nokia connection 2011
So... its been a while since I've commented on the state of affairs with nokia... mainly cause I've had very little reason to care. However, Nokia Connections is starting shortly, and in another window I am streaming the presentation that will start it all off. So while I wait for the presentation to begin (it has been beginning shortly for at least 20m) I figured I'd comment on the recent big rumors that have been running around are that this is when Nokia will announce a MeeGo device, that it will actually sell! Be still, my beating heart. Within the last month in a half two videos were released, here and here. The word is that Nokia will be discussing several new devices, including a disruptive device. During the Elopcalypse it was said that the group responsible for MeeGo would continue working on future distruptive technologies, such as MeeGo.
There are two devices being teased currently. One is a sleek looking touchscreen only device, and is being referred to as the Nokia N9-01 or the Nokia Lankku (which apparently if means _Plan_k in Finnish), while the other is the one we see in the videos and is referred to as the development device and also as the Nokia N950. I'd like to echo a sentament I read earlier about this. Why would only the videos of the development device leak out? You'd think they wouldn't have been wasting money on it. However, I could see the videos and devices they leaked as being rather old (pre-Elopcalypse) and released by people who were bitter or for some such other reason. Despite leaks abounding, several events have come and gone where devices such as these could have been showcased, with nothing to show for it. Nokia Connection is not normally considered one of Nokia's biggest events (until this year), but it seems to have been selected as a big deal.
And it starts..... cue montage with descriptive verbs describing the South East Asian Pacific (SEAP) area. Short intro by the head of Sales for the SEAP region. Enter President and CEO of Nokia, Stephen Elop. First WP7 device will be later this year (2011) and in volume in 2012. They have working Nokia WP7 phones built and working now (wish they'd have put that kind of effort into MeeGo 'eh people?) . We did recently release a new version of Symbian, called Anna, on several devices including the newly released E6. Now the SEAP Head of Smart Devices is going to show off Anna on the Nokia N8. He's got it attached to the HDMI connection and is showing off a picture he took of the crowd, and is going to upload it to his OviShare account. Based on what I can see of the screen. to accomplish this you e-mail it to Ovi Share. But that is not what he was showing off. What he wanted to show was portait mode QWERTY keyboard. I will not comment on the sadness of the timing on that, and I would kinda like him to move on cause this isn't why I'm watching :) Especially, since they just decided to demo Bing in the browser. This is me really not caring.
Aside: Microsoft is not on my good side, and not because of the Nokia WP7 bit. Because their products are always "almost" good. Such good ideas going to waste by poor implementation. The recent burn for me? Microsoft/Ford Sync. Maybe I'll write up about that some day, but right now it would just be an unhealthy rant.
Elop is back. They will support Symbian till at least 2016. They will release at least 10 new Symbian devices in the next year. This is good. My E71x is dying, and if I can not get a N950, I might settle on a Nokia E6. Now he is bringing in Mary McDowell, Executive VP, Mobile Phones. She is talking about their Next Billion consumers directive, which is focusing on Symbian Series 40 devices. Such as the Touch and Type devices. I wouldn't mind one of these if whatever tablet secondary device I got wasn't cellular capable. They have shipped over 17 million C3 QWERTY phones. They are debuting another new Dual SIM device today. I wish they'd released one like 9 years ago when I wanted one. Last month they announced the X1-01. Its a party in your pocket apparently, with 16GB of memory and the loudest and clearest speaker Nokia has ever produced. Now they are shipping the C2-00, but will now be shipping a C2-03. Its an interesting looking phone. Its a dual SIM, slider, with the Touch and Type interface. The kewl bit about the Dual SIM? The second SIM has a easy changer slot on the side like a microSD card. Once again, really, it took this long for someone to do this? I bet there is a restrictive patent for it too.... Nokia is also taking a cue from the concept of Web pages as Apps and making that a way to write apps on Symbian Series 40.
Here comes Elop. Thanks Mary. We are going to focus on supporting our Developers. While Marco, Senior VP of Developer Experience, talks I'm going to take a shower, cause he is talking Mango development. With my luck he'll talk about the N950 development device ;)
And I'm back. And so is Elop. Wonder what I missed. He's talking about a better phone, yay for timin!, and introducing Marco (different one), Senior VP of Design . He just said... "We'd like to introduce you to the Nokia N9". He says that you are supposed to watch your users and it will help you create a better device. People want a big screen and to be mobile. So they set the goal of creating an all screen phone that is easy to use. He talks about the elegance of the glass, leading into the fact that instead of a home button any time you need to go there, you just swipe a screen from one side to the other. He's referring to the primary screens as their numeric place. So the First is the standard application list. The Second is a unified event/notification screen. The Third is running applications. Its carousel-esque in that you can just keep swiping one direction to get back to the start. Anytime you close an application it returns you to the previous primary screens you were running. Now he is waxing eloquent about the shape of the device. I think I've discussed before that I'm not a touchscreen only guy. So I'm probably spent. Oooh... talking about bring up old news. He just made a reference to the iPhone Grip of Death. I'm confused about the "large" screen bit helping displace the home button. There is plenty of room for a button with that large of a bezel! :) And now he just pulled it out and is going to put it up on the screen. I never heard him say it was MeeGo, but I'm guessing it is.
Anyways... its not really something I want sadly, but such is life. I'm sure I can read the rest of the event later.