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"If Nokia had gone with Android, the best that it might have achieved was to become an also-ran—another in an endless stream of me-too commodity smartphone make

"If Nokia had gone with Android, the best that it might have achieved was to become an also-ran—another in an endless stream of me-too commodity smartphone makers." No. Nokia could've been Samsung, which has the lion's share of the Android market. And Android Lumia would be the prettiest Android handset on the market.

bitwize 14y ago
With Nokia on Android, we could have had top-rung Android phones with iPhone appearance and build quality, and greater-than-iPhone ruggedness.
- josteink 14y ago
  Keep telling yourself that. When was the last time you used a Nokia phone? When was the last time you saw a Nokia UI? The one thing which made the iPhone great was that it finally broke the streak of smart-phones all cloning the horrible, messy and unintuitive Nokia-model which had plagued the industry since the mid 90s. Take my words for it: Nokia would have fucked up Android just as much as it messed up Symbian. Nothing pretty would have come out of this.
  - bitwize 14y ago
    Keep telling yourself that. When was the last time you used a Nokia phone? When was the last time you saw a Nokia UI? I have an N810 Internet Tablet and the UI is beautiful and easy to use, despite the hardware having drawbacks. (Resistive touchscreen, CPU a bit too slow.) The N900 and later N9, based on the same Maemo codebase, fixed these problems and reportedly have beautiful, easy, fast UIs. So no I won't "take your word for it" when the data suggest otherwise. Symbian was fucked to begin with. If it's a pain in the ass to develop for, nobody but NOBODY is going to put in the requisite UI polish.
huggyface 14y ago
It's a bit of a bizarre claim to begin with given that there are a number of manufacturers pitching Windows Phone devices to very limited success. So instead of being a possible also-ran me-too in a large, successful market, they're an also-ran me-too in a small, uncertain market. I'm not buying the logic. If they used the Android bit to explain a wholesale adoption of Meego or Tizen or something then sure. But going to WP...that just doesn't make sense.
- barranger 14y ago
  To be fair, I certainly wouldn't call the other manufacturers offerings for Windows Phone to be exactly whole-hearted. Have we seen a single non-Nokia device that isn't a port of hardware used for their Android offerings?
  - bergie 14y ago
    Nokia's Lumia 800 also borrowed the design from their N9 MeeGo phone, with some softkeys added
chris_wot 14y ago
I have to agree. My friend bought a Samsung SII the other day, and I was mighty impressed. However, we soon saw a number of shortcomings, and none of it was really the phone hardware or even Android itself. Instead, it was the way that the phone software UI was put together. It was awful. So bad, in fact, that my friend replaced almost all of the software widgets and components with his own - by the end the phone looked amazing, and virtually nothing like Samsung/Telstra's UI. And this is where Nokia could win. By producing amazing, kick-arse phones (which we actually know they can do!) and putting on Android, with a compelling feature-set, I believe they'd wipe the floor with Samsung, et al. Probably not so much with Apple, but they could yet compete head to head with them. The innovation just isn't there. I don't see it with WP8. There's just not enough compelling reasons for me to go back to Nokia. And I was so badly burnt by the last phone I used, that I'm unlikely to go back without a good reason!
- stcredzero 14y ago
  However, we soon saw a number of shortcomings, and none of it was really the phone hardware or even Android itself. Seems like there's a tremendous opportunity for the right group to prosper. I'm not sure that's Nokia. Apple combines several factors: - A culture of good programming that works well - A culture of good design - A company where the efforts of different parts are well aligned - The ability to market If Nokia can do all of the above, they would win. History has shown that they aren't this company.
trimbo 14y ago
The Pando author also seems to have forgotten that Android saved Motorola, took HTC to new heights and enabled Amazon and B&N to make tablet lines of their own.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  Android saved Motorola, took HTC to new heights and enabled Amazon and B&N to make tablet lines of their own. Both Motorola and HTC's sales and profits are depressing. Motorola was bought by Google for its patents, not because it's such a healthy company. Amazon and B&N don't share any data regarding their Android offerings, we have no idea if they are making any profit off it. Also, they're not exactly using stock Android — they're building platforms that have nothing to do with Google, its Marketplace, or any other Google services and apps.
  - trimbo 14y ago
    > Both Motorola and HTC's sales and profits are depressing Motorola was left for dead before Android. HTC jumped out to an early lead with Android and their stock went up 400%. > they're not exactly using stock Android I think you're missing why Google open sourced Android. What B&N and Amazon did with it is exactly the point of why Android is open source. Google would rather have no one "win" the mobile space than have a closed source company like Apple or Microsoft win the war again and get into a situation like Windows / IE was for the last 20 years on desktop.
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      Motorola was left for dead before Android. HTC jumped out to an early lead with Android and their stock went up 400%. And they're both in the toilet now. Android saved neither company. I think you're missing why Google open sourced Android. What B&N and Amazon did with it is exactly the point of why Android is open source Google cares about selling ads. It shows those ads on websites, in emails, in apps, and in services like search and mail. Before iOS and Android, smartphones ran Symbian, Blackberry or Windows Mobile. None of those had a decent web browser, which Google needed to attract users and show ads. So it's pretty obvious why Google bought Android and why they open sourced it. Now, do you want to guess what would happen if Amazon and B&N added built-in ad blocking to their Android devices?

bitwize 14y ago

With Nokia on Android, we could have had top-rung Android phones with iPhone appearance and build quality, and greater-than-iPhone ruggedness.

josteink 14y ago
Keep telling yourself that. When was the last time you used a Nokia phone? When was the last time you saw a Nokia UI? The one thing which made the iPhone great was that it finally broke the streak of smart-phones all cloning the horrible, messy and unintuitive Nokia-model which had plagued the industry since the mid 90s. Take my words for it: Nokia would have fucked up Android just as much as it messed up Symbian. Nothing pretty would have come out of this.
- bitwize 14y ago
  Keep telling yourself that. When was the last time you used a Nokia phone? When was the last time you saw a Nokia UI? I have an N810 Internet Tablet and the UI is beautiful and easy to use, despite the hardware having drawbacks. (Resistive touchscreen, CPU a bit too slow.) The N900 and later N9, based on the same Maemo codebase, fixed these problems and reportedly have beautiful, easy, fast UIs. So no I won't "take your word for it" when the data suggest otherwise. Symbian was fucked to begin with. If it's a pain in the ass to develop for, nobody but NOBODY is going to put in the requisite UI polish.

huggyface 14y ago

It's a bit of a bizarre claim to begin with given that there are a number of manufacturers pitching Windows Phone devices to very limited success. So instead of being a possible also-ran me-too in a large, successful market, they're an also-ran me-too in a small, uncertain market. I'm not buying the logic. If they used the Android bit to explain a wholesale adoption of Meego or Tizen or something then sure. But going to WP...that just doesn't make sense.

barranger 14y ago
To be fair, I certainly wouldn't call the other manufacturers offerings for Windows Phone to be exactly whole-hearted. Have we seen a single non-Nokia device that isn't a port of hardware used for their Android offerings?
- bergie 14y ago
  Nokia's Lumia 800 also borrowed the design from their N9 MeeGo phone, with some softkeys added

chris_wot 14y ago

I have to agree. My friend bought a Samsung SII the other day, and I was mighty impressed. However, we soon saw a number of shortcomings, and none of it was really the phone hardware or even Android itself. Instead, it was the way that the phone software UI was put together. It was awful. So bad, in fact, that my friend replaced almost all of the software widgets and components with his own - by the end the phone looked amazing, and virtually nothing like Samsung/Telstra's UI. And this is where Nokia could win. By producing amazing, kick-arse phones (which we actually know they can do!) and putting on Android, with a compelling feature-set, I believe they'd wipe the floor with Samsung, et al. Probably not so much with Apple, but they could yet compete head to head with them. The innovation just isn't there. I don't see it with WP8. There's just not enough compelling reasons for me to go back to Nokia. And I was so badly burnt by the last phone I used, that I'm unlikely to go back without a good reason!

stcredzero 14y ago
However, we soon saw a number of shortcomings, and none of it was really the phone hardware or even Android itself. Seems like there's a tremendous opportunity for the right group to prosper. I'm not sure that's Nokia. Apple combines several factors: - A culture of good programming that works well - A culture of good design - A company where the efforts of different parts are well aligned - The ability to market If Nokia can do all of the above, they would win. History has shown that they aren't this company.

trimbo 14y ago

The Pando author also seems to have forgotten that Android saved Motorola, took HTC to new heights and enabled Amazon and B&N to make tablet lines of their own.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
Android saved Motorola, took HTC to new heights and enabled Amazon and B&N to make tablet lines of their own. Both Motorola and HTC's sales and profits are depressing. Motorola was bought by Google for its patents, not because it's such a healthy company. Amazon and B&N don't share any data regarding their Android offerings, we have no idea if they are making any profit off it. Also, they're not exactly using stock Android — they're building platforms that have nothing to do with Google, its Marketplace, or any other Google services and apps.
- trimbo 14y ago
  > Both Motorola and HTC's sales and profits are depressing Motorola was left for dead before Android. HTC jumped out to an early lead with Android and their stock went up 400%. > they're not exactly using stock Android I think you're missing why Google open sourced Android. What B&N and Amazon did with it is exactly the point of why Android is open source. Google would rather have no one "win" the mobile space than have a closed source company like Apple or Microsoft win the war again and get into a situation like Windows / IE was for the last 20 years on desktop.
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    Motorola was left for dead before Android. HTC jumped out to an early lead with Android and their stock went up 400%. And they're both in the toilet now. Android saved neither company. I think you're missing why Google open sourced Android. What B&N and Amazon did with it is exactly the point of why Android is open source Google cares about selling ads. It shows those ads on websites, in emails, in apps, and in services like search and mail. Before iOS and Android, smartphones ran Symbian, Blackberry or Windows Mobile. None of those had a decent web browser, which Google needed to attract users and show ads. So it's pretty obvious why Google bought Android and why they open sourced it. Now, do you want to guess what would happen if Amazon and B&N added built-in ad blocking to their Android devices?