A Walk On The Other Side - Does Nokia Even Care About Macs?
With Nokia Multimedia Transfer and iSync, I had a solution for interaction between my S60 handsets and my Macbook that was way better than the one I had earlier with my Windows XP-running laptop. But things didn’t remain pink all the way, and trouble was just around the corner.
The first thing that struck me was that when I put the CD that came in the N82’s box inside my Mac, nothing happened. Nothing. It’s blank. In order to run it, I had to do it through the Windows virtual machine installed on my Mac. What the hell is that? If Nokia didn’t have any software for Mac, I’d understand this (or try to), but they DO have Mac software! Let the CD recognize which system I’m running when I insert the CD, and either give me PC Suite and its dependencies on Windows, either Nokia Multimedia Manager and iSync on Mac OS. There’s no negotiating that.
Another issue somewhat related to this one, is that when I connect my handsets to my computer through USB mode, I am given “PC Suite” as an option on the phone. Nokia, for pete’s sake, just acknowledge Mac OS once and for all, let the handset know what I connected to and give me “Mac Connectivity” or something like it as an option, because as a first time user, I will be baffled if I see PC when I connect my device to a Mac.
One more WTF I faced was when I tried opening Nokia’s homepage on Safari. It rendered horribly, just horribly. This has already been pointed out by Steve Litchfield in his first article about S60 and Mac, yet Nokia has done nothing about it. And talking about Safari, the Nokia Music site doesn’t even open in Safari, neither in Firefox, my beloved browser. Mac users don’t have any way they can surf the Music Store without buying Parallels or VMware and purchasing a Windows license. This is bullshit, honestly. And they wonder why our North-American apple-loving friends don’t care about Nokia or why the brand name isn’t dominant in NA: you have to care about your market in order for the market to care about you. Seriously.
One more letdown is that all the software that Nokia releases is PC-only, meaning that as a Mac user, you’re denied the right to try or enjoy the Nokia Music client, Communication Center, Nokia Photos, Ovi Suite, Nokia Map Loader (ie you have no way to download maps or buy licenses other than on your handset, over the air). Also, if you download N-Gage games from the computer and not directly to the handset, they get downloaded as .exe meaning they won’t run on a Mac.
For a company that is trying to push its software and services to the masses, this is absolute bullshit: neglecting the development of software for one platform is a self-imitating self-suicidal decision. It’s true that Macs are still niche products, but look around and you’ll see that a lot of N-series users and S60 users in general are Mac users.
So does Nokia care about the Macs? A lot of facts, some of which were mentioned here hint that the answer is no. Yet other facts hint that yes, like the amazing Nokia Multimedia Transfer; and for example when I received an N81 to trial N-gage, there’s was a Mac friendly version of the press kit I got; and the fact that the recent video posted by Nokia Conversations to demonstrate the 5800 Xpress-Music was edited on iMovie (they don’t say it explicitely, but believe me, it is).
This concludes my look at the interaction between S60 and Macs, but join us tomorrow for the 3rd article in this series where I talk a little bit about S60 and Linux, and finish off with some thoughts on the other side.
[Image for this post and the series banner courtesy of Gilad's DeviantArt]
I’m also a Mac and Nokia user. I agree with most of your points, but there’s also several things that I disagree about:
-Nokia might not have perfect compability with Macs, but their support for Macs is actually quite good. Just wait until you have more experience with Macs, and you’ll see that there are many many high tech companies with far less Mac support.
-Until very recently OSX marketshare outside North America was around 2%. It was basicly Linux sized and it’s not that much bigger globally even now, altough iPod halo has had it’s effect. As you say yourself, Macs are still a niche. The hardcore machead crowd in North American is very loud for Engadget/Gizmodo following uber-geeks, but economicly speaking it’s a tiny tiny niche.
-There’s exactly one DRM system that works with Macs and Apple won’t license it to anyone. Never. You think Nokia wouldn’t want compablity with FAIRPLAY (the DRM used by Apple in every Mac and iTunes) ?!?. There’s nothing that Nokia can do fix this. Apple will never, ever, never in a milliookia music store compatible with Macs would be to make a completly new DRM system only because of OSX. Making reliable DRM standard is very expensive, time consuming and would also require deep inregration with OSX (Apple might actually stop that).
I can’t see why Nokia would care enough to address such a small market segment especially since Apple itself and its fans insist on calling Apple products vastly superior to anything else.
Not that this attitude is justified, Nokia is in effect driving people to buy an iphone by doing this. ALl I am saying is that it is nothing unusual - Nokia are known to leave gaping holes in their software.
In fact their software/hardware still isn’t very Windows friendly even now, especially with Vista. So Apple compatibiltiy seems to be a long way off.
“this is absolute bullshit: neglecting the development of software for one platform is a self-imitating self-suicidal decision”
Lol.. bloggers are so funny. What, are you trying to be the extreme O’Reilly (Fox News) of phone blogs?
Look, as you say, one, Macs are niche. Two, they are niche EVEN in the US. Three, Nokia has MUCH BIGGER issues to deal with in the US.
So, I am saying not blow this completely out of proportion by using foul language and blatant over-statements like that. Nokia will not annihilate no matter how they treat Mac.
I am NOT saying that they shouldn’t fix that, but its not THAT big a problem and certainly not the HIGHEST priority they have globally or in the US market.
Hey, there are Mac apps from Nokia — I used that to load up an N95 8GB I was testing with music from iTunes. It also syncs other media (maybe even contacts) too.
It’s true that Nokia needs to do more, but I’m sure they don’t have the same incentive to do so as they do just to make sure their phones get some solid ground. They’re probably terrified that Apple and RIM will take share away just by having more interesting handsets in some cases.
“Does Nokia even care about Macs”
I think they do. The support they have now is quite strong considering that:
1. Nokia’s and OSX’s marketshares are completly mirror images of each other (OSX strong in NA and Nokia pretty much everywhere else on the planet).
2. OSX pretty comes with “It’s Apple’s way or the highway” - mentality. By this I mean that, when Apple has a application/hardware/whatever for OSX, then that is the only allowed for OSX. Look at DRM for example. It’s iTunes/Fairplay or….well nothing. Or checkout Apple’s iSync plugin page: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/isync/. As you can see Apple stopped updating their list around the timeiPhone was intoduced. For any models released after N93 you will have to go Nokia’s pages for support.
For me, as a Mac user, the most embarassing thing about Mac community is this: First we cry that no one support us. Then someone comes and starts supporting our small market. God forbid if that someone happens to compete with Apple….they will be ridiculed and laughed to hell.
In fact I don’t exactly blame Nokia for lack of support for the Mac as they’ve tried to maintain their support for the Apple users.
In fact you could say the same with most of the other manufacturers.
When it comes to support of other platforms what about Linux distributions? Here even Sony Ericsson have left out their support. (A friend of mine have an Ubuntu distro on his laptop and wasn’t able to sync with his SE).
The mentioning of Linux distributions are not far-fetched here, looking at the popularity of the ASUS EEE PC’s running a version of Xandros and the ACER Aspire One which also runs Linux variants (Options with XP is of course available).
This again is why they’ve have started using QT in PC Suite to get more compability (I hope).
But I’m sure that there’s a lot under the hood that we don’t know of yet.
When it comes to the issue with Safari, sometimes Safari is just weird. I tried once to get to a website on my school with a Mac and it wouldn’t open no matter what. Tried both the FF and Opera without luck.
I even thought that the website was down.
(I checked other sites to make sure that it was not network issues of course.)
I switched over to a PC with Linux and it opened in an instant.
Same with another computer running Windows XP, it was only the Mac who didn’t want to open that website.
One can again complain about that the browser is based upon webkit and so forth but one thing which is noteworthy is that both Nokia and Safari has their own modifications in their browsers. (We all know they both are based on webkit)
That is in fact a crucial point.
I’ve read through many PC vs. Mac articles and though most of them have their points. Apple fans seems to always support Apple no matter what. (Read: Windows XP “phones home” - users making a ruckus. Apple computers “phones home” - no one does anything about it.)
Even the al mighty Steve Jobs himself don’t want the Apple fans to make Apple products into a “religion”.
(Why?, because their will be no innovation.)
I think Tim gets to the point in his reply… “In fact their software/hardware still isn’t very Windows friendly even now, especially with Vista. So Apple compatibiltiy seems to be a long way off.”
It’s not that Nokia are ignoring the Mac platform completely, it’s just that they aren’t particularly good at ANY software, not on the Mac, Windows or even Symbian. It’s not their strength. Nokias strength is hardware. When it comes to hardware they are unbeatable!
This software issue that Nokia currently have could well end up being their downfall. I know that most of you who read this comment will probably violently disagree with me on this one, but if pocket computers are to be the next paradigm in personal computing - I find it hard to believe that Finland will become the epicenter of the next personal computing revolution. I have absolutely nothing against the country and its people, it’s just that the heart of personal computing is in North America right now and I don’t see that changing for very long time.
The company that can produce a pocket computer with the best hardware/software/services combo will clean up by 2012. Nokia have the hardware, but their software and services are not of the same standard. I think they know this but are struggling to raise their game. Unfortunately with Google, RIM, HTC, Samsung and Apple coming on strong in 2009 the situation may actually get worse before it gets any better.
James - I have to agree with you. While they’re making great strides, Nokia’s desktop applications have never really been much to write home about, and quite the opposite in terms of being resource hogs on most any hardware configuration. PC Suite is a notable exception, but it’s on v7.1 - it’s been around for DECADES, so it makes sense that it’s the most streamlined of the bunch.
On the other hand, recent apps such as Ovi Suite, Nokia Photos, Nokia Music PC Client, and more all suck up resources on my computer as if they’re infinite. My previous laptop only ran XP with a Core Duo 1.8GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, so I dealt with it. However, my new Dell XPS M1330 packs a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor with 4GB of RAM. There’s absolutely NO excuse for an app to run slow on this beast, even with Vista. Heck, even Photoshop loads faster than the Nokia Music PC Client or Ovi Suite did.
I sometimes wish that Nokia would spin off some kind of crack programming team, give them massive resources, a building of their own, the ability to ‘buy in’ exciting new talent and let them work on just one important application, a Nokia branded web browser or IM client with links to Ovi and Music Store, as an example. Their only instructions would be this;
Make it available from day one on Symbian, Maemo, Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.
Make sure it looks nothing like any other Nokia application.
Make it free.
Make it small.
Make it fast.
Keep it secret.
Launch it worldwide on some really memorable date.
I’m sure there are all sorts of reasons why this isn’t possible, but can you imagine the excitement it would create?
Like Nokia really needs Mac users with their measly, not even 10% market share. I don’t think so! Nokia is the 600 lb. gorilla of cellphone companies. It’s doing just fine the way it is. They probably don’t want to waste money on Macheads. Good, I say. The iPhone is going to bust Nokia where it hurts since lack of Nokia software will just convince Apple users to by iPhones and not even consider a Nokia handset. Nokia has some pretty fancy high-end handsets, I’ll grant them that. Apple could take some hardware tips from the N96.
> So does Nokia care about the Macs? A lot of facts, some of which
> were mentioned here hint that the answer is no. Yet other facts
> hint that yes, like the amazing Nokia Multimedia Transfer;
I think it’s obvious that Nokia doesn’t care, but people AT nokia do care, and make some good products. A single product manager working to get this stuff in front of users would solve 90% of the issues.
As far as the market share gripes, in the US (the market I am most familiar with) market share values are wildly skewed for comparisons like this. Most synching of say, music, will be on home computers. And with massive, frequent purchases of wintel boxes for offices, what’s that leave the home mac market at? I dunno, but anecdotally I am regularly surprised. I tend to say 1/4 of homes have at least one mac in them. And I’m not in a particularly cool or lefty part of the country, either.
If it’s 10%, I still have problems understanding why any company wants to toss that loyal segment to the competition. And remember, my N95 box says “north america” on it. Nokia has regional marketing guys. That program manager doesn’t have to be in sweden, but can push for changes market by market.
A common refrain I hear internally when I ask the “where’s the Mac love” question is market share. Apple doesn’t have it, either in the U.S. or elsewhere.
I don’t necessarily blame Apple for not licensing the iTunes DRM, I blame Microsoft for not making any obvious attempt at getting their DRM working on OS X. Even when they did offer Windows Media on the Mac, it was without DRM support.
If you really want to complete with iTunes, either everyone has to go DRM free–not happening anytime soon–or you have to get Windows DRM on Mac OS X.
DRM issues aside, there’s no reason they couldn’t develop Mac versions of some of their applications. From my point of view, the main things they need on the Mac are map sideloading and firmware updating.
Steven, I think you need to show me some data fast for me to believe that 1/4 of homes have a Mac. Or even that 1/4 of homes that a have a computer. I simply and seriously doubt that.
I think Rauha made a great point - Mac does not love anybody back.
wht abt linux??
While Apple / Macs may have a worldwide market share of 4% (last year’s numbers), their North American market share is 17%.
This is NOT insignificant. The 17% of North Americans who are willing to buy Macs are Nokia Nseries and Eseries target market. No ands and ifs about it.
Currently no Nseries or Eseries phones are being carried / sold by AT&T or T-Mobile (this may soon be changing with T-Mobile) in the US, so if Mac has 17% of the market that is millions of people and Nokia sold less than 120,000 units of Nseries devices in the US last year.
HELLO! Big F*ckin’ untapped market. The folks who are willing to buy a Mac at several hundred dollars more than the good Dells or Sony Vaios are the same folks who are willing to spend $400 - $700 for an unlocked Nokia Nseries or Eseries.
Nokia cannot continue to ignore North American Mac users unless they would like to concede all of North America to the iPhone.
Just ran a new search and arstechnica is reporting that in laptops that Dell, HP, and Acer are ahead of Apple, but Toshiba and All Others (including Sony) are behind Apple in US sales.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/09/17/apple-gains-us-market-share-in-laptops
And another thing… When are Nokia going to support the iPhone? I want my N-Gage!
Only kidding, please don’t shout! ^_-
Posted a commentary on this great post of yours.
“Macs and Nokia: Can we just work together? Uh, we do.”
http://conversations.nokia.com/home/2008/10/macs-and-nokia.html
Alas, you’re going to have to tell me how to do trackbacks to here, since I can’t seem to find the right URL for it.
Viipottaja…spoken like a true Finn, totally out of touch with the N. American market.
Recardo,
I believe Viipottaja lives in the USA, I’m not sure about that, but I have the impression he does. Would love if he’d confirm that.
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