Nokia: the fight begins now, Symbian^4 N-Series device later
By Vlad Savov 
posted July 2nd 2010 6:37AM
posted July 2nd 2010 6:37AM
As to the actual software front, Anssi confirms that the N8 will be the final Symbian^3 handset in the N-Series, but describes a Symbian^4 device in that family as a "strong possibility," a note which he follows up with a wink (seriously). Symbian is apparently still Nokia's smartphone OS of choice -- no Androids shall be found inside Nokia's hardware under Anssi's watch -- though MeeGo also earns a mention as the "awesome" platform for delivering "market-changing mobile computers." Just in case you were wondering, Anssi finishes off by telling us that these wondrous computers will be small enough to fit into your pocket -- though, sadly, he fails to specify exactly what sort of pocket that might be.
[Thanks, Peter]
I really want Nokia to build some killer phones but Android is to hot to ignore...its not good business to ignore trends in the marketplace...please prove me wrong Nokia.
@From My Cube I think Anssi is the best person to bring Nokia to success - he is young, humble, open minded and outgoing. But the competitors are really strong. It will be a hard challenge. Wish him all the best!
I get the feeling Nokia doesn't understand what a smartphone IS.
@Gutsy Gibbons Couldn't agree more. He was brutally honest about the N97's shortcomings and we all know the first step to overcoming a problem is admitting you have one.
@Brickster
I have the feeling you do not know that intellect is.
@Vlad Savov Man, you seem like the voice of sanity in Engadget.
You do have valid points without those cheap shots the others *cough*Chris*cough* throw at Nokia.
So here is the deal, if you continue being this balanced I will mail you nutella crêpes. Straight from France eh?
What you say?
@Brickster
pls tell us, we may be living in a lie as well
@From My Cube
Nokia's latest moves leave me really dumbfounded. Why the hell did they go with Megoo, which was intended for Netbooks in the first place, and not Android, a proven OS with apps already available? WTF. If Android was closed and cost $$ for them, I'd understand, but it's not.
[Person X] Hi, we have this great engine from Ferrari you could use in your new cars, it will sell like hotcakes since it outperforms any engine and mods and parts are easily available for your customers as well.
[Nokia] No thanks. We're going to use this Kia engine and hope it "magically" outperforms the Ferrari engine.
[Person X] But the cost is the same, why wouldn't you go with the Ferrari engine which is proven to be better and sell.
[Nokia] Bbbbbbbb, we're going with the Kia engine. "Why" is not important, it's about being different...that's what customers want and what sells.
@spielnicht You reckon every car should have a Ferrari engine in it?
@spielnicht Meego for handsets was not 'intended' for netbooks. It is derived from Maemo, versions of which have been used on Nokia's tablets dating back to 2006. There is also Meego for netbooks, which uses common technologies with a different UI layer.
@spielnicht If you throw this question here comes mine:
Why the heck did Google go with Android if Maemo was already established and proven concept with thousands of devices sold in the market 2 years that preceeded Androids launch?
These are the facts:
-Nokia had OSes before. Maemo and Symbian came before Android.
-Android is NOT a conventional Linux distribution.
-Maemo/MeeGo are Linux foundation projects
-Symbian was founded in 2008. Google could easily have gone Symbian too.
So your little story is kinda flawed.
@Mr w00t Who cares what came first, which one is more polished, better developed, widely available and ready to usage NOW?
Makes no sense to not use Android, it has surpassed the others even if it's been around the least amount of time
@Brickster
I get the feeling you don't understand what a smartphone IS.
@From My Cube
I'm with ya. Can you imagine a N8 Android device? Nokia would be smart to just offer a skin of Android - a la Motorola and HTC instead of these platforms that, in the North American market it seems, are only destined to be 4th place with little to no app support.
Nokia's Euro-ness designs and relatively high level of build quality in it's high end phones would be a good match for Android in our market, too bad they have the European trait more associated with ze Germans - stubbornness
@Brickster trust me, your feeling is wrong.
are al of you guys really that stupid? android is inferior technology compared to meego. symbian is the best os for resource constrained environents. most importantly, going with android gives away all the added value. it would render nokia just another box pusher, like sammy or se. long term, this is a very smart moves. Android doesnt cost money, but its not free. Nokia will do better than usn
ing that ragged poor excuse of an os, that battery munching vm monstrosity designedto give google a similar audience as apple enjoys. its all about content, for now at least, and that is something nokia should do themselves. android is really poor tech, and that in itself is enough reason to stay away. other companies wish they had the resources to go alone.
@z0phi3l
you are more or less contradicting your own statement, you know. go back to 2008ish when Android was launched. I ask you why did Google make Android in the first place when Symbian was already more polished and ready to use?
So, do you still think your statement makes sense?
You see, the reason we are all commenting on this blog and not working for Nokia is, Nokia has a sense of direction. It has a clear vision of what the future looks like. And they aren't going to succeed by doling out panic products made using competitors' components. Oh no...they will build their own fort, sir.
See you in 2012ish when Nokia has reached where it wants to be.
@spielnicht
I think what you are trying to say is that android needs a "ferrari" engine to run comfortably, whereas Nokia only needs a kia engine to run the same amount of features. actually it runs more still.
just because its prettier, doesn't mean its as mature, effective, and efficient.
@Gutsy Gibbons The competition is actually weak. It's the fanbase that's difficult.
@Vlad Savov
I like anssi a lot more than the current outgoing CEO, he seems like he's more in touch with the users and things going on around him than Olli Pekka
I think the N8 needs MeeGo.... in fact, I think MeeGo needs to be top priority.
You mean Symbian is still around? Wow...
@AdamZSG
Symbian is still more than 40% of the smartphone market. Get out of your basement once in a while.
@Gutsy Gibbons
" I think Anssi is the best person to bring Nokia to success - he is young, humble, open minded and outgoing..."
Anssi might be ongoing but definately he is _not_ young or outgoing. He is part of the "good old" Nokia Dream Team that made Nokia's success in the 90's. Today, he should be thinking about retiring. The sooner the better. And this opionion comes from a Finn and a Nokia owner.
@boxieblue
Spaz. Android was announced in 2007, not 2008 - i.e. when Symbian was proprietary. Google wanted Android for the same reason Nokia don't. They want to be in control of their destiny - is that so hard to understand?
@brendand
sorry you took offense mate. i only asked that question to z0phi3l who doesn't seem to understand why different phone manufacturers need to use different OSes
i love Symbian and Android both
@z0phi3l
And you do realize the in the CE device space "NOW" changes extremely fast. Till now Android has not shown any USP (except fandroids chanting like zombies "use Android) which makes it a compelling solution for Nokia. iOS brought the USP of being an extremely touch-centric, quality UX OS (albeit very limited feature-wise). Symbian is extremely optimized and functional. Android is neither here nor there. And then there is Maemo which is as compelling, if not more, than Android. What is the gain for Nokia in using Android? There are certainly none in context of technology and even with the excellent growth of Android, its global brand equity is still in its infancy. Remember Nokia is a hardware company which has been doing embedded system software before Google even existed. Their Achilles heel is the UI (naturally!) which is what Anssi Vanjokki is talking about fixing. The rest they have secured already.
Remember the phrase "Dont judge a book by its cover"? Similarly dont judge an OS by its flashy transitions or geek cred - most paying customers are not geeks and dont give a damn about the OS.
And don't forget Nokia sells phones to the entire world and not just the US - people fail to appreciate that when they keep harping about Android.
@boxieblue
"okia has
a sense of direction. It has a clear vision of what
the future looks like. And they aren't going to
succeed by doling out panic products made using
competitors' components. Oh no...they will build
their own fort, sir."
yeah...so did palm & what happened to them? Market doesn't need another OS. that's where palm lost it. Nokia needs Meego, but not consumers. Android succeeded coz, consumers wanted an alternative to iOS. Nokia's arrogance will bring them down. Ask Rubenstein!
@spartandre217
Totally agree.
He seems to be much more in touch and to actually care of what's happening/what's being said about Nokia on the net. The fact that he commented on the Android rumours, on Symbian-guru and on the N-series "confusion" shows that. He even replied to comments on the blog. That's a good sign.
@WickedEast
A very good sign.
Provided he sticks to task, I think he'll do alright.
Rumor has it he's the one that delayed the N8 because the experience wasn't quite good enough.
@Brickster nokia was one amongst the companies loke motorolla etc who invented the smartphone market.. sadly ur lacking intellect to calculate stuff from over 12-15 years back
@Peytral
Keep watching that will soon drop to 35% of the world market
@spielnicht Thats a last resort approach for Nokia.. Nokia will do that when they are in Motorola's shoes.. Symbian my not be doing to well in the U.S. but dont get Nokia and Symbian confused Nokia is still a juggernaut..
It says N8 will be the only Nseries !devices!
@thejan2009 And the (your) definition of a smartphone is?...
@cosmintoma what?
@thejan2009 sorry, wrong click. The question was for Brickster
@cosmintoma
I wuz like whoooot
Stop caring about Symbian please Nokia... Seriously... It's archaic and the apps you have right now aren't really worth keeping the OS... KILL IT. MeeGo looks awesome. Please just focus on MeeGo, damnit!
@pk Dood, do you know ANYTHING? Try running MeeGo on a mid-range featurephone, which is where Nokia make their money. You're complaining about S60 - which was good, it just didn't translate well to touch..
@pk The problem with Symbian is NOT Symbian, it was its UI (fixed with ^3 and I am already okay with the way S60 handles it) and it is its developer support, which hopefully increases with the announced changes last week. If QT can't attract decs, meego is dead aswell.
Meego is certainly going to be great but when?
It's PRE-Alpha now, that's before alpha and beta and RC.
Nokia had a shot with Maemo 5 over 6 months ago but they went back to the drawing table- again.
People need a new platform which will grow AND stick around.
With QT bridging the gap between MeeGo and Symbian, a two-OS approach should give Nokia the breadth they need to tackle the high-end whilst still catering for their other market sectors. Symbian is still an amazingly light, mature and stable piece of software - and MeeGo is a beautiful example of Open Source gone right (with a rich heritage). With their in-depth knowledge and far-reaching links in the mobile hardware space, that adds up to a pretty hot set of cards for Nokia.
Of course, none of this precludes success - we'll have to wait and see I guess..
@darkshine
All correct but that was true 2 years ago too and Nokia still dozed off the TS-boom. And with Meego still far from being ready that will drive many more to Android&Co.
The N900 was great but the only one of its kind and the N8 will be about the same kind of thing. That's driving away people who look for some kind of long term vision.
@Geozec Untrue. Two years ago Nokia didn't have anything to compete on the high-end - particularly touchscreen devices, where they just didn't have an interface. Until they bought Trolltech they didn't have the technology to effectively develop two interfaces with application cross-compatibility, and it took Maemo to teach Nokia about the virtues of Open Source.
@darkshine
Personaly I think that they need to put MeeGo UI on Symbian3 and call it a day.
@nk The UIs will probably be similar (like Symbian S60 and Nokia S40 resemble each other, even though they're not the same OS), but you can't just slap an X11 Desktop Environment onto another OS - it doesn't work like that.
@darkshine I didnt mean that they do good old copy/paste, just to make it look alike, cuz UI that Symbian has atm is its bigest problem, its just 2 ugly even the new Symbian^3 and you just cant ignore the design today its what sells the device most of the time, not many ppl care about Symbian being the most mature OS of today, they just want a good looking device/UI so by making it soo everybody wins, consumers get nice looking product -> Nokia sells more devices -> more developers start making apps more it -> advanced users get more spread platforme, its easy as that
@nk No, pretty UIs are what the gadget obsessed 'power users' want. Everyone else wants a solid OS, because it's a phone - and people like their phones to 'just work' ;)
You must remember that what you call an ugly OS, most of my non-techie friends just call 'functional'. It makes calls, sends texts, handles email and you can download the occasional fart app, and that's all they want from a phone ;)
@darkshine I just don't see a 2 OS approach working at all. Right now the 3rd party apps make or break the success of the mobile device. We have active growth in iOS and Android. Likely MS will be able to get some initial support for WP7 and HP will try and resuscitate WebOS as well. Now your saying trying to push 2 more from a single company is a good approach? It seems to me like that method will never attract 3rd party developers to either OS and both would fail. Nokia needs to go back to basics and understand they are first and foremost a hardware company and pick an OS based on success in that core business.