Nokia Announces Nokia X Android Smartphone

squiggleslash writes "Despite some industry skepticism, Nokia has indeed been working on an Android smartphone and finally unveiled the Nokia X today. As rumored, it's not a Google Play compatible device, running instead a Google-less AOSP build with a Nokia app store, and Windows Phone style shell. The budget phone will also not be marketed in North America. The Media seems convinced Microsoft — who are in the process of acquiring Nokia — will kill the project, but it's hard to see why Nokia would be working on such a project at this time if Microsoft had plans to do this."

Comments

Sounds like a Niche, not a future

[Quick Reply]

An AOSP phone without Google Play, let alone Amazon App Store or any other established Android App Store, sounds like a Niche phone for programmers/hackers.

I suspect that it is designed to succeed the legendary Maemo operating system & N900/N9 phones, than a serious attempt to build a future Operating System.

I expect that it will be highly prized among the hacker community, totally hacked to death with an onslaught of Linux-based operating systems including Ubuntu phone, Firefox OS, CyanagenMod, and Maemo itself. Maybe a few surprises with some left-field operating systems finding their way on there as well.

Re:Why now?

[wile_e8]

From what I've heard, the companies are legally required to act like separate companies until the merger clears all the regulatory hurdles. So killing this because of the pending merger would look bad from that aspect. IANAL though, so any legal types feel free to correct me.