I doubt Smartphones will make serious in-roads to the African market soon. Do not forget that most of the phones used in Africa are not new devices and have had several owners. Given most modern smartphones are rather fragile items and sensitive to moisture & dust, I doubt they will have that much longevity. (Think of how indestructible feature phones were a decade ago and mostly are today) Having a non-replaceable battery would rule out a lot of current smart phone devices too.

Also, the top "features" for a phone in Africa are Torch and Radio, neither of which are top on the list of smartphone features.

You are correct, power is a big problem with smartphones. "Power" comes from people who ride a bike (or walk) into a city and purchase a car battery that is charged. Or connect to the village's car battery connected to wind/solar electricity sources. The people peddling around with car batteries is also where top-up credit is purchased from.

Nokia's moniker for this market was "Internet for the Next Billion", trying to raise the level of device in use beyond basic GSM handsets. Nokia were well aware that the relationship with this market was one that was at arm's length. Perhaps a village could pool resources to purchase a phone (Nokia sell kits for longer range external antennas, solar/car battery charging points, etc) but that was about as direct a relationship Nokia had.

One of the key factors that tipped the decision to go with Microsoft is that is was popular with the Network Operators. They, like Nokia, feared the increasing influence Google was having over the mobile phone market. Android was becoming a household name. They were excited by the idea that Nokia would bring out Windows Phone devices. I suspect the deals to supply the North American Operators would have been impossible if Nokia had gone with Android.

I am sure Nokia probably could have made Meego work, especially considering they were pushing their massive feature phone market towards a binary compatible Eco-system with Qt. The sad fact is that it was taking too long. Meego and the Linux feature phone was bogged down with the same bureaucracy that effectively killed Symbian. Also the strategy would have provided probably strong sales in China, Europe (apart from the UK & Germany), India and Africa. It would have struggled like everything before it in the North American market which Nokia coveted so strongly. I am sure the sales of WIndows Phone in the N.American market is being trumpeted as a huge success internally given that they are selling better than any previous offering there.

One myth that probably should die is that this was brought about by Elop. The decisions were almost certainly made by the board of directors and they found the CEO that could deliver on the strategy. Which is why there is a Canadian (and former Microsoft man) at the top now rather than a Finnish or even a European. It is why it couldn't be someone from within Nokia either. (until Elop's appointment the company's ethos was very much that Microsoft was the enemy, ie the attitude that lead to the creation of Symbian in the 1990s.) There is no way in the time from his appointment to the burning plaform memo could he have forced such a change in direction, he just isn't that good a leader.

Turning off support for syncing Symbian/S60 devices will also cripple the non-Symbian devices that support Mail For Exchange; the N9, N900 and N950.

Coming to the Mobile Phone game 15 years late means Apple's IP for mobile phones is exceedingly week. Other players (Motorola, Nokia, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Ericsson, etc) have a lot of IP in that area. I doubt anyone has called Apple on these patents yet. If Apple starts throwing its patents in their faces, Apple may well get more than they bargained for. It probably isn't possible to produce a phone that talks to GSM or UMTS without infringing on all the above player's IP. As with most patent disputes, the end result will be a cross licensing scheme. Meaning Apple's "innovations" will be used and improved upon by other players.