It’s been a long year, 12 months of announcements, releases, events, new devices and firmwares, new applications and services. Any company, no matter how bad or good it handles its business, makes some terrible blunders during a year. So here are what, in our opinion, remain the top 5 blunders that Nokia made in 2009 in relation with Symbian.
1. Nokia N97 Release Firmware
When we look back to 2009, the biggest mistake Nokia made was to release the Nokia N97 with the pathetic v10 firmware. RAM management was almost non-existent on that firmware, applications were closing left and right if you dared to run more than 3 at a time on what was proudly called a “mobile computer”, battery life was anemic, scrolling through long lists of contacts or songs was an excruciating experience, internal memory was being devoured like candy by unknown beasts, and there were bugs to be found everywhere you looked. It’s true that firmware v11 and v12 came shortly after, but they didn’t really solve the important issues, and we had to wait until the end of October, almost a full 5 months after the device’s release, to get the decent v20 firmware. At a time when everyone was looking for a reason to criticize Nokia and Symbian, call the UI and software outdated and not onto par with the offering from the competition, this wasn’t a mistake that the company could afford. It’s no wonder then that the original N97 release firmware put a nail in the coffin for numerous bloggers and reviewers, and even more numerous fans who shifted to Android, Blackberry or the iPhone and said “Nokia no more”.
2. N-Gage
Where do we start? The original N-Gage? We all knew it went downhill thanks to it being confined to oddly shaped joystick-phones that only hardcore gamers bit into, but the new N-Gage? We can’t even begin to name the reasons it failed. When you put that amount of investment into a project, when you do that many advertisements and a whirlwind of flash websites to market it, you expect, at least, to have a decent product behind. Not only was the games quality bordering on pathetic for some offers (some were actually good, but they were a minority) but they were also over-priced in comparison with the exact same Java or Symbian game offered outside of N-Gage. Not to mention the fact that you couldn’t transfer your purchase licenses to other devices for a long time, the lack of a progress saving option that kept your data when you format your phone, the terrible absence of multiplayer mode for many titles, and oh so many other no-brainer mistakes. Eventually, Nokia pulled the plug on N-Gage and left the new 2.0 gaming community die a slow death. Their explanation? We have the Ovi Store for games. Yes, uhm, right.
3. Ovi Share
When Nokia acquired media-sharing community Twango for $96.8 Million, we expected earth-shattering announcements and a lot of movement in the online picture and video-sharing scene. Twango was relaunched as Share For Ovi which was perfect, until it eventually became Share On Ovi then Ovi Share and instead of moving forward, did almost every mistake in the book to become worse. From incredible bloopers like messing up the sign-in names while merging with the global Nokia account, to redesigning the website and removing everything that used to make it perfect, to limiting the file type support to only a few instead of 100+, and many more, Ovi Share has done an incredibly awesome job at moving steadily backwards. 2009 will go down in my own personal memory as the year Nokia took something awesome and made it a mess. Insert sadistic applause.
4. Nokia N86 8MP Announcement
My major “oh no you didn’t” Nokia moment from 2009 was during Mobile World Congress in February, when I downloaded the PDF press kit of the event to find a Carl Zeiss file mentioning the Nokia N86 8MP with a picture. Why? Nokia had a big fat launch the hour before and announced the E55, E75, 6710 Navigator and 6720 Classic. No N86 8MP. I instantly pinged Ricky who pushed the news to you, and we later discovered that the N86 8MP was showcased by Nokia two days earlier in an event somewhere in Asia, before being officially announced on a global level. The N86 8MP was then rushed out in a small announcement the next day at Mobile World Congress. Nevertheless, you would agree that only Nokia could pull off an “official leak” of their own device. But it wasn’t just the rushed and missed announcement that annoyed us, it’s the way the N86 8MP has been treated this whole year as the forgotten bastard child of the Nseries family, when clearly both me and Ricky agree that it’s the best handset to come out of the Finnish manufacturer in a while.
5. Joker
While trying to choose a 5th Nokia blunder from 2009, we couldn’t really agree on one, not because of the lack of contenders, but because many of them deserved to be in this spot. That’s why we decided to let you give us your opinion on what you think is Nokia’s fifth biggest blunder this year in relation with Symbian. Was it the lack of marketing for Ovi Files, the lack of support for Ovi Sync, the missed Ovi Store launch, the way they keep on working on this “services” strategy without really doing anything earth-shattering, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic’s hardware problems especially the call speaker one, the Nokia N97′s anemic internal memory and RAM, or something else that completely slipped our mind? Now is the time to share your thoughts with us. Drop us a line below in the comments.
[Image courtesy of Jamuse]
5) Allowing much too long a gap between Maemo device releases (N810 to N900). The community went collectively mad as the deafening silence built.
N97 camera cover/ lens scratcher
Screwy firmware in pretty much every phone including N86
Ovi store. Unable to access it via a pc or via cell phones for several phones due to 'incompatibility'
Missing the target with the E71 successor, the E72.
and while not the top blunders and not exactly 2009, but:
Lack of quality phones in North America other than N86.
Remaining adamant on not using xenon flash.
Actually I'm hoping to see a similar post titled “Top 5 achievements by Nokia in 2009″. I cant think of a single point other than the N86 camera.
I went from the E71 to the N97…but that phone was so disappointing. After all the firmware updates, I still hate it. Symbian v3 is good enough in non-touch devices…but Symbian v5 sucks as a touch OS. The phone is also slow as hell. They made it so difficult to switch the sd cards. And worse: the apps: I don't need much, but what used to work in symbian v3, doesn't work in v5 (punch2go, sbsh calendar).
I decided it was time to leave nokia. Luckily, the n900 appeared. It's an awesome device. I'm completely in love with it. Either way, Nokia disappointed me so much this year, that I'll probably go Android next year (although for now I'm planning to stay with Maemo and do a couple apps in python).
They should have released the n97 with n900's specs (proc/ram). When I had the n97, the RAM was evil, the usb connector became loose, the camera scratched, widgets are useless without ram, and the gps had issues.. i sent it in for service, they fixed everything except the RAM issues. Now have the n900 and loving it, just waiting on GPS navigation and maybe some portrait browser action. Maemo is the future, and it's exciting to see what becomes of it in version 6.
So many possible options for No. 5 I don't know where to start. My personal suggestion for the top of the list is the continued lack of support for the Mac OS with all their services. Seriously, in this day and age excluding an entire large segment of the market just because you can't be arsed to develop software for it is inexcusable.
However just to make Nokia suffer there should be another mention of problems with the N97 – the worst Nokia handset of all time, of all time!
I came up with two major blunders, both strategic, and both worse IMO than the four already on the list.
#5a: Underpowered flagship phones.
#5b: Lack of commitment to Symbian/S60.
Fleshed out at http://satiousers.com/2009/12/nokias-5th-bigges...
The lack of firmware update for 5800 with kinetic scrolling and enhanced homescreen, despite it being nokia's best selling phone, and despite the fact that every other nokia s60v5 device has the features, including devices which are LOWER END compared to 5800, its absolutely depressing and pathetic. There's no other blunder as big as this.
Excellent stuff as usual Rita ;-)
my take,
1. Terminating Stefan Constantinescu's contract only because he shared N86's photo samples with Steve Litchfield, who then published it on AAS. At that time, N86 was official. Bringing Stefan in was among the wisest decision but kicking him out hurts many bloggers and no, I dont know Stefan personally ;-)
2. Confusing naming convention.
For example, we had Nokia Email, after that Nokia Messaging, then we have Nokia Messaging Email… Come on… Make up your mind… Oh, the best part is 6700 is a Symbian smartphone but 6700 Classic is an S40 phone… Other example like PC Suite or Ovi Suite?
3. Ovi Store
Why oh why it is implemented so badly? And the application (phone client) is not even a native application. It's a Widget (WRT) app. Slow as hell, eats RAM like crazy, hard to use. The search algorithm is messy, cant find the correct app. This is the BIGGEST Nokia f**k-up this year IMHO.
4. Nokia Messaging Chat a Java app
Why not do it as native? it is slow and clunky.
Cheers!
Asri al-Baker
I really hated Nokia for
1. not giving decent hardware specs on the N97. Low ram , c: drive space and ultra low processor speed gave the N97 a bad name.
2. releasing too many 2.4 inch screens on the e series and other wierd number models :-). Nokia was practically the first to give us a 2.8″ screen (N95 8gb). I was expecting Nokia to give me a better resolution and bigger screen on the e72. Those blackberry screens are really easy on the eyes..
5. Losing some of their most loyal high-end customers, by refusing to produce a true flagship. This is going to be a long one…
I have only been buying phones for about three years. The very first phone I purchased with my own money was the N95. I LOVED that phone. I loved it so much that I bought two more. Eight months after my N95-1, I upgraded to the N95-3. Eight months after that was the N95-4. I didn't replace previous versions because I had a problem with them, but rather, because I was so excited that Nokia had pushed the threshold of technological innovation even further. I was happy to upgrade my nearly perfect phone to the latest, even more perfect incarnation.
During my 2+ years of N95 ownership, I turned myself into the ultimate Nokia fanboy. I purchased even more Nokia products that, by all rights, I had absolutely no need for: A 6500 Classic as a “backup,” a 1208 for a “secondary backup” and an N810 for little more reason than to display the photos and videos taken by my N95. I even began buying old heavily damaged Nokias from my customers and refurbishing them. I'm very proud of my brand-new-looking, fully functional N70, N73, and 3620, which began as heaps of mostly broken parts :) Despite how loyal as I was, when Nokia announced the specifications for N96 I was truly offended. Eventually I accepted that even the best manufacturers occasionally make mistakes. Instead of swearing off Nokia altogether I took a break from N-Series and bought an E71 in protest.
After, you guessed it, about eight months, I had gotten a bit tired my E71, and I wanted a media phone again. It was a two full generations of N-Series since the release of the N95 8GB. The latest flagship had a more resource-intensive version of the OS, came with several resource-intensive applications, and was marketed as their most advanced multimedia device. Yet it ran practically the same applications processor and had the same amount of RAM, without the benefit of dedicated graphics or image/video coprocessors! And somehow it also managed to have one of the most problematic initial firmwares of any Nokia in recent years. The N97 is not a bad phone. In fact it is quite an amazing device in the hands of 90% of properly educated people. But due to its hardware limitations, it cannot be considered an acceptable flagship. For those 10% of us who demand a Symbian phone that truly represents the greatest technological advancements made in the field of mobile electronics, Nokia has simply been unable to deliver in 2009.
Realplayer cannot play in background on the 5800. I believe on the n97 streaming links cannot be played. How is one to play internet radio and multi task, can use the s60 v3 radio but real player in background would make life so much easier and make phone true multi task. This may sound like a silly ask but the amount of people overseas and around Europe who listen to their 'home stations' is huge and will move to apple with the wunder radio app. A lot of radio stations now have their own iphone app. I am very close to it except for the like of tunin.fm and moodio but that is only a band aid for my prob.
The ability to change the home screen would be good and if possible why don't they just do it, the amount of blogs with people unhappy with not having this and kinetic scrolling is huge and this is a model that has sold over 10 million units, prob will outsell iphone and other toys on the market.
Hope nokia read this and fix with firmware or it could be my last nokia. They need to listen to feedback because as of now a lot of loyal customers are changing and wont come back especially males in 25 to 45 age bracket and anyone who buys apps on a different platform will not change back in a hurry. (Age makes people once bitten twice shy……and word of mouth and blogs, tweets etc will make people wary of nokia esp with the poor revies in the last year) Younger people will try every fad on the market. Do they not realise in business it takes a lot less on marketing to maintain existing customers than to go out and get new ones.
No. 5 blunder should really be 'we have released some very below average models, allowed apple to get jump on us in smart phone market but we are listening to our loyal customers and in 2010 will stop the rot that has crept in and not allow a phone maker with one or two models be more profitable than us even though we sell over 10 times their volume. Fix the problems in existing models so these customers stick with us and buy our next flagship with phone with confidence.'
Ah, so many missed opportunities, so many messups. Which to choose? Hardware mistakes like N97 are sure popular, but Nokia's biggest fault is in my opinion their failure to provide FUNCTIONAL and GLOBAL Ovi store/music store. I combine these two because it will be this lack of working services that will break Nokia's back. They profile themselves as a service based company, but the reality is sadly lacking.
If Nokia wants to succeed as a global player, they must improve drasticly not only quality of their phones, but most of all provided services. It's not just about the phones anymore, wake up Nokia! And no, your recent half baked attempts don't count…
Realplayer can most definitely be in the background on the 5800. My runs in the background no problem.
I have taken phone to nokia care centre, called the customer care number, know 3 people with a 5800 and seen numerous posts on the net that using realpayer to stream internet radio and use other apps at the same time and IT DOES NOT DO IT. If your phone does it then definitely last nokia for me. It will run on top of applications but pushing the red button or white button or when trying to access other open apps the streaming link closes, realplayer stays open but does not play anything. I am sure others here have the same issue on the 5800 not to mention the music player which is another blunder on nokia. People have thrown out their phone besause library won't refresh and all the help people will do is a hard reset. There is a fix but most couldn't be bothered when cheapy mp3 players give less trouble. I bet 90% of people have done a hard reset on their phone more than once and probably 100% have scratches on screen and case, the shittest quality nokia ever released. To me nokia have used 5800 and n97 buyers as guinea pigs and proof is in their dropping market share.
5. No Android phone
I'm not saying abandon Symbian or Maemo, but remember the excitement over the rumor of an Nokia Android? Couldn't they see the potential market for such a phone? I was so ready to purchase one! It would of at least served as a measure of redemption for the past blunders.
Well as one of the original 10 from Twango now gone with the rest of the team we built I'm sad to be on this list. However, we need to be on this list. Nokia is a mess in the services org in general I blame the Sr. services mgmt. I blame the fact while they say they where committed to services they are not. They can't decide on any standards and change directions consistently. Then there are reorgs that happen all the time, try 5 managers in 2 years…. Nokia is a sinking ship and the Apple lawsuits show how desperate they really are.
As the owner of an E62, I had patiently followed the release info on the E71 and could not wait for the E71x release on AT&T. I was the first on in the store the morning it released only to find I had driven an hour for it not to be available yet. When I finally had an E71x in had, I noticed they had replaced all the apps I had been reading about on the E71 with AT&T branded crapware. Removed all the GPS apps except for ATT Navi. No FM radio. QuickOffice was the demo version and you had to pay to get any function other than read a doc. I already had the full version on my E62 from AT&T so I knew what I was missing. Worse yet, the apps I had from work would not run on the E71x when they did on the E62. Are you kidding me?!?! Plus, AT&T required the PDA plan with extra charges to tether. NOT!!! I kept the E71x over the weekend then returned it. What a neutered piece junk. I bought the unlocked E71 online and what do you know? Everything I was looking for. FM radio, full version of Quick Office, all the Nokia GPS apps and my work apps functioned great! Also, no PDA data plan and no extra charge to tether the laptop. The E71 has freed me from carrying my laptop everywhere. Now where is that firmware update Nokia?!
Sorry, but there is no way Nokia will go Android. They already have not one, but TWO smart phone platforms to support and develop and I'm guessing that will be headache enough for them…
IMHO, the 5th biggest blunder for 2009 should go to the NOKIA E72. There has been much anticipation and hype about this phone for most of the year and in the end, though impressive on paper, it is fraught with stability issues and features that outright just don't work. Why even put this product on the market if it is not ready?!? I've been using one for about 1 week now and my last phone was an E71.
**NEW but Poorly Implemented**
OPTICAL NAVI PAD is of very limited use. It also stops working during voice calls! Plus the camera's autofocus feature appears to be bound to the Navi Pad (a light touch engages the focus). If you disable the feature you lose the ability to focus. The D-Pad of inferior quality compared to the E71 and often feels as if it clicking back into place.
ACCELEROMETER does not seem to be supported by most of the apps which utilize this feature (and mind you there aren't that many out there).
EXTERNAL SPEAKER appears a bit weaker than on the E71 (perhaps d/t its new location in the rear as opposed to the top edge).
USB CHARGING in my experience only works when connected to a computer and there needs to be a data connection established. It does not charge via car charger or power strip.
**BROKEN**
BLUETOOTH STACK, many users out there have reported difficulties with BT headsets and I echo their voices. I have experienced shutdown of the BT in the midst of a telephone conversation. When this happens I am unable to toggle the BT radio to off and the only remedy is a re-boot.
USB, faulty data connectivity. Maybe I have a lemon but when I connect the E72 to my computer, it is recognized <50% of the time. No data connection and NO CHARGING.
In closing, the release of the E72 is reminiscent of the N97, so much promise but dismal execution. Maybe after seven months we will finally be able to love the E72, that's the time it took Nokia to fix up the N97 to The Guru's liking. There's hope?!?
Is your phone hacked..
Nokia itself is a big blunder now.
I have read on quite a few blogs about the Symbian UI dying out too. I don;t really know whether that is true or not, but the N97 I agree was the biggest goof up, It should have had the HW specs of the N900.
Instead of having an excellent device which makes a breakthrough again linke the Ex-Flagship N95, Nokia just shut down good services like MOSH and Widsets to convert them into the pathetic OVI Store.
OVI Suite of services are not what they should have concentrated on. What are they trying to do, Beat the apple store????
Now they are going to concentrate and invest more to develop the S40 UI further. BAD MOVE.
Totally agree with aman
I'm the same adam, in late 2007 I was trying to consider an e90 or n95. I had wished there was an n95 with double the RAM and US 3g. Then the n95-3 was announce and promptly picked it up at the nokia flagship in chicago, along with my first nonprepay cell plan. I was really happy with the phone. Nokia announced the n85, which (on paper) seemed like a sexier n95. One of the first time I have ever gone with an expensive leap of faith and pre-ordered the device. Well I got it and was very VERY disappointed. The firmware update helped a bit, but things like the camera just couldn't be fixed. And 2 months after receiving the device the n86 was announced and it was everything the n85 should have been.
As of lately ATT's 3G network has been pretty garbage in the city so I decided to give verizon a go. The Droid is so fantastic… I can believe what i've been missing. I wasn't expecting as much quality from the network or the phone as it has given me. I picked up my n85 the yesterday, to show off the tv-out to some one, and just puked in comparison to what I'm getting with Android.
wasting time and money suing apple! this just shows that nokia is losing market to the iphone. they could have used their resources to make an iphone killer, we all know that nokia has the potential to do so…
and why go for maemo when they have symbian?
Another mistake was this year's participation at CES.
Nokia, if you don't believe in CES as a venue to announce new products or partnerships, fine, skip it altogether, like Apple did. I'd prefer that to showing up empty-handed and giving a snooze-fest of a keynote, like you did this year. You embarrassed yourself, and gave ammunition to that part of the press who already thinks you're obsolete and irrelevant.
HAHA!!
The Nokia 5800 launch gets my vote for the biggest blunder, no question about it.
The Ovi Store, I mean, it really sucks, but why? Nokia has nearky 40 percent of the market,. So why are the prices shit and downloads fail……