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Nokia Exec: Young People Fed Up With iPhone and Android

Posted by Unknown on from the skateboarding-is-a-crime dept.

jfruhlinger writes "Nokia's Windows Phones haven't hit the U.S., but at least one company executive thinks they'll be a slam dunk, since young people have soured on the iPhone and find Android baffling. Of course, much of the Internet commentariat found his remarks even more baffling. Is he right, is he delusional, or is he just trying to build buzz for his company's products the best he can?"

29 of 532 comments (clear)

  1. State Of Mind by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is he right, is he delusional, or is he just trying to build buzz for his company's products the best he can?

    It's Nokia, so I'll take delusional for $2000, Alex.

    1. Re:State Of Mind by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He's paid to be delusional. What's he supposed to say? "iPhone outsells every other phone by an order of magnitude and Android devices in general are rapidly cornering the lion's share of the market and now we've made this commitment to Windows Phone 7 that we can't just drop for a number of reasons" Yeah, I'm sure the shareholders will love that.

    2. Re:State Of Mind by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Informative

      "iPhone outsells every other phone by an order of magnitude..."

      I hate that BS apple propaganda. iPhone outsells every other SMARTPHONE HANDSET on the market. If you look at real data, like Total phones, far far far more dumb phones are sold. And the smartphone market? If you look at a more accurate number, like the number of phones with the iPhone OS or the Android OS on them, Android has double the market share of apple. Apple is able to say they sell the most phones because they only offer one... sure if you break up android sales by model, each one gets a much smaller share... but that's stupid.

      Then Windows phones? hahahha... I dont think I've ever met someone with a windows phone.

  2. And Another Thing ... by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Funny

    The kids these days, they don't like the broadband. They are fed up with the cable and the fibre. Everyone has the fibre. Also, many are not happy with the complexity of broadband and the increased risk of viruses over broadband. So we do increasingly see that the youth that wants to be on the cutting edge and try something new are turning to dial up.

    Right now, it is so confusing to the customer. Where is the softly assuring BEEEEEEP WAHUNG WAHUNG SCSSHHHHHHHHH white noise after connecting that lets you know that you are receiving 56k service?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:And Another Thing ... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Should be simple enough. Here's the plan:

      Register domain 56Kb.it.

      Implement a basic URL-shortner/social-media-linking-crap mechanism.

      When somebody clicks on a 56Kb.it shortened link, it redirects them to a fairly standard framed-web-proxy-page arrangement; but with an (HTML5, of course) audio widget that plays the dialup noise, and deliberate bandwidth throttling of the framed page to a bitrate chosen randomly from the historically plausible performance of a '56k' dialup line.

      It's pointless, wasteful, adds an extra point of failure, and is really a pretty stupid gimmick. Should be all over the social networks within hours.

  3. Not sure what he's thinking... by Scoth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think I've ever met someone who wasn't a hacker/tweaker sort who didn't like their iPhones. Regardless of your beliefs about their business practices, Walled Garden, etc, by and large the iPhone works and works well. I'm not sure exactly who he talked to about being fed up.

    I've also not met a lot of people unhappy with their Android phones, though they may not be using them to their full customization potential.

  4. I'm not young, but... by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...I've soured on the Android (performance and privacy issues) and the iPhone looks expensive (based on the iPhone tax it looks like service providers charge). But, I also had about 2 years of development experience on the inferior Windows Mobile platform when Microsoft pissed on the developer base, then shoved us out the door.

    I'd say he's right there's room for another competitor, but his ain't it.

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  5. Nobody does that because everyone does that by Toe,+The · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He employs some great logic. Here is a direct quote:

    "What we see is that youth are pretty much fed up with iPhones. Everyone has the iPhone," he said.

    If everyone wants something, then nobody could possibly want it... right?

    1. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by Tyler+Eaves · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded." -Yogi Berra

      --
      TODO: Something witty here...
    2. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He's right though. It's a wise point of insight. iPhone and Android are ripe for played-out cultural saturation, just like Facebook.

      Maybe if Nokia doesn't drop the ball, they can parlay this natural social rhythm into success, unlike SOME people (I'm looking at YOU BlackBerry). ...hate to imagine any Microsoft involvement though. I wish they and their shitty Windows Phone would just die.

    3. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Funny

      My mom has had sex. They sell Sex For Dummies books. Those two criteria right there are reason enough to never have sex.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    4. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There are people like that. Before the iPhone killed the iPod, people would buy Zunes just for the "its not popular" aspect.

      Will it be enough market to keep WMP going? Probably not. However, WMP has one advantage -- Microsoft can easily have it the only phone that works with a new "secure" protocol of Activesync. If MS also licensed it to Apple, Android would be effectively locked out of the enterprise like it was back in the 1.5 and 1.6 days. This by itself would all but kill Android as a competing phone. Exchange support makes or breaks handsets. Even Apple came to Microsoft to get support in their devices.

    5. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by somersault · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think we dislike things directly because they're popular and we want to be hipsters. IMO it's probably more to do with our experience with Microsoft and Intel over the last couple of decades. We often will root for the underdog even when there isn't much of a difference to the end user simply because we don't want any one company getting too far ahead of the rest and crushing innovation.

      Then you also have to consider that we simply are more aware of the alternatives in many situations and will choose the option that is best for us, which won't very often be the most popular choice. It's when geeks start acting like what's best for them is best for everyone when the problems start. Usually it takes the world a few years to be ready for what we are happy to use straight from the bleeding edge. Having said that, I think Android is a decent balance of customisability vs usability. You could probably say the same for the iPhone - as long as you jailbreak it first..

      --
      which is totally what she said
    6. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      My mom has had sex. They sell Sex For Dummies books. Those two criteria right there are reason enough to never have sex.

      Dude, that's a horrible mental image - it's bad enough knowing that *my* mom had sex, but your mom did too!? That's disgusting!

    7. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by The+Man · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He's right though. It's a wise point of insight. iPhone and Android are ripe for played-out cultural saturation, just like Facebook.

      Maybe if Nokia doesn't drop the ball, they can parlay this natural social rhythm into success, unlike SOME people (I'm looking at YOU BlackBerry). ...hate to imagine any Microsoft involvement though. I wish they and their shitty Windows Phone would just die.

      And this for me really highlights how Microsoft especially but also its partners have really dropped the ball. If you can't be the saturation player (Apple), and you can't directly challenge the saturation player (Google and its partners), then you have to offer a compelling niche product. That approach can succeed, especially for smaller companies for whom even a niche product produces meaningful revenue. But there are two big problems here: First, neither Nokia nor Microsoft is a small company; Nokia needs to be a major challenger for its business model to work, and Microsoft is investing a lot of money in mobile and needs more than just one or two partners with niche products to generate a return. Second, the Windows brand has plenty of value, but is a handicap to anyone trying this approach in developing a new niche product. Windows is hardly the brand people associate with innovative, hip new products or being off the beaten path; many if not most people interact with it every day and for them it is background noise, the default, the standard, something that is so bland and ordinary as not to even occasion comment. Is that really the brand that Nokia, or Microsoft for that matter, thinks will excite people who are tired of iOS or Android, or people looking for a less-common status symbol?

      If Microsoft were smarter they would have recognised this and invested the time and energy into coming up with an alternative brand for their mobile products, perhaps leveraging the successful Xbox brand. But in a sense that would also have been an acknowledgement up front that their approach was unlikely to pay off big; a new brand might generate a niche following, but only the Windows brand is likely to be able to take on Apple and Google... most likely by eating RIM's lunch in the corporate space. In other words, either Microsoft has badly misjudged the cachet of Windows among ordinary individuals or its intent all along was to sell Windows Mobile into places where corporate IT makes the decisions rather than end users. That strategy looked decent a few years ago, but we have really seen a lot of changes recently in how employers handle supporting their employees' personal mobile devices. Recognising that it's cheaper to support their existing iOS and Android devices than to issue their own fleet of business-only devices, and that most people prefer to have at most only one phone and one tablet anyway, almost no one is still handing out a single device and refusing to support anything else. In the absence of products that are compelling on their own, RIM is finding that the decay of the corporate mobile device mandate is very bad for business. Microsoft, and therefore their partners as well, seem to be in the same spot.

      It looks like the niche player, whatever it ends up being, will be built around WebOS. It has open source cachet, underdog cachet ("back from the dead"), and it's not a terrible technology. With two dominant players duking it out for the mass market and a potential family of niche alternatives brewing, where does this leave Microsoft? With a lacklustre brand, tiny market share, an apparently outdated strategy, and no compelling products on the market, it's hard to imagine Windows Mobile going anywhere. Too late to market to be where Android is today, and too stodgy a brand to be what Nokia wishes it were (not that a niche business is what Microsoft wants anyway), Windows Mobile looks like a dead end. If anyone knows the value of getting in early, it should be Microsoft; the entire company exists today solely because of its first mover advantage all those years ago. Nokia was happy to get a backer, but it appears to have picked the wrong one. They could be doomed as well.

    8. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My mom has an iPhone. They sell iPhones for Dummies books. Those two criteria right there are reason enough to never buy an iPhone.

      What, because it works, is easy to use, and you can get documentation for it that an actual consumer can understand?

      So any technology your mom can use is bad? I take it you have eschewed all forms of technology she can operate like TVs, plumbing, and toasters? Or is it just phones?

      Oh, you can also get Linux for Dummies, Windows for Dummies, and a whole raft of things ... so if the presence of a Dummies book is your criteria, you should stop using anything listed here ... they even have your beloved SQL.

      Seriously man, I consider any technology my mother can operate to be fairly well implemented; because she's in her 70's and for her to decide she needed a GPS, laptop, scanner, digital camera, digital picture frame, a USB drive for backups, and a PVR ... well, that was quite a series of leaps for someone who isn't all that interested in that kind of stuff.

      Why should technology be something that your mother couldn't possibly use?

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    9. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by s73v3r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a huge difference between just choosing something that may not be popular, and bitching about something simply because it is popular. A lot of the latter is what happens here on /.

    10. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by NatasRevol · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe they had sex with each other. Back when they were hot.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    11. Re:Nobody does that because everyone does that by hoggoth · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't bitch about Microsoft Windows because its popular (though it is), I bitch about it because it makes my days unending drudgery and pain.
      I know you will probably think I am drinking the Slashdot cool-aid, but I assure you 90% of the frustration in my day is caused by something Microsoft did.
      I also have Apple, Linux and Solaris machines and none of them give me the "WTF were they thinking?!" headaches that Windows does.

      --
      - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  6. As a certified "young person"... by HopefulIntern · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a "young person", I do not see how anyone can claim Android is "baffling"... to begin with it was more of an engineer/dev/nerd phone but it quickly changed and now IIRC is the most popular phone OS. My facebook news feed often contains complaints or questions about "why is my iphone xxx" but not once have I seen any of them asking for help with a droid.

  7. I agree! by loftwyr · · Score: 5, Funny

    I showed my Android phone to my 2 year old and within minutes she was fed up. To her, all those icons and such were baffling. But then I showed her a windows 7 phone and she ate it up! It spent far more time in her mouth than any other phone in the house!

    1. Re:I agree! by MyLongNickName · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well said.
      His post was clearly serious.
      Obviously, he needed your guidance
      Once again, thank you.
      Sincerely,
      Herbert.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
  8. Fed up with the lawsuits, not the phones. by JustAnotherIdiot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Every other day I'm hearing about smartphone makers suing each other, that's what I'm fed up with.

    --
    What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
  9. I think Nokia missed the boat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's really missing the marketplace is a Linux console phone. All this graphics nonsense is just slowing people down. And what could be better than the feeling of compiling a kernel in your pocket?

    1. Re:I think Nokia missed the boat by SpzToid · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My N9 arrived from Switzerland and I think it is just freaking beautiful, and Microsoft really did a number on Nokia to muzzle this thing. Like:

      The main website for the N9 is http://swipe.nokia.com/ Okay, so you're saying 'swipe, yeah I've heard of that. so what?' Man, if only Microsoft wasn't paying Nokia so hard to put a muzzle on it. Check out the videos at the bottom of that page, particularly the 2nd thumbnail'd from the left, at the very bottom. Dig on the one-handed swipe GUI. So now maybe you're thinking, 'well okay, if the one-handed GUI carries over through out the rest of the OS maybe...'

      Okay, to do that, you have to wait for the Over the Air update (or use another way) to install the PR1.1, i.e. the first service pack for the OS since the phone was released. Then 'swipe' is fully installed, and you can also access control-keys, up/down arrows, etc. And it is freaking awesome! And being a linux guy of course I installed the devel extras which gets me the busybox terminal, and oh man what a gorgeous phone/client.

      Today I was playing with the calendar and daily alarms; gorgeous! The included browser is fast and I'm a web-dev and really appreciate the perspective it brings to understanding modern mobile html5/touch browsers (that pops-up .flv videos in the media player but now .swf files).

      I am certain Microsoft paid Nokia to *bury* the one-handed swipe GUI so deep as to obfuscate it completely. But I also think the Good Work of the Nokia linux team refuses to be buried so. At any rate, I give the N9 the coolest, most-positive thumbs-up review. And it does linux. (Oh, and who needs a million apps if I can bash script & ssh all over the place?)

      --
      You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
  10. The carriers. by characterZer0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They are fed up with the carriers, not the phones.

    --
    Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
  11. It's called denial by eclectro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the first of the five stages of grief.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  12. Re:Are you seriously suggesting... by RDW · · Score: 5, Funny

    Think of it like this: Android phones don't run Ubuntu.

    Indeed. It's easy to tell the difference because only one of these platforms defaults to a dumbed-down smartphone GUI. And the other is sponsored by Google.

  13. Survey says... by lmcgeoch · · Score: 5, Funny

    Some Creepy old guy walks up to a group of kids.
    Creepy old guy looks at kid using his iPhone

    Creepy old guy: Can you play xbox with your iPhone?
    Kid with iPhone: No

    Creepy old guy looks at kid using his Android.

    Creepy old guy: Can you play xbox with your Android?
    Kid with Android: I don't think so.

    Headline: Young People soured on the iPhone and find the Android baffling.