4 ms·

I don't think it's a fantasy. The N9 had a very good reception, and with Nokia's prestige and loyal customer base it would have been possible to compete agains

by nextos 6y ago

I don't think it's a fantasy. The N9 had a very good reception, and with Nokia's prestige and loyal customer base it would have been possible to compete against the iPhone. The N9 built on top of the N700 series, which was launched ahead of the iPhone. It was essentially Debian running in your pocket. It already had a huge "app store", all Linux repositories. Polishing this was not that hard, given that they also controlled Qt. Qt also meant a simple migration path for Symbian applications. People don't realize how mature the N9 was. Read some reviews. Their maps application had incredibly good offline coverage and offline routing in 2011. So good, I've been using it for that purpose till 2020 as nothing compares. Mind that Google Maps still licenses lots of mapping data from Navteq, which was Nokia's mapping spinoff. Aside from this, even if they wanted to go with Windows Mobile, it sounds like a really bad strategic move not to have a backup. Especially because going with Windows Mobile was a bigger gamble, which ended up failing spectacularly. Going ahead with the N9 didn't use many resources. Windows Mobile devices by Nokia would eventually reuse the same hardware. Why not selling both.

whereistimbo 6y ago
> Debian running in your pocket Did you mean N900?
- Phrodo_00 6y ago
  No, the N900 is the successor to the Nokia 770 (via N810)
zokier 6y ago
As someone who actually used n900 for a while, thinks it was really cool device, and who developed software for it, I say N9 was a fantasy. Way too little even more too late. This comes back to the cultural issues OP mentioned, there was still too large part of the organization who really believed in Symbian, and on the other hand Meego ended up as kind of punching bag for some "strategic" efforts (like Qt and the Intel/Samsung "cooperation") without enough actual engineering. > It was essentially Debian running in your pocket. It already had a huge "app store", all Linux repositories. They dropped Debian as a base and switched to Moblin, which was one of the problems. Also it is telling that you refer the community repos as app store, and ignore that it also had actual proper app store too ("Nokia store"). The utter failure of Nokia store was another glaring issue that they never figured out. Critically the community repos, no matter how awesome, did not support commercial apps in any way, nor did it bring any income to Nokia. > Polishing this was not that hard, given that they also controlled Qt Yeah, nope. 80/20 etc.
- loosescrews 6y ago
  The N9 ran a Debian based OS. It was MeeGo/Harmattan, which was essentially Maemo 6 [1], but labeled MeeGo due to the deal with Intel. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo#MeeGo/Harmattan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo#MeeGo/Harmattan
  - zokier 6y ago
    Oh, right, they never finished the Meego transition. Pretty telling about the state of the project

by nextos 6y ago

whereistimbo 6y ago

> Debian running in your pocket Did you mean N900?

Phrodo_00 6y ago
No, the N900 is the successor to the Nokia 770 (via N810)

zokier 6y ago

As someone who actually used n900 for a while, thinks it was really cool device, and who developed software for it, I say N9 was a fantasy. Way too little even more too late. This comes back to the cultural issues OP mentioned, there was still too large part of the organization who really believed in Symbian, and on the other hand Meego ended up as kind of punching bag for some "strategic" efforts (like Qt and the Intel/Samsung "cooperation") without enough actual engineering. > It was essentially Debian running in your pocket. It already had a huge "app store", all Linux repositories. They dropped Debian as a base and switched to Moblin, which was one of the problems. Also it is telling that you refer the community repos as app store, and ignore that it also had actual proper app store too ("Nokia store"). The utter failure of Nokia store was another glaring issue that they never figured out. Critically the community repos, no matter how awesome, did not support commercial apps in any way, nor did it bring any income to Nokia. > Polishing this was not that hard, given that they also controlled Qt Yeah, nope. 80/20 etc.

loosescrews 6y ago
The N9 ran a Debian based OS. It was MeeGo/Harmattan, which was essentially Maemo 6 [1], but labeled MeeGo due to the deal with Intel. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo#MeeGo/Harmattan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo#MeeGo/Harmattan
- zokier 6y ago
  Oh, right, they never finished the Meego transition. Pretty telling about the state of the project