Nokia's iPhone, No Seriously

Several readers have written to tell us that Engadget has a look at Nokia's visions for the future. "It was presented during Nokia's GoPlay event this morning as a glimpse into the future of Nokia interface design. Oh, and it's due out next year. When pressed during the Q&A about the striking similarity to the little Cupertino device, Anssi Vanjoki — Nokia's Executive VP & General Manager of Multimedia — said, 'If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.' Well, ok then."

I know I can't get a Nissan

Not even a Stanza...

But maybe I can mod this, and make a trade for a refurbed Segway.

Well, in any case, I'm holding out for the ZunePhone...

Re:I know I can't get a Nissan

Well, in any case, I'm holding out for the ZunePhone...

Well sonny Jim, you're in luck! [youtube.com] Get squirting today!

This is S60 4.0

This will be based on Symbian's S60 4.0 new version btw, not Linux. It's just the evolution of their S60 smartphone platform.

Re:This is S60 4.0

What pisses me off about the whole thing is this is the usual "everyone's copying Apple" bullshit that gets trotted out whenever someone releases a product which might be considered competition or fulfils a similar role to an Apple product.

Because Apple were categorically the first company ever to release a pocket device with a touchscreen. History starts with them. The whole world of PDAs with network capabilities, picture viewers, mp3 players, web browsing capabilities didn't really happen. Companies like Palm who made small touchscreen devices, looked into the future, predicted the iPhone and copied the concept years before Apple did it first.

And I say that as a Mac Pro owner. Love their computers. Love their gear. Hate their fanbase.

Re:This is S60 4.0

One Word: Newton.

Yup, history certainly did start with Apple. If cell phones in 1992 didn't weigh 6-10 pounds, it probably would have had that inside as well.

The Newton Irony

Sir Isaac Newton on Intellectual Property: "If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants".

Q.E.D.

Re:The Newton Irony

This sounds so great until you realize that he was actually saying it to make fun of Robert Hook's short stature. Newton could be a very petty man in many ways, and he unwillingness to acknowledge Hook (and Leibniz) is the stuff of legend.

Multi-touch

It can't do multi-touch, but the iPhone won't even let me select a song as my ringtone. Some multimedia phone.

The iPhone won't let me replace the battery, it isn't 3G, Flash doesn't work on the web, CSS doesn't display correctly, it has a low resolution, and the latest PC World (which normally loves Apple products) ranked it fifth out of the 5 smart phones they tested. They said video quality was shockingly low, and the only real praise they had for it was audio output.

As a typical cell phone, it lacks most of the features that free phones offer these days like song ringtones, multimedia messaging, etc.

For $600, some of the real basic missing features are just flat-out shocking. And when you compare it to smart-phones, I'd much rather have a phone where I can add apps, but maybe that is just me.

However, that multi-touch function sure makes it all worthwhile.

Re:Multi-touch

It can't do multi-touch, but the iPhone won't even let me select a song as my ringtone.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Re:Multi-touch

It can't do multi-touch, but the iPhone won't even let me select a song as my ringtone. Some multimedia phone.

But it can play a song, or even a video, on demand. Does your stereo or TV switch to a random song when you get a call? I guess it's not a multimedia device either.

The iPhone won't let me replace the battery

Sure it will. In about three or four years, when the battery life starts to get to be a little low, you send it off and you get a new battery.

it isn't 3G

Nor is the US. It does have WiFi which is far faster.

Flash doesn't work on the web

Boy, you got that right - which is why it doesn't matter much that the iPhone browser doesn't support it. I have not missed it at all.

CSS doesn't display correctly

It's almost ACID2, and I have yet to use a page in real life that does not work on it.

it has a low resolution

Compared to what? A Desktop? Compared to any other smartphone the same size the resolution is quite excellent, I can read Slashdot text almost without zooming in on the page at all!

and the latest PC World (which normally loves Apple products) ranked it fifth out of the 5 smart phones they tested. They said video quality was shockingly low, and the only real praise they had for it was audio output.

That's odd, the only thing I could find on PC World covering the display was this [pcworld.com] fragment:

"The screen: Tom loved the iPhone's 3.5-inch widescreen 160 dpi display. "Simply incredible," he said. "The color, the clarity, and the sharpness of everything." Universally, this has been the reaction of everyone who's seen my iPhone. "Oh my, just look at that screen!" "That's incredible!" "Heck, that looks nicer than my TV, much less my cell phone!"

The videos on Apple's site really don't convey just how nice the display really is."

Unless you have some other link you'd care to share to make your point?

For $600, some of the real basic missing features are just flat-out shocking.

If you thought that was shocking you should try buying an unlocked RAZR and despair at what you just payed for. The iPhone is a bargain at twice the price.

Re:Multi-touch

I really enjoy having a different song for everyone in my address book. Picking the perfect song for each person is half the fun.

Everyone who has songs for ringtone, please proceed to the second starship!

Thank you!

Re:This is S60 4.0

Because Apple were categorically the first company ever to release a pocket device with a touchscreen.

Actually, the Casio PB-1000 was the first to have this feature in 1987.

Apple also had competition in the PDA market when it first introduced the Newton in 1993. The Casio Z-7000 "Zoomer"/Tandy Z-PDA were introduced a couple months later. These devices also featured a touch screen with handwriting recognition.

Re:This is S60 4.0

No, it will be more expensive, have an illogical and clunky user interface, and take 8 firmware revisions before it becomes remotely stable enough to use. (I used to be a nokia fan boy, though I stopped with the N80 which cost me around $750 US when first released) As has now become tradition, nokia will require that every single piece of software be signed before installation, though they will find a way to screw that process up even more than they have now. The operating system will spend more time chatting to the TPM chip than all previous symbian versions put together, DRM will be significantly enhanced and soak up any remaining CPU cycles such that it takes at least 3 seconds for any key press to register, followed by another 4 seconds to update the screen. (And that's on a good day)

Until nokia pull their heads out of their collective arses and ease up on the pointless file system restrictions, symbian 3rd edition was the last straw not only for me, but a good many others going by forum chatter. I will not be buying nokia at all.

The alternatives aren't much better, but at least most have already been broken by 3rd party solutions. BB5 is still hit and miss.

Re:This is S60 4.0

though I stopped with the N80

Ouch. Never used one, but according to forum chatter that one was a lemon. On paper a great device, but way too slow CPU and gimped battery.

It has gotten better, though. The latest batch of 3rd ed phones are quite good (E90, N81, N95*).

* Make sure you get the second edition of the N95 (the soon-to-be-released US or the just released 8GB one), the first ed is a bit short on RAM and battery. I got one of the 1st ed myself, and it is almost a small laptop in my pocket; the functionality is mainly gimped by Nokia skimping on the RAM.

As has now become tradition, nokia will require that every single piece of software be signed before installation

It isn't quite that bad. "Please notice that Symbian Signed is not mandatory, if your application uses only unrestricted APIs or user-grantable capabilities." http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/technical_services /testing/cap_granting.html [nokia.com]

Still, the process for signing is too cumbersome for most freeware / FOSS devs to be bothered with. It's unfortunately a sad state, because smartphones really need a good open platform for 3rd party devs and Nokia seems to be going in the wrong direction here. And it is likely that we'll have to wait a long time for Apple to release an iPhone SDK, too. Once you unjail the thing there doesn't seem to be any sort of security at all; at the very least, Apple needs to sort out a security model first. WinMobile? Oh, don't get me started...

The only other ray of hope is Linux, it will be interesting to see if efforts like OpenMoko are successful. I really hope so, because as I said we need a good open platform for small mobile devices. Even a moderate success might cause Nokia and others to open up their platforms a bit more (just like the iPhone is causing them to revisit their UIs).

Re:This is S60 4.0

As an IT professional, I prefer the S60 series of devices over the iPhone hands down. Symbian has a whole slew of applications available for the platform, including Putty, Citrix, and RDP clients. My E61i has built in wifi, and Nokia has released a SCCP client (Cisco VoIP) that registers with my Cisco CallManager cluster as soon as I enter the building. Combine that with their full Intellisync package, and you've got the sexiest work phone ever. I'll grant you that the average cell phone user would have a better time with the iPhone, but for me it's Nokia all the way.

For a more humorous take on what I'm talking about, check out http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ip hone [thebestpag...iverse.net]">this review.

Re:This is S60 4.0

The customer Apple is targetting thinks Putty is silly, Citrix is a vitamin C supplement, and RDP is a French police department. SCCP and VoIP is just as arcane to them as TCPIP, XSLT, and the DMCA.

It's great that Nokia has such a wonderful phone for you, but isn't it even better that, coming soon, Nokia will have an iPhone-like device that will do everything you just described, AND work like an iPhone too?

Re:This is S60 4.0

Judging from my experience with nokia phones. The user interface, performance and construction will still have significant gaps/compromise in order to keep the end price affordable and the handset profitable.(Apple earn their followers by producing thorough and seamless interfaces, this directly contradicts Nokia's business model.)

Plus in the hey-day of MP3 player competition: Apple rolled out new models twice a year. I doubt that the iPhone won't be following the same aggressive product development cycle.

I'm not dissing Nokia for duplicating the iPhone interface (and definitely extending it with their handset experience.) What I am saying however is that Nokia will produce every kind of phone out there in their usual jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none design ethos.

They know that profitability is not about having the best phone out there, but having something comparable and half the price. (I.e consumer choice.)

Additionally one can argue that the two companies work in different markets: Nokia rarely cut out seldom used/confusing features in the fear that they'll strike off a possible buyer. Apple on the other hand will only include the most desired features and reinvent them with their particular experience in usability.

Re:This is S60 4.0

Wow, your perception of Nokia is the complete opposite of mine. In my opinion, and frankly it's a very predominant one in the industry, Nokia is synonymous with the highest quality hardware and most intuitive interfaces in the mobile phone market. This is relative to the other phone companies, of course, not Apple because no one has made a phone anything like the iPhone before and it's too early to see what kind of phone company Apple will prove to be.

Anyway, Nokia phones are generally [i]very[/i] expensive relative to their competition as far as comparisons in terms of features go. It is in ease of use, build quality, aesthetics, and performance that Nokia's have traditionally been admired -- certainly not cost.

It'll be an interesting competition. In a sense, Nokia would be the Apple of traditional mobile phone manufacturers. Indeed, particularly since Nokia has traditional been the innovator in form factors, technologies -- certainly the one cloned rather than the cloner -- I'm actually pleasantly a bit surprised by their shrewdness and humility in simply recognizing the excellence of the Apple phone and quickly taking advantage of the position they have (unusually), of being second and thus, able to copy it ;)

Re:This is S60 4.0

I'm not sure what fanboy coolaid you are drinking, but nokia have been far from innovative in handset design. It took them years to understand that phones could actually be designed a tad more stylish than the standard house brick format. Sony Ericsson have it right, fast OS and far more intuitive interfaces, better music players, better sound. The only thing symbian has going for it is that it allows 3rd party software, though this is becoming far more convoluted and difficult with every new iteration of the OS.

Re:This is S60 4.0

I'm not sure what fanboy coolaid you are drinking, but nokia have been far from innovative in handset design. It took them years to understand that phones could actually be designed a tad more stylish than the standard house brick format.

I think you're making his point for him.

I don't give a shit about how stylish my phone is.

I want one that lets me do what I need to do as efficiently as possible.

To date, Nokia kicks everyone else's ass in that regard. On average, the interface requires the fewest button presses to do the most common things, and it's relatively internally consistent compared to most other handset brands.

Actually it's the E70...

And it's the "pinnacle of human achievement" [thebestpag...iverse.net].

Re:This is S60 4.0

Oh no, not Symbian!

I'm an intern at Nokia Research right now. We all hate Symbian here. Symbian C++ is incredibly bizarre to program for, and this is coming from someone who thinks Haskell is a great language. You can make the phone OS either lock up or reset way too easily. If linux ever makes it into the flagship phones, I think you'll see a lot more innovation out of Nokia, because the developers and researchers will no longer be hobbled.

For example, Dlls are limited to a 1MB heap... unless you declare a new heap, then swap it out with User::SwapHeap. Of course if you call new on one heap and delete on another all hell breaks loose. Why have a hard limit on Dll heap size if you can just code around it?

Don't even get me started on the hacked together perl scripts that constitute the developer's kit (assuming you're a command line + emacs/vi person). Your SDK has to be in the root directory (or subst'd to be such), and your code has to live somewhere on the same drive - ie all projects live under the SDK.

The security model is a nightmare for researchers. You can't make the phone do anything genuinely new without flashing the phone firmware to a dev version, which means nothing you've written can ever be tried out by other people (nobody wants to flash their personal phone to the dev version), which means the idea will never make it out of the lab and dies from lack of exposure.

Bah. Posting anon for obvious reasons :)

Re:This is S60 4.0

How's the Visual Studio development toolkit going on? I was supposed to be project manager on that but they moved the whole project to Chezk if I remember correctly :)

I worked as Symbian coder for couple of years 2003-2004 and man it sucked. The whole development environment is absolutely horrible! But let's start from documentation. The whole documentation is directly generated from comments coming from .h and .c files. Often it lacked some necessary information which had to be googled or your software came crashing down. Sometimes it even gave wrong info and your software came crashing down. Documentation was almost useless.

And how about debuggin then? What's the idea with phone simulator (not emulator) that lacks of phone functionalities! There was some hack to get it to use Windows' TCPIP stack but no calls and no SMS. Simulator ran on X86 so you couldn't catch any of the ARM (or was it MIPS? Don't remember.) specific errors.

Building process was absolute mess! Perl scipts which had to be invoked from command line. Luckily I managed to create nice .bat file which compiled everything and packaged software to installation package. There was some weird thing with Perl also that you had to set some environment variables to get it working. Nothing of this was on the documentation of course. Just a notice, that you should not set this variable...

The whole architecture was pure shit. I've never seen a good C++ API and Symbian was/is no exception. Of course the lack of exception handling in the normal C++ way doesn't help either (yes, I know C++ didn't have exceptions when Symbian was first made but they was on experimental state and they could have added those later). I've heard a saying that if you need to inherit multiple classes (not interfaces or abstract classes but normal classes) there's something terrible wrong with your code. Well, I often ended up inheriting 3-5 classes and implementing 1-2 interfaces. Talking about good design...

And that's just the Symbian part. Add Nokia's Sxx or (Sony)Ericsson's UIQ above that with their braindead design and you get a very fucked up coder.

This reminds me when I was looking for a new job, I think it was -05, I got a phone call from London (I live in Finland) and they offered me a Symbian job. You know what I answered? "There's no company in the world that will pay me enough to get back to that horrible piece of ..." (I'm a gentleman, I don't curse when there's ladies around/in phone). Need I say that I didn't take the job? :)

Posting non-anon for karma whoring :P

Please

Tag this stody Innovation

or just Desperation

Something good in the world?

I guess that beats everyone else's motto; "If there is something good in the world, aquire dubious IP then SUE SUE SUE!".

Technology demo...

I read the article before seeing it here. Nokia says they were displaying there touch screen technology. The fact they chose a hardware platform that looked...familiar is simply been reason for a few chuckles. So it's an OS thing more then a hardware thing. They probably could have done it with a less obvious knock-off, but I'm sure they needed something fast with the right screen size to display the feature.

Turn it on its head

I'm actually pretty excited to see iPhone features make their way into non Apple products. Sure it is blatant idea theft. Sure Nokia is leeching whatever "coolness" they can from Apples form factor. Who cares? We have PCs that aren't proprietary because of blatant idea theft. Hell, we really wouldn't have spinning cubes in Linux were it not for ideas presented in other operating systems. Noah Wylie, while playing Steve Jobs said that "good artists copy, great artists steal". I do not mind getting quality (if Apple like) features at a lower price than Apple is willing to offer.

Re:Turn it on its head

Noah Wylie, while playing Steve Jobs said that "good artists copy, great artists steal"

That quote is stolen from Picasso, I believe.

Re:Turn it on its head

> Sure it is blatant idea theft

You forget, Apple is leveraging decades of ideas in cell phone technology for their product that they never thought of. Sure they have a lot of great new ideas, but I don't see other folks using their ideas as stealing. No more than I see Apple building a cell phone as stealing.

big deal

It'll live or die from the software it supports. Maybe if they open it up to developers more it will pressure apple to as well.

Can't anyone see it's a joke/hoax?

Umm, someone just took a video editing program, and replaced the Apple with Nokia. People on Slashdot AND Digg seem to not be picking up on this yet.
It's clearly a poke at Nokia saying, "They are simply going to rip off Apple after the iPhone, and we think they'd go this far". Come on people! Apple DID file a handful of patents on this.

Re:Can't anyone see it's a joke/hoax?

It's no hoax.

Nokia had a huge launch event in London on the 29th to announce a US 3G version of the N95, the N81, the new version of the N-Gage platform, the Ovi brand (maps, games, & other services), as well as to demonstrate the touchscreen S60 interface mentioned in this article.

Re:Can't anyone see it's a joke/hoax?

No, this is legit, it's coming from the London GoPlay launch event. There's a pic of it from a live blog here [thenokiablog.com].

Probably a marketing ploy

I'm not so sure that the finished model will end up looking like this; the European iPhone launch is seemingly due to happen shortly, and it makes perfect sense for Nokia to remind people that there is something better just around the corner.

Nokia's high-end products have always been head and shoulders above the rest. Its current top of the range models are arguably better than the iPhone, possibly excepting the design and touchscreen. When Nokia do launch this device, or a similar one, I've no doubt it will support technologies such as HSDPA (3.5G), multimedia messages, uPnP media sharing, third party (unsigned) applications and all the multimedia functions us Europeans have come to expect from Nokia's "multimedia computers".

There is no doubt in my mind that Apple are the proverbial Rolls Royce of desktop computing, however I'm not too sure of their credentials in the global mobile telephony market - I just don't believe they "get it".

Apple iPhone Patents?

Didn't Apple file a bunch of patents related to the iPhone and specifically the touch screen?

How long before we see Apple's lawyers get on Nokia for patent infringement?

There's copying...

and then there's carbon-copying. Which this is. It doesn't just resemble the iPhone or steal ideas from it - everything I saw in the technology demo was EXACTLY the same.

So not dubious - shameless. Yeesh.

Yawn...

Come on what is the big deal about this thing. The iPhone has a touch-screen interface, which is really its great innovation. Nokia has made a touch-screen interface to their OS, the iPhone has shown its a great way to have a small communication device with a small footprint. What do you expect for a touch-screen phone other one big display? Granted this will probably be much better in many ways for, more hackable, more bleeding edge hardware/features, but its just the inevitable, big screen with few buttons, buttons are wasted space on very small form-factor devices. Touch screens are where little phones with lots of usability are going.

High-end phone interfaces lapping Microsoft

Sometimes I think the discussions on Slashdot are pretty dumb, but that Engadget discussion is a whole order of magnitude more dumb. I guess it's because it involves Apple.

It's not the hardware that makes this an iPhone clone, it's the look and feel of the interface. Hell from that poor quality video they posted even the UI colours seem to be the same.

Also Apple have patents on the UI behaviour up the wazoo.

On the other hand Nokia won't lock their device to particular networks, make it unlockable, and sell it with 2G EDGE only. On the other hand, it isn't out yet. If this is as early as Apple's previews, then Nokia won't have anything on the market for at least 6 months.

What this does show is the market moving on from rather static 2D PDA-style interfaces. Apple are a bit player right now, but Nokia are pretty major. This puts pressure on Microsoft, who have just released their WM2006 product - a classic 2D PDA-like OS, when the competition is moving to slicker, smoother, easier-to-use and intuitive interfaces that are far more function centric than application centric.

Nokia: More mature interface with features and market experience vs. historical cruft to deal with, and Symbian.

Apple: No cruft to deal with, but lack market experience and features, which will be made up by system updates possibly. Very small marketshare currently, US-only. Too restrictive right now.

Microsoft: Let's hope that some of our OEMs develop fancy interfaces on top of our base OS. Very flexible. ActiveSync nightmare.

Talk about "strong bias"...

You've probably never used a Nokia Communicator, an N800 or even an N70, let alone a high-end Qtek PDA (ex., Qtek 9000), right? Thought so.

The iPhone might look very impressive in the USA, where cell phones seem to have been stuck in the early 90s (your theory that Motorola was ever "the cellphone of choice" confirms this), but it's a joke compared to any modern european or asian smartphone. Why do you think Apple is limiting it to the US? Because that's the only place where they'll be able to sell something so underpowered for such a high price. Sure, there are some Apple fanbois in Europe too, but there's also real competition (phones come unlocked, and there are lots of operators). The iPhone needs to go through at least three iterations until it is ready to be sold in Europe and Asia, and the competition (Nokia, Qtek, Sony-Ericsson, etc.) aren't exactly sitting still.

You don't understand how Nokia works

It seems that you don't understand how Nokia works. Nokias competitive advantage isn't design or superior technology, it's main competitive advantage is mass production of phones and phone models. Yes, Nokia doesn't just produce massive amounts of phones, it produces massive amounts of different phone models. The idea is simple, produce as many phone models as quickly as you can, and hope that at least few will be big hits and the others will just do.

It also seems that you really don't have a grasp of mobile phone markets. Nokia isn't just top at the moment, they have been for almost the last 10 years at the top. They currently have 37% market share globally. They are the most profitable mobile phone company not just now, but have been for the long time being. When we look at technology, production and marketing abilities, there really isn't any other phone company as Nokia.

On technology wise Symbian is the number one mobile OS. It was originally developed for the handhelds and has been powering them from the days of Psion. Most of the smart phones in the world are powered by Symbian and the platform has support not just from Nokia and Sony-Ericsson, but from other handset manufacturers also. As what comes to interface, yes the iPhone has a pretty interface which polished to death, but news flash, that same polishing can be found from the newer phones. Also it should be noted, it just isn't one interface Nokia is catering, they have Series 60, they are Series 40, they customize and try quite a lot. They may not be as innovative as Apple, but why be when they can just copy, imitate and mass produce.

As to your question about what happens when and if Apple will produce its low market version of iPhone, the answer to that one is easy: Nokia will just copy it, produce handful of new models, drop margins if needed for those phones and make sure that there is no way for Apple to succeed in the market. Actually I would argue that for now it's even impossible for Apple to try to gain any strong foothold from the markets, they have shown their cards are they are being copied and out imitated. It should also be noted that Apple isn't known to play in the mass production league, they are a company serving niche segments and are to do that with a bigger gross margin.

I would suggest that you take a visit to a Nokia NYCs Store or maybe visit their European pages to see on just what and how much they offer. Nokias European homepage [nokia.com]

But it's not OpenMoko!

I'm just waiting for OpenMoko [slashdot.org] to finish their beta.

Engadget called

They want their story back.... the headline's even ripped.. come on guys. "http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/29/nokias-iphone- no-seriously/"

Copying is OK

'If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.'

Remember, kids. Copying someone's "intellectual property" is A-OK if you're a mega-corporation, but a crime if you're trading MP3's in your basement. Got that? Good.

Why is everyone so hard on iPhone

No product, especially something as personal as your phone, is going to satisfy everyone, and they're not designed to, which is why there are so many to choose from. The iPhone does what it does, and it does it reasonably well (though yeah, the phone feature is the hardest to use). It's a consumer entertainment device so why are so many people hard on it for business. If something else is better for you (you need SSH, Microsoft exchange, etc.) get a phone that has those features. If you can't live without a keyboard, get a phone with a physical keyboard.

Frankly, for the last two years I've kept a Razr and a video iPod crammed in my pocket, and I'm happy to have one device, that also gives me internet when I need it, in a single device. I wish it had 3G and some other things, but it's also a first generation device. The first iPod kinda sucked too, but not so bad it didn't make a big impact.

Regarding price, AT&T, and other 'problems' people talk about, get over it. If T-mobile is better for you, go with 'em. Nobody is forcing you to use an iPhone if you don't want to.

By analogy: When I was shopping for a car recently I looked at cool 50K sports car that only seats 2. Well, I drive around with friends a lot and a 4 seater is much more my speed, and I got one with lots of power for about $30K. I could say, as some do with the iPhone, "It only seats two and costs $50K! I can get a 4 seater for half that." So get the freakin' 4 seater.

The iPhone is clearly a luxury device designed for a certain market, but not all markets. Is all the griping over this to protect a moron from going into and Apple store, dropping $600 and saying, "WAit, this isn't what I wanted at all." People aren't that dumb, and if they are and have that kind of money, let 'em. Frankly, no cell phone could be perfect, especially with this group. Someone did an analysis on Slashdot I think of the 'ideal' mobile device and then proved it couldn't be made by any one manufacturer because of patent and licensing issues. Go get the phone with the features you want. I showed my iPhone to my parents and they said, "Hmm, we just need a phone that makes phone calls." So I helped them find a simple phone with big buttons because that's what they needed.

Or is all the griping because you secretly want an iPhone and are frustrated because you can't justify the cost because it doesn't have a feature you truly need. Hmm. I think a lot of the bitching about the AT&T lockout is becuase people still have contracts they can't cancel and really want one. Life's not fair (and yeah, as an AT&T customer for some time now they kinda suck, but what tradeoffs are you willing to make?) IF you're not willing, nobody is forcing you to.

Nokia Camera Phones

I think Nokia should continue focusing on building out thier camera phones. They had a very good thing going with it. Just needed to increase the reliability a bit to fix the poweroff issues.

Reality distortion field

Nokia has had touch-sensitive smartphones / PDAs for ages. The same goes for Qtek and a lot of other Asian and European brands. I was always amazed at the success the Blackberry had in the USA (by European / Asian standards it seems like something out of the early 90s) until I went to the USA and saw what crappy sell phones you people have been living with. No wonder the iPhone was such a big deal in the US.

But the fact is, pretty much any Qtek PDA or Nokia "tablet" cellphone beats it in specifications, features, battery life and audio quality (and they're unlocked by default, and cheaper). The only interesting thing the iPhone adds is the multi-touch screen (you still can't type on it quickly, though).

The Nokia model shown in this article isn't very different from models they've had for over 3 years now (and some Asian brands have had for 5).

It just goes to show ...

... how much demand there is for an open platform, for service providers and applications. I already have an AT&T account, but the closed nature of the iPhone is what made me decide not to buy it as a replacement for my blackberry.

In my estimation, Jobs really blew it by not opening up the hardware with a public, free-as-in-beer API. Maybe there's a larger strategy at work where they will release it later, after it's been hacked, so they can adjust the technology to suit their business needs: fair enough, I guess. However, just like the PSP, I'll be waiting until there's enough of an underground community supporting third party apps AND open service provisions before I submit my hard earned money.

I saw an interview with Steve Jobs a few weeks ago where he said that a phone shouldn't be like a computer, where you can install applications as you like, because of the fragility of the platform and OS: you wouldn't want your phone to lock up like a computer does when you install something that's broken. How many "casual" users are going to do this? Very few.

As much as I respect him for what he's done for society and its relationship with computers, this seems like an extremely out of touch perspective.

Sorry, Mr. Jobs. It's a computer. Start treating it like one before you make another colossal mistake!

Um Allo?!

This is hardly the biggest announcement today, though it may be fake the GPhone seems to be gathering a lot of buzz.

The GPhone! [last100.com]

Too bad Slashdot didn't run this, it would have made an interesting conversation even if it was fake :)

My current phone is free (totally) so buying an expensive one kind of sucks, the prices are massively inflated (as evidenced by their lake of VOIP software), the Gphone doesn't seem to have these problems as much as it has advertising problems (which might be solved with say the ability to use "delivery pizza" to have it suggest a pizza place)... A Free phone with VOIP and the ability to hook up to any GSM provider would be totally kickass.

It's not the OpenMoko [openmoko.org] but it'll do to show the telecoms the future. They can panic and make their service better or they can grab for quick profits and speed the transition, I don't care which they choose (I already have a free phone remember). Cell phone bills are way too high, they shouldn't need 3 hours of service [$10 hr x 3] per phone, that's just crazy talk.

Nokia have been closer for quite some time

Their 770 [nokia.com] and N800 [nokia.com] tablets have touch screens, run Debian Linux [maemo.org] and have WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. They don't have a phone module but I suspect that's for the want of Linux drivers. They're a bit big to be a phone but a bit of development could produce a truly open competitor.

Anyone doing a hinged dual-screen phone?

Instead of a clamshell with the screen and keyboard on the inside, put two touch screens on the outside. "Open" the phone so both screens are facing the viewer and then one becomes a virtual keyboard. When not needed for typing, the second screen finally provides enough resolution to effectively browse pages or run some types of programs. Instead of 480x240 on once screen, there'd be 480x480 combined.

could this be the ultimate handheld device

could this be the ultimate, perfect and complete hand held device I blogged about here
http://jiggysblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/my-dream-mo bile-device.html [blogspot.com]
let me know your views.

A 1.0 Product has turned an industry on it's ear!

This all boils down to the fact that people want the iPhone. Not Nokia's "iPhone", but the real iPhone, whether it be on T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon or any of the other networks, and they'll go to great lengths to get it. Mr. Jobs was right, it's a game changer. It's good to want.

Nokia and others will cram their "iPhone killers" full of "features" and other useless crap, but they will ALWAYS be something less than the real deal. We've seen this happen time and again with the "iPod killers" of the recent past.

Nokia did have quite a few lemons ...

Phones that were late. Very late. And still unstable.

Especially when they did something bigger and not one of the iterative improvements (new design + new form factor + 3 megapixel cam instead of 2).

So don't expect too much from Nokia.

This may look different from the US, where Nokia phones reach the market months later than here in Europe. Most of the time the phones are stable then, but Europeans had to make two or three firmware updates. And god did I hate Nokia for not allowing customers to upgrade their phones themselves IIRC Nokia changed this, but I've got an SonyEricsson now).

Bye egghat

YouTube video of the Nokia "iPhone"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFKyAMQPbmI [youtube.com]

Smith & Wesson to join the convergence market

Gunmaker Smith & Wesson is planning to come out with their own take on convergence devices: the !Phone (pronounced bang-phone). When the firearm feature is discharged, it automatically calls 911 and uses GPS to report its location. Also included are orientation sensors to record its position and orientation when discharged for ballistic trajectory analysis (similar to features of the Nintendo Wii) and a fingerprint reader embedded in the trigger.

Shooting ranges will be equipped with devices that communicate with the firearm to inhibit the calling of 911 and instead log the information to your PDA or other portable computing device to analyze your shooting proficiency.

Of course. the !Phone can also be used to make phone calls. The keypad will be located on the left side of the grip (or right side for the left-handed model), the microphone at the base of the grip, and the speaker just below the tip of the barrel. Flipping the safety answers the call.

The !Phone accepts multiple batteries which are loaded in the clip. You can install more batteries for longer charge duration at the expense of ammunition at launch, but they are continuing development of a dual-purpose battery-bullet that can be fired once fully discharged.

A variety of !Phone holsters will be available.

good

If Nokia comes out with an iPhone clone, I think that's great. There is no reason to let Apple monopolize this space.

Note that Apple's contribution with the iPhone isn't really technology (most of the technology was around long before), it's style and a commitment to ease-of-use. It's a good thing if other companies copy that.

Re:Hype

I tend to prefer the former as a Nissan story and this one as a Nokia story.

Apple iPhone? (/me puts fingers in ears, starts singing la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la)

Re:well duh

I think you are forgetting the N-Gage!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Gage [wikipedia.org]

Re:I For One..

I for one just want a phone that makes calls well, has TTY/TTD functionality and I can IM with. I have a Samsung u740 and so far it's great. http://www.samsungmobileusa.com/u740/ [samsungmobileusa.com]

Re:Hype

Obviously not yet but I'm on your side this time. Substitute this video for your personal viewing instead of the iPhone story Will it Blend? [youtube.com]

Re:Hype

Slashdot stories are like digits of pi*. Every so often you'll get two in a row that are the same...

(*digits of pi in base 4)

Re:Yes!

something that functions even better than the iPhone for a much cheaper price.

Just wait a year or so, and you'll be able to get that from Apple.

-jcr

Re:well duh

The only way I'd buy an iPhone-like device is if it wasn't from Apple. I hate their overly-controlling, overpriced, pay for the brand name, turbo-hype, and looks over functionality. Nokia on the other hand just makes phones and they're good.

So you will prefer the Nok-iPhone because they will cut down on the looks, and the lacking functionality will thus have the upper hand? Yeah, that makes sense.