6 ms·

Nokia doesn't get it - The Truth about N97 [video]

61 points by carusen 16y ago

JeanPierre 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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.
  - mfukar 16y ago
    In fact, Nokia has been active in electronics since 1960.
DavidMcLaughlin 16y ago
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N8 Disclaimer: I work for Nokia.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- ahk 16y ago
  A mid-range consumer phone that costs $1000? I don't think so.
  - pavlov 16y ago
    The N8 will cost about $500 before taxes (and without operator subsidies, i.e. unlocked). Where do you get $1000?
    - barredo 16y ago
      Yes, 370€ unlocked & untaxed according to Nokia: http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/04/27/nokia-n8-official-price-specs-and-pics/ http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/04/27/nokia-n8-official-...
    - ahk 16y ago
      The video had that as a slide. Even at $500, the point remains that they are not positioning it as a midrange phone.
- y0ghur7_xxx 16y ago
  I am eagerly waiting for the N8. It will ship for 470€. But I am a bit reluctant to buy it, when I think that the Galaxy S (420€) has tethering, better screen, better processor, better CPU, DivX support out of the box and the Nokia does not. I really hope they get it nailed down with the N8. I don't like Big Brother Google, and the closeness of Apple. A nice, working Symbian Phone would be great. Let's see.
  - DrJokepu 16y ago
    When contrasting Nokia to "evil corporations" such as Apple or Google, don't forget that Nokia is the number one advocate of introducing software patents in the European Union. Just sayin'.
jacquesm 16y ago
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 16y ago
  >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 16y ago
    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.
    - harshpotatoes 16y ago
      I stopped reading at 'literally forever'.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        Thank you, that really needed saying.
ck2 16y ago
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.
- davidw 16y ago
  > how much computing power in our hands that we take for granted these days. On my mid-range Nokia phone, I have a Commodore 64 emulator. I find that fairly amazing, given that the original C64 was more expensive than my phone when it came out.
- ugh 16y ago
  It’s all relative. The N97 certainly would be a awesome phone if there were no Android phones or iPhone. Complaining about something which other companies have no problems achieving is not unreasonable.
- thought_alarm 16y ago
  > 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 16y ago
    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.
ThomPete 16y ago
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!
- Tichy 16y ago
  It's not that Nokia doesn't get it, they just have some catching up to do. Just from understanding what you need to do you can not launch a high tech product over night.
  - wvenable 16y ago
    The problem with Nokia is they have a huge sunk cost in Symbian and it will never be able to compete in the high-end. They'll never catch up because of that. Going to Linux is an interesting choice, but they have to develop that platform and ecosystem as well. It will be difficult for them to catch up when they're starting 2 steps behind.
- jfager 16y ago
  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.
rythie 16y ago
A little while back I wrote about my problems with the N96: http://posterous.richardcunningham.co.uk/dont-buy-a-nokia-n96 http://posterous.richardcunningham.co.uk/dont-buy-a-nokia-n9... (I've recently switched to the iPhone 4)
PawelDecowski 16y ago
So it's like an iPhone 3G after upgrade to iOS 4?
- progr 16y ago
  No. It's just a crap phone. Accept it.
  - PawelDecowski 16y ago
    I accept it. I'm not saying iPhone is as bad. When I saw the N97 video it immediately reminded me of how my iPhone 3G started behaving after upgrading it to iOS 4 -- lagging, not responding to taps, etc. My response was tongue in cheek. I'm a happy iPhone 4 user now and would never switch to any other "smartphone", let alone Nokia.
- tshtf 16y ago
  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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdk2cJpSXLg
  - joezydeco 16y ago
    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).
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - PawelDecowski 16y ago
    That's what I was referring to.
rbanffy 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    It's the same here in Brazil - they are even required to unlock your phone on purchase, if you so demand. Subsidies are tied to contracts, so, if you rescind the contract you pay part of the discount you got. The problem is that the US is a huge market and that distorts the forces that generate products. And, sure, Nokia seems lost. They should give up software and differentiate on hardware. I am sure the N97 would be a fine Android phone.
  - mfukar 16y ago
    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.
- blub 16y ago
  Actually, this only happens in the US. In the EU (and most countries) you can get any phone unlocked and without a contract straight from the telco stores or independent stores.
Lendal 16y ago
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.
heresy 16y ago
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.
nkassis 16y ago
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.
maushu 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100 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.
- pmarin 16y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6100 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6100 1 week of battery duration (The original battery which is 6 years old).
  - pornel 16y ago
    iPhone lasts just as long if you use it as little as old Nokias. iPhone has 300h standby and 7-14 hours of talk time. These Nokias had 300-350h of standby time and only 3-4 hours of talk time. I've tried to use Samsung featurephone as smartphone, and it could handle 45 minutes of video playback on one charge.
- poiuyhgrftghjk 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    Hmm, I bought mine in Portugal (Europe), it was a few years ago though. Last I've heard the price was around $7 too.
- kentnl 16y ago
  ALL Hail the indestructible clone phone. http://www.envirofone.com/Nokia/3315/details.aspx http://www.envirofone.com/Nokia/3315/details.aspx I owned 2 of these, but sadly, both died the same way.. weird software error "CONTACT SERVICE" and failed to respond to any input. Which is sad, because one of those 2 survived a baptism in uric acid!
c00p3r 16y ago
Symbian^3? New themes to an old crap? Yeah, they still doesn't get it. ^_^
adolph 16y ago
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.
dvvarf 16y ago
An interesting related piece about Nokia's strategy: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/07/obituary-for-opk-wall-street-is-a-cruel-mistress-nokia-searching-for-ceo.html http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/07/obituar...
ramy_d 16y ago
how's that meego platform coming along?

61 points by carusen 16y ago

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 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
- mfukar 16y ago
  In fact, Nokia has been active in electronics since 1960.

DavidMcLaughlin 16y ago

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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N8 Disclaimer: I work for Nokia.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
ahk 16y ago
A mid-range consumer phone that costs $1000? I don't think so.
- pavlov 16y ago
  The N8 will cost about $500 before taxes (and without operator subsidies, i.e. unlocked). Where do you get $1000?
  - barredo 16y ago
    Yes, 370€ unlocked & untaxed according to Nokia: http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/04/27/nokia-n8-official-price-specs-and-pics/ http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/04/27/nokia-n8-official-...
  - ahk 16y ago
    The video had that as a slide. Even at $500, the point remains that they are not positioning it as a midrange phone.
y0ghur7_xxx 16y ago
I am eagerly waiting for the N8. It will ship for 470€. But I am a bit reluctant to buy it, when I think that the Galaxy S (420€) has tethering, better screen, better processor, better CPU, DivX support out of the box and the Nokia does not. I really hope they get it nailed down with the N8. I don't like Big Brother Google, and the closeness of Apple. A nice, working Symbian Phone would be great. Let's see.
- DrJokepu 16y ago
  When contrasting Nokia to "evil corporations" such as Apple or Google, don't forget that Nokia is the number one advocate of introducing software patents in the European Union. Just sayin'.

jacquesm 16y ago

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 16y ago
>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 16y ago
  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.
  - harshpotatoes 16y ago
    I stopped reading at 'literally forever'.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Thank you, that really needed saying.

ck2 16y ago

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.

davidw 16y ago
> how much computing power in our hands that we take for granted these days. On my mid-range Nokia phone, I have a Commodore 64 emulator. I find that fairly amazing, given that the original C64 was more expensive than my phone when it came out.
ugh 16y ago
It’s all relative. The N97 certainly would be a awesome phone if there were no Android phones or iPhone. Complaining about something which other companies have no problems achieving is not unreasonable.
thought_alarm 16y ago
> 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 16y ago
  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.

ThomPete 16y ago

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!

Tichy 16y ago
It's not that Nokia doesn't get it, they just have some catching up to do. Just from understanding what you need to do you can not launch a high tech product over night.
- wvenable 16y ago
  The problem with Nokia is they have a huge sunk cost in Symbian and it will never be able to compete in the high-end. They'll never catch up because of that. Going to Linux is an interesting choice, but they have to develop that platform and ecosystem as well. It will be difficult for them to catch up when they're starting 2 steps behind.
jfager 16y ago
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.

rythie 16y ago

A little while back I wrote about my problems with the N96: http://posterous.richardcunningham.co.uk/dont-buy-a-nokia-n96 http://posterous.richardcunningham.co.uk/dont-buy-a-nokia-n9... (I've recently switched to the iPhone 4)

PawelDecowski 16y ago

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

progr 16y ago
No. It's just a crap phone. Accept it.
- PawelDecowski 16y ago
  I accept it. I'm not saying iPhone is as bad. When I saw the N97 video it immediately reminded me of how my iPhone 3G started behaving after upgrading it to iOS 4 -- lagging, not responding to taps, etc. My response was tongue in cheek. I'm a happy iPhone 4 user now and would never switch to any other "smartphone", let alone Nokia.
tshtf 16y ago
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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdk2cJpSXLg
- joezydeco 16y ago
  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).
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- PawelDecowski 16y ago
  That's what I was referring to.

rbanffy 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  It's the same here in Brazil - they are even required to unlock your phone on purchase, if you so demand. Subsidies are tied to contracts, so, if you rescind the contract you pay part of the discount you got. The problem is that the US is a huge market and that distorts the forces that generate products. And, sure, Nokia seems lost. They should give up software and differentiate on hardware. I am sure the N97 would be a fine Android phone.
- mfukar 16y ago
  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.
blub 16y ago
Actually, this only happens in the US. In the EU (and most countries) you can get any phone unlocked and without a contract straight from the telco stores or independent stores.

Lendal 16y ago

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.

heresy 16y ago

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.

nkassis 16y ago

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.

maushu 16y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100 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.

pmarin 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6100 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6100 1 week of battery duration (The original battery which is 6 years old).
- pornel 16y ago
  iPhone lasts just as long if you use it as little as old Nokias. iPhone has 300h standby and 7-14 hours of talk time. These Nokias had 300-350h of standby time and only 3-4 hours of talk time. I've tried to use Samsung featurephone as smartphone, and it could handle 45 minutes of video playback on one charge.
poiuyhgrftghjk 16y ago
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 16y ago
  Hmm, I bought mine in Portugal (Europe), it was a few years ago though. Last I've heard the price was around $7 too.
kentnl 16y ago
ALL Hail the indestructible clone phone. http://www.envirofone.com/Nokia/3315/details.aspx http://www.envirofone.com/Nokia/3315/details.aspx I owned 2 of these, but sadly, both died the same way.. weird software error "CONTACT SERVICE" and failed to respond to any input. Which is sad, because one of those 2 survived a baptism in uric acid!

c00p3r 16y ago

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

adolph 16y ago

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.

dvvarf 16y ago

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

ramy_d 16y ago

how's that meego platform coming along?