I’d probably be saying that Nokia is completely screwed. The hardware, while impressive, fades into the background of today’s smartphone landscape. Ovi Maps is still nice, but so is Google Maps. Ovi Store v2.0 is still behind the iTunes App Store and the Android Market in many, many ways (including the number of real, quality apps available). The rest of the Ovi services might as well not even exist.

However, OPK’s not leading, and Anssi Vanjoki did resign. The announcements made at Nokia World 2010 were in the plans for long before either of those decisions were made. Starting this week, Stephen Elop, a software guy, takes over the helm of the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, and there’s sure to be some drastic changes (after all, that’s why he was hired).

My friend Phil Schwarzmann (who runs the Nokia Conversations blog) recently asked me what I thought Elop should do first. That’s a tough question, but I think the first thing he needs to do is gather up *everyone* at Nokia who works on Ovi software and services. Get them all in the same room, and get them talking. Spend the next 12 months working feverishly to convert Ovi from a patchwork quilt of store-bought companies into a single fabric. Get the Ovi people to work with the phone firmware teams – bake that crap in so tightly it bleeds Ovi. Don’t worry about hardware – you guys got that. Promote whoever came up with the design cues for the N8 and E7, they’re beautiful.

Here’s to an entirely different Nokia for 2011. The future is bright.

Nokia World 2010 Predictions Followup

// September 16th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // Mobile

Well, it was a rough-and-tumble 2 days, but Nokia World 2010 is behind us, which means it’s time to see how I did with my predictions. There was so much going on at Nokia World, and I have a ton of thoughts that I’d like to share, but to make sure I get everything, that’s going to have to wait until a little later – perhaps tomorrow. In the meantime, let’s see how I did.

For scoring, I’m going to give 2 points for a full-on correct prediction, 1 point for a half-right prediction, and obviously zero points if I completely missed it. If you don’t like the scoring, sorry, go start your own blog.

Smartphones

1. E7 – I got this one right, but was off on the pricing – it’s over 100EUR *more* than the N8, not less. However, I got the rest of the details correct, including the Q4 ship date, so I’m going to give myself the full 2 points here.

2. Dumbed-down N8 – I pretty much missed the boat on this one. Sure, you could say either the C6 or the C7 fit the bill, but neither really looks like the N8, and they both have features that are better than the N8 here and there. Zero points.

3. Something off-the-wall – again, I missed it here. I suppose I could argue that the CBD display on the C6 fits this one, but that’s pushing it, since I originally said it would be something stupid, and from the looks of it, CBD is *not* stupid. Zero points.

Dumbphones

1 and 2. I was totally off here – Nokia only announced one S40 device, so I get zero points here (doubled?)

3. QWERTY Touch-and-Type – Well, they did announce another touch-and-type phone, but it has a normal numeric keypad. 1 point.

4. Clamshell – missed the boat, zero points.

5. Booklet 3G Redux – sadly, I was mistaken here, too. I really wish we would have seen this. Zero points.

Software/Services

1. Ovi Maps upgrade – duh, nailed that one – whole new interface and navigation. They did announce the new check-in service, with various ‘plugins’, so I’m going to give myself 1 point.

2. Ovi Files rehash – nope, zero points (what a waste).

3. Ovi Social Messaging Beta as Ovi Social – I’m going to give myself half-credit. All of the new smartphones did launch with this integrated, but they didn’t officially call it ‘Ovi Social’ like I thought, nor does it integrate with a central Ovi buddy list. 1 point.

4. Ovi Contacts, Calendar, Mail, Chat will use the same buddy list – again, I was too optimistic here – they didn’t announce *any* upgrades to these services. Zero points.

5. Ovi Music in 5-6 new countries, but not the U.S. – no Ovi Music announcements that I saw, zero points.

6. Ovi Suite for OSX and Linux – nope, zero points.

7. Ovi Player upgrade – nope, zero points.

8. Web TV to Ovi Video with original content – again, negative. Zero points.

So, out of a possible 32 points, I got 5. Rough stuff. Apparently, I’m a bit more optimistic about it than even Nokia was (or hopefully they’re going to have another event really soon to announce all this stuff they missed?). Hopefully next year I’ll do better. What was your favorite announcement at Nokia World 2010?

My Nokia World 2010 Predictions

// September 12th, 2010 // 9 Comments » // Mobile, symbian

Sadly, I won’t be attending this years’ Nokia World event in London. However, having been to the past three, I figured I’d go ahead and put together a list of things that I think will and won’t happen at Nokia World 2010. After the event, I’ll come back and see how I scored.

Hardware

I think Nokia’s going to have 3 additional smartphones and 4 new dumbphones to announce at Nokia World.

Smartphones

1. The first is the E7 – I know this is cheating, since it’s all but confirmed, so I won’t count this in my final score. For those who don’t know, this is basically the N8, but with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It’ll likely be roughly the same price as the N8, maybe 100EUR less. Will be expected Q4 2010 (which, in reality, means Dec 31, apparently).

2. The second is a slightly dumbed-down N8 – maybe the N7? Same tablet-form factor, but with a 5- or 8-megapixel camera, probably lacking the HDMI port, and a few other things here and there. This one’ll ring in about 200EUR cheaper than the N8, and will have many folks crying about why they would buy the N8 when this one is just as good.  Q1 2011 expected availability.

3. The third smartphone will be something a bit more….off-the-wall. It’ll be S^3, but will have something that no one expected or has seen before. Maybe a ‘creative’ form factor, dual-screens, who knows. Something weird that will have most people wondering wtf they were thinking.  Q1 2011 expected availability.

Dumbphones

1 & 2. These will be basically identical, with one or two minor differences (but different model numbers). These will be uber-low-end, with monstrous battery life and some special feature designed for farmers in India or Africa or something. Impressive, but only to folks who are on board with the whole ‘lets-help-those-in-need’ stuff (which I totally am, but some tech pundits think is a complete waste of Nokia’s time).

3. Another touch-and-type, this time with a QWERTY keyboard.

4. A clamshell, probably with a touchscreen on the outside. I think this one will be for more established markets – which means Europe in Q1 2011 and the U.S. in Q4 2012.

I’m also going to say that they’ll finally announce a new-and-improved Booklet 3G. This rehash will have an 11-inch display in the same size package, will have a backlit keyboard, and other expected upgrades (newer ATOM, etc), but will still ship with 1GB of RAM that’s not user-upgradeable, and all the tech sites (including myself) will rain Internet Hate on the Booklet team for locking it down like that. Shipping Q4 2010 (possibly shipping AT Nokia World). It also still will ship with a regular Windows theme, not a custom-built Ovi theme like it should. It’ll still run Windows 7, but be upgradeable to MeeGo.

Software & Services

Nokia will lead off with crazy stats about how many Ovi accounts they have, how many daily users, etc, but no one will really be impressed (regardless of how impressive those numbers might actually be).

Ovi Maps will inevitably get a huge upgrade (it always does at Nokia World), with new POI, and probably 4 new plugins similar to the ones already there (Lonely Planet, Michelin, Expedia, etc).

Ovi Files will be rehashed as a Dropbox clone, called Ovi Storage or some other silly name. It’ll let you upload from your phone and give a much improved interface for browsing/downloading on your phone.

Ovi Social Messaging Beta (or whatever it was called) will be ‘relaunched’ as Ovi Social’ on the N8 and whatever smartphones get announced. It’ll tie in with Twitter and Facebook, and will also connect with your ‘Ovi friends’ (other people who use Ovi – I know, foreign concept to most of you).

Ovi Contacts, Ovi Calendar, Ovi Mail, and Ovi Chat will *finally* all use the same contacts list, and will all be upgraded with new features that actually make them appealing to use. Automated sync will be included in all the new phones, even the dumbphones.

Ovi Music will launch in 5-6 new countries (but still not in the U.S.) DRM-free, and Ovi Music Unlimited will launch on 2 of the new smartphones. There still won’t be a way to buy it separately, though.

Ovi Suite for OSX and Linux will finally launch, but will be such a horrendous experience that no one will like it. The Windows variant will also get an upgrade, but will still run slow on every computer out there, regardless of specs.

Ovi Player (the desktop music player) will get a HUGE facelift and new features, including smart playlists (finally). It still won’t sync ratings and playcounts, though, cause the phone doesn’t track those, either.

Nokia’s Web TV will be renamed to Ovi Video and will offer original content. It’ll be cool, but not really something you would specifically buy a phone for. It’s all web-based, so they can launch it on a number of things.

That’s really all I’ve got. Nokia World 2010 kicks off at 9:00 AM in London, UK, which is 3:00 AM in Dallas, TX. As much as I’d like to think I’ll get up at a normal time and just catch up, I’ll be honest and say I’m probably going to be awake for it. While obviously we won’t be publishing anything on Symbian-Guru.com, a few of my blogger-buddies will be there and are live-blogging the whole shebang. Here are links to the ones I know about:

AllAboutSymbian

TheNokiaBlog

MobileFanatics

NokiaExperts

WorldOfNokia.co.uk

(If you’re going to be there, be sure to leave your URL in a comment below, so I can keep up!)

What do you think we’ll see at Nokia World 2010? Do you think my predictions are right-on, or do you think I’m too optimistic?

Nokia Is Learning To Change

// August 31st, 2010 // 4 Comments » // cool, marketing, Mobile

I’ve been hesitant to write this post, mainly because it’s such a slow movement, but I’m seeing a change in Nokia over the past year or two that I haven’t seen before, and I think it’s a really good change. Of course, they’re going to need to move much faster if they want to really make an impact, but it’s nice to see some movement, nonetheless.

I’m talking about Nokia’s attempts to shake the quiet arrogance confidence that they’re known for and really speak up and out about their products and company. The first Nokia event I ever attended was the Go: Play event in London where they announced N-Gage 2.0, the N81 and N95 8GB. It was also the first event where Nokia used the word ‘Ovi’. I’ve since attended 3 Nokia World events (I’m missing this year, unfortunately) and watched countless product announcements online via video.

All of these keynotes/announcements have been roughly the same, up until the Nokia N97 announcement at Nokia World 2008. Several others noticed something different – Anssi Vanjoki made the presentation, and there were several differences from previous product launches.

For starters, Anssi went in-depth about the origins of the Nokia N97 and the various thought processes that went into the device. He also loosely referenced competitors Apple and Google for the first time ever, and took a friendly stab at Engadget, as well. It was a very powerful keynote, one that led me to say that Nokia was finally on the offensive. It was the first time anyone knew without a doubt that the Nokia leadership *doesn’t* perform their job in a bubble, and it was really refreshing, sitting in the room and seeing a dramatically different kind of announcement from Nokia.

Not long after that, the Nokia N900 along with Maemo 5 was announced, and this was immediately noticeable as something completely different. If you compare the marketing message for the N900 to that of the N97, you’d know this was a different Nokia. The intro videos used a very loud and ‘in-your-face’ music, a stark contrast to the gently, friendly tones used in most Nseries and Eseries intro videos.

In addition, the print advertising used hard lines and who can forget the ‘maemo project’ online video campaign?

But it’s not just changes in the presentation and marketing, either. Recently, Rita and I decided to shut down Symbian-Guru.com. It was a long, fully-thought-out decision that took us months to actually commit to, and we didn’t really expect nearly the reaction we got. One thing that neither of us seriously considered was a direct response from Anssi Vanjoki, one of Nokia’s more well-known executives.

For reference, Anssi and I go way back – in fact, he’s partially responsible for Symbian-Guru itself and my experiences in going from forum junky to blogger and beyond. You see, Anssi did an interview with Wired magazine back in 2006, where he showed off his Nokia N91 running Symella – a P2P app that I had been in the midst of campaigning the developer to port to S60v3. Since the N91 ran S60v3, I emailed Anssi to see if he would at least share the .sis file so we could use it on our new S60v3 phones, too. After a few emails back and forth, Anssi revealed he had a special unit of the N91, but encouraged me nonetheless. I eventually (with the help of many users on HowardForums) persuaded the developer to port the app, and started emailing all the blogs that I read of the big news. None seemed to care, so I decided I’d start my own damn site, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Back to the present – when I published our post on Symbian-Guru, Anssi came out with a direct response on Nokia Conversations, the official Nokia blog, letting us know ‘the fightback starts now’. As I exited my role at Symbian-Guru, Anssi picked up his new one as the head of Mobile Solutions at Nokia. His blog post (his first ever blog post, I believe) described how he was going to bring the fight back to Nokia, and he gave some specifics. If you’ve ever met Anssi Vanjoki, or even been in the same room, you’ll know he has a very powerful presence, and I believe he’s one Nokian who knows what needs to be done, they just need to let him do it.

A few days ago, Niklas Savander, Nokia’s head of Sales and Marketing, hopped on Twitter for an hour to answer questions from anyone who tweeted at him. He managed to avoid all of my questions, but answered a ton, nonetheless, and I believe it was really him, and not just a PR hack playing Ghost Writer.

The point is, where Nokia has always been known by their quiet, forceful demeanor, its executives are beginning to speak out and act….openly competitive. It’s refreshing, in my opinion, and they need to do more of it. In a world of Steve Jobs, Mark Cuban, Steve Ballmer, and Ralph De La Vega, companies need to have a public face that’s capable of creating change.

Another way that Nokia is really stepping out, moreso than any other mobile manufacturer that I’ve found, is their online presence. I wasn’t able to find an exact roster, but here’s a list of official Nokia Twitter accounts, as well as a list of Nokians who tweet (these may not all be ‘official’ Nokia Twitter accounts). They also have the incredible Nokia Conversations blog, which is run by some of the smartest dudes and dudettes Nokia has on board. The best part is knowing that Nokia actually monitors its brand on Twitter – they’re quick to respond to questions, comments, and complaints there. Nokians on Twitter are also personable, as demonstrated by the personal accounts of various Nokians, such as @chansearrington, @jgallo02, and @docmobile.

Nokia still has a long way to go to fix all that I believe is wrong with the company and its products, but I think they’re starting on the right path. They need to move faster, and I think they can, if they shed some extra weight and focus their attention on the right priorities. I’m still happy as a clam with my Nexus One, but I’m still a Nokia fanboy at heart, and I hope to see more instances where the company is breaking out of its shell and revealing the competitive monster it can be. Exposing your executives to the public is a microscopic step, but it’s a step, nonetheless. Keep walking, Nokia, you’ll either learn how to run or you’ll trip and fall on your face. Either one would probably be a good learning experience.

I’m Traveling Again

// August 31st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

I’m traveling again, this time to Stuttgart, Germany, for Nokia World 2009. Normally, Nokia World takes place in December, so the earlier event dates will definitely make the weather a bit more bearable. I’m traveling quite gadget-heavy, as well, which is nothing unusual. For starters, I’m bringing 2 laptops. I realize that might be a mistake, but theoretically it will offer a great experience. Last year, I attempted to cover Nokia World with only the Fujitsu P1610, and it was a horrid experience. Managing massive high-resolution photos, including editing and uploading, simply wasn’t feasible with the weak processor, unfortunately.

This trip, I’ll have both my Dell XPS M1330 and my Asus 1000HE along for the ride. The XPS M1330 will likely stay in my bag most of the time, and will be extremely beneficial to edit videos and photos at the event, rather than having to wait until I get home. Conversely, the Asus 1000HE, while a powerful machine for its size, will be much better suited to taking notes during interviews and putting together quick blog posts on the go. Its extended battery – further extended by cranking down the display brightness and other factors – will also make it ideal to cover an event from.

I’m also bringing a borrowed Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, for two reasons – first, the Nokia N900 was recently announced, and it’ll be great to be able to get some side-by-side comparison photos of the long-lost brothers. Second, the N810 will make it even easier to liveblog a keynote speech or do other text-oriented tasks, in a handheld form factor.

As for phones, I’m bringing along the N86 8MP, E63 NAM, 5800 Euro, and an LG KT610. The LG will be given to Rita el Khoury, my editor who lives in Paris, France. Its tri-band GSM is of limited use to me in the U.S., so I figure she’ll be able to put it to good use. The N86 8MP will be my workhorse – performing the function of connectivity, as well as digital camera and video camera. It’s no easy task, but the last few weeks with this phone suggest that it’s definitely up to the task. The E63 NAM is only here as a charging device – it uses the same 1500mAh battery as the N810, and the 5800 Euro is only around in case the N86 8MP bites the dust (knock on wood).

You can follow the fun on twitter at @rcadden, or on Symbian-Guru.com.