

Nokia doesn't get it - The Truth about N97 [video] - carusen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU

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jacquesm
Nokia lost the way a couple of years ago. From rock solid software and
physically neigh indestructible phones that you could operate in the dark with
one hand we've gone to phones that take 5 minutes to switch on, frequently
crash and drop calls and explode in to a variety of parts (cover plates,
batteries, main boards, buttons and so on) with normal use and that require
the memorisation of insane menu structures to use.

What a waste of a very good brand image.

~~~
Setsuna
> _phones that take 5 minutes to switch on, frequently crash and drop calls
> and explode in to a variety of parts (cover plates, batteries, main boards,
> buttons and so on) with normal use._

Sounds more like an exaggeration

~~~
jacquesm
Actually, it isn't. I have sworn my current one is my last nokia. It takes
literally forever to start up, and after it seems that it has started up it is
frequently still impossible to make calls or look at the call history or the
sms messages section.

It crashes with some regularity (which is really annoying, because it takes a
long time to start up again), it drops calls in the middle of a conversation
about two or three times per week.

I've had to re-assemble the phone after just carrying it around in my pocket,
not without danger because the battery easily pops out and might get shorted
out by my keys. I've been a very loyal nokia customer for more than a decade
with one (very short lived) excursion to Samsung, but this really is my last
one.

I've just about given up on them.

~~~
kiiski
What model are you using? My n900 takes about 1 minute to boot, has never
(during the last 6 months) crashed or dropped a call (that's probably more of
a network problem anyway) and the back cover is the only part that even can be
taken off (and this far is has never come off by itself).

~~~
lvillani
... except that the N900 isn't Symbian-powered (and we're talking about
Symbian phones here)

~~~
kiiski
We are? I thought the thread was about Nokia, not Symbian.

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DavidMcLaughlin
What's with the Nokia doesn't get it part? The market repositioning from
smart-phone to mid-range consumer phone and delayed launch of the N8 would
seem to suggest that Nokia definitely does get that the N97 was a disaster.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N8>

Disclaimer: I work for Nokia.

~~~
nailer
Look at the picture attached to the article you just posted. At the bottom of
the screen 'Options, exit'. Just where the soft menu keys would have been. And
the same size. And the same amount of buttons.

This is a touch phone. Why do you place on screen items like they're going to
be activated by soft buttons?

Disaster #2 on the way.

~~~
astrodust
The N8 is a really nice phone by 2002 standards. I used to be a big fan of
Nokia because they didn't clutter up their menus so badly, or if they did you
could at least remember the numbers and zip through them that way. The 8890
was the peak of Nokia, and it's all been downhill from there, trumped time and
time again by Ericsson and more recently Apple.

~~~
mst
The last Nokia phone I truly loved was the 6310i. Was using one until last
year when refurbs started getting too expensive for my taste.

I now have an N900, which I also love - but I don't regard it as a phone, I
regard it was a small portable Debian install that just so happens to also
make phone calls :)

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Lendal
This is really old news. They've already admitted N97 was a disaster, and have
since recommitted to doing everything better. At this point we're in wait-and-
see mode. Revisiting old failures is not constructive.

Come on guys, keep up. We're on Internet time here.

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ck2
There have always been lies, then advertising, and they deserve to be taken to
task for that, but what I find surreal is how much computing power in our
hands that we take for granted these days.

I guess one day kids will complain their microsd sized devices don't project
holograms bright enough or in enough colors.

~~~
thought_alarm
> but what I find surreal is how much computing power in our hands that we
> take for granted these days.

Computing power that is ruined by the appallingly-poor quality software that
was obviously rushed out the door. It's really shameful and depressing.

~~~
ck2
If the CPU power really is there, then at least the good news is the software
can be fixed over time. Early adopters typically suffer in any technical
realm.

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dvvarf
An interesting related piece about Nokia's strategy: [http://communities-
dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/07/obituar...](http://communities-
dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/07/obituary-for-opk-wall-street-is-a-cruel-
mistress-nokia-searching-for-ceo.html)

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maushu
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100>

This is my phone and I had it for years.

Yeah, it doesn't receive email or allows me to browse the internet but it
already crashed into the ground and got wet more times that I can count and it
still works. The battery still lasts 2 weeks.

~~~
poiuyhgrftghjk
Mine eventually died of sea-water immersion - the only thing apart from a
stake through the heart that can kill it. And even then it's only the speaker
that failed.

Can I buy a replacement - no it's only available in Africa! So I had to buy a
Motorola - great sales strategy Nokia.

~~~
maushu
Hmm, I bought mine in Portugal (Europe), it was a few years ago though. Last
I've heard the price was around $7 too.

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heresy
Nokia doesn't get that they have competition at the high end.

Selling phones that are so obviously sub-par compared to iPhone and Android,
and still expecting people to fork over iPhone/Android money, is laughable.

Developers aren't going to move to writing Symbian apps, there's just too much
alternative, and it's not where the reward is.

The goalposts have shifted.

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ThomPete
What Nokia doesn't get is that they can't market their way out of inferior
products, not anymore.

They have gotten themselves blind on the quantity of phones that they sell and
think that the quantity is a proof that they are doing something right. That
they just need to claim to have smart phones and the market will obey.

It's really quite sad, as this company if any have the ability to be at the
forefront. But such is the mechanics of The Innovators Dilemma.

Obviously Nokia used to do things right but now they are nothing but a sad sad
joke.

It's not that they don't have smart people. It's that they have legacy,
horrible horrible legacy and a product innovation and development structure
very close to that of the most horrible parliament you can imagine.

And as we all know. Nobody ever built at statue of a committee!

~~~
jfager
It sounds like you haven't actually read or understood The Innovator's
Dilemma. TID isn't about companies growing too large and making obviously
idiotic mistakes - it's hardly worth a book to point out that that might not
be the best way to do things.

The point of TID is that in certain situations a company can make all the
_right_ decisions and still end up losing in the long run to _worse_ products.

An industry that's being disrupted is one with higher-end customers served by
successful businesses with expensive, high-margin, high-quality products, and
less demanding customers being served by businesses with cheaper, lower-
margin, inferior products, where the product quality of both segments grows at
a faster rate than what the market demands. When the worse product becomes
good enough for a large enough segment of the market, the industry swings -
disruption.

The "Innovator's Dilemma" is that at any given time prior to the disruption,
the right decision for the successful high-end company appears to be to _not_
enter the lower end of the market, because the same investment applied to the
current business will yield continued higher return.

Nokia doesn't have an innovator's dilemma here, they have a shitty product
that nobody wants.

~~~
ThomPete
I have read it and am fairly confident I understand it.

My point was basically that the lower end markets here is the smartphone
market.

I agree though it might be a stretch as I am turning the metrics upside down.
But I don't think it changes the fundamental point.

That Nokia is turning themselves out of business by making the "right"
decisions.

~~~
jfager
In what possible way can making a shitty phone and then lying about its
capabilities in marketing materials be considered 'making the "right"
decisions'?

~~~
ThomPete
That's not what I was referring to with my TID comment but the focus on
selling large quantities of "dumb" phones because that is where the largest
revenue (still) is.

This affect their lack off proper focus on the smart phones. They can't get
exited about the numbers so to speak.

But as I said, it might be a stretch to use that term here, I still stand by
it.

~~~
jfager
Ah, alright, fair point. Maybe we could coin a new term: "The
HighVolumeProfitableCrapMonger's Dilemma"

~~~
ThomPete
Hah! That's a keeper.

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rbanffy
People forget Nokia doesn't sell phones to their users. They sell phones to
telcos. Telcos really don't care whether your phone takes 5 minutes to start
or crashes frequently, as long as you pay your monthly bills and buy another
subsidized phone down the line extending your contract before you move to a
competitor.

Telcos _profit_ from crappy phones.

And that's why it's important to support a market for unlocked phones and
standards like GSM.

~~~
hackermom
That might be the case in the US, but the world is so much larger. In
Scandinavia (and elsewhere, surely), every manufacturer also sell their phones
"bare" (not coupled with a GSM subscription) directly to customers via a
million different outlets.

~~~
mfukar
There are also "hybrid" markets, i.e. countries where both models are active.
I'm fairly confident this is the case over most European countries.

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rythie
A little while back I wrote about my problems with the N96:
[http://posterous.richardcunningham.co.uk/dont-buy-a-
nokia-n9...](http://posterous.richardcunningham.co.uk/dont-buy-a-nokia-n96)

(I've recently switched to the iPhone 4)

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nkassis
This is why I so glad HTC exists. They seem to be able to compete at a fairly
good level with the iPhone. Motorolla is shooting themselves in the foot all
the time, and Nokia hasn't really produce any real competition lately.

I'm now an HTC fanboy.

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adolph
That is a very funny video. As someone who recently downgraded to the
tremendously slow on iPhone 3G iOS 4, it brightened my day to realize that
things could be worse.

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PawelDecowski
So it's like an iPhone 3G after upgrade to iOS 4?

~~~
tshtf
I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. The 3G has serious performance
issues under iOS 4:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdk2cJpSXLg>

~~~
joezydeco
Lifehacker had a tip that's working for me. Turn off spotlight searching.

Settings->General->Home button->spotlight/search.

Uncheck everything, then do a hard reset (home+lock for 10 sec).

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ramy_d
how's that meego platform coming along?

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c00p3r
Symbian^3? New themes to an old crap? Yeah, they still doesn't get it. ^_^

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JeanPierre
People were laughing at Nokia when they said they wanted to start making
mobile phones. At that time, they only made tyres, galoshes and toilet paper.

Now, if Nokia keeps this quality and price on their mobile phones (if this
really is what you get), I myself would recommend them to either fire their
hackers or go back to the rubber production.

Hopefully though, they see that this is not going to work and that they have
to do something about it.

~~~
hbd
_At that time, they only made tyres, galoshes and toilet paper._

Eh? I don't think that's true. Nokia, just like Ericsson, made telephone
switches and was involved in NMT, back in the 80s, when they started to make
phones.

~~~
thingie
Of course it's not true, it's not even a hyperbole, it's simply completely
false. Nokia was, for most of the 20th century, large industrial group, making
many various things, consumer electronics and telecommunications equipment
included. It wasn't like some backward poor finnish rubber-makers in the late
70's or 80's decided to get in a new business, not even remotely.

