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Nokia Dials Back Time To Sell Mobile Phones Again (bbc.com)
Nokia said Thursday mobile phones carrying its brand will make a comeback via a new venture that will reunite the Nokia brand with veteran Nokia execs who aim to move into smartphones capitalizing on an existing operation that sells low-cost basic phones. From a report on BBC: It's thanks to a deal with a small team based at a business park on the fringes of Helsinki, who are engaged in what will seem to many a foolhardy mission. They call themselves HMD Global -- and they believe they can make Nokia a big name in mobile phones once again. I met Arto Nummela, Pekka Rantala and Florian Seiche in a cafe on what is still the Nokia campus. That very day Arto and Pekka had stopped working for the Nokia Windows mobile phone business owned by Microsoft -- because they had acquired both it and the Nokia brand to start their new business. Yes, it is complicated, but so is the recent history of what was just a few years back Europe's technology superpower and the biggest force in mobile phones. After the launch of the iPhone in 2007, Nokia faltered and by 2011 was on what its first American chief executive, Stephen Elop, called a burning platform. Then, the phone business was sold to Microsoft, which soon found it had made a disastrous purchase as the Nokia Windows combination failed to claim a significant slice of a market dominated by Apple's iOS and Android. Now, the Finnish business -- which remained a big force in telecoms infrastructure after the sale of the mobile unit -- has licensed the Nokia brand to HMD Global, which aims to take it back to the future.
Nokia used to make terrific handsets. It was only when Elop, the worst CEO in history, took the reins that things went south precipitously. If Nokia starts designing handsets again, this time with Android, I'll be in principle interested.
As long as they bring back just the awesome hardware, I'm fine, and may even buy a new Nokia phone.
But please don't bring back that horrible Symbian OS.
There are a lot of people who don't want smartphones. Nokia is legendary for its cellphones. Does this herald the return of the dumb phone?
Linux ;-)
Will he fix Nokia? More Trump news please!!!!
No. They're based in Finland. Hopefully he will follow through and eliminate nafta, cafta, and any talk of the TPP in order to level the playing field for American companies, though.
Nokia made good phones back then. Phones consisted of strong plastic, antenna, and black and white LCD screen. Now smartphone needs good AP, OLED screen, camera, metal/glass casing, waterproof, good battery, etc. I don't think Nokia has skills on any of those. They'll probably come up with something similar to Blackberry Priv.
I'm sure Nokia has some talented engineers, but they are competing with Apple/Google/Samsung engineers who already has a decade of experience of building smartphones and extremely talented at that.
But:
1. It can run Angry Birds.
2. It can sync with a local PC, without depositing your address book and everything else on MS/Google/Apple servers
3. It used to be open source, before it became open ... for business.
4. It can run DOSBox.
Build phones with a replaceable battery, with actual keys to type in a phone number or to flip up/down in the phone book, with slots for SD cards and plugs for micro USB.
I know it sounds crazy, but I have that odd feeling that there just MIGHT be a market for something like this.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What, specifically do you hate about Android?
Ah, do you mean something like this?
Nokia already did "waste millions of Euros in R&D to develop a Linux phone distribution". They would just be returning to their own project.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Great, which means we'll only be able to buy American-made cellphones, which means we'll be stuck with $2000 iPhones and their shitty walled gardens.
Face it: American companies haven't been able to build great products for a long time. Our cars have sucked for decades (not counting Japanese cars made in American factories; those are good). Our home appliances are all crap now that they've merged into one big company. We haven't built the best electronics since the 60s or 70s. We still make good CPU dies though, so I guess there's that. I will admit, though: I have an American-made automated cat litter box and that thing is fantastic, though very expensive.
For the last 16 years, I have been using Nokia phones except for 1 HTC phone in between. My current phone is a Lumia. I bought it mainly because it's a Nokia. If Nokia makes phones I again, my next phone will also be a Nokia - I don't care what software it runs.
I don't know man, I like American SUVs. The Eddie Bauer line of Ford Explorers were comfy as hell, and I like driving cars like Grand Cherokees and even old Dodge Neons.
We need a nickname like this for Trump. "Crooked Hillary" is totally apt and accurate, but Trump is equally bad, just in different ways (looking at his cabinet picks here at the moment...), so he needs a suitable nickname in the same vein.
I would love to see something like Rust replace Java for Android programming. The day any language that is closer to the metal replaces that memory hog, Android will be able to compete with iOS on equal terms.
Actually American manufacturing is still tough to beat. China only beats us in quantity, but even then we're still the number two manufacturing country. Our main manufacturing exports are jumbo jets and earth movers, and both do really well.
Even in electronics, we still do quite well. We have the most advanced semiconductor fabs in the world, and we even make other parts like resistors, diodes, capacitors, etc. Sure, the final product is assembled elsewhere, but typically many of its components are made here.
"Great, which means we'll only be able to buy American-made cellphones, which means we'll be stuck with $2000 iPhones and their shitty walled gardens."
Walled? Didn't you hear, it will be a fenced garden.
No no no! If we're dialing back time for Nokia then we have to bring back the AMC Pacer...
All that wonderful glass, it was where all bugs went to die... and then dry out... crusty bug heaven...
OK, I may have been a bit buzzed back in the day...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Security
- bug track record
- bug fix record
- fragmentation makes finding bugs harder. There are many bugs in bloatware.
- bad TPM implementation
- locked bootloaders that interfere with the owner but not with forensics
- manufacturer/carrier backdoors
Software quality
- lots of basic bugs like alarm clocks that don't go off, calendar app doesn't sync reliably, flaily bluetooth stack
- "have you tried rebooting it"
- bloatware
Walled garden
- you can't use Android without Google
- and it's a shitty walled garden: google's chat app disaster. their poor position on surveillance with very little undiscoverable data.
Privacy
- they stonewalled on privacy controls for so long it's clear the Android architects don't work for me. They work for "the developers," or for the cause of lowering privacy expectations generally.
- the privacy controls they delivered are not meaningful, usually handing over evercookies and contacts lists, tending toward putting "choosers" on the distrusted side of the privacy wall so the "developer" gets all the data not just the relevant slice, not allowing you to lie about your location, not facilitating any meaningful shrinkwrap-software mode where you can use and pay for an app without the developer having backdoor access to it.
- every time a company herds you onto an "app" instead of a web page it's to reduce your privacy: to limit you to one account by capturing your phone number or device serial number, to track your location in the background, to spam you with notifications.
- ultrasonic "copresence" cookies.
- phones cannot be shared, and they're using this as a feature, for DRM. Even for one user, it is a key privacy feature to appear to be two users to people who wish to control you, like the "multiprofile" feature of web browsers.
Speed
- UI lag, hidden by "buttery" animations. great, but you still have to wait while they play out.
- horrible lag on old TI chips like droid4. tens of thousands of milliseconds to navigate the settings app. While this is over, I will not forgive them for it because it's evidence of the phone "ecosystem's" collective delusion: they talk about number of cores and amount of RAM while it's stupid-obvious the phone is brokenly slow.
TCO
- price / months with software updates for phone > for a laptop, even for a low-end phone. It's also greater than the wireless plan
- keeping it updated is a huge toll on the user: the update process is slow and must be helped along at many points so you can't run it overnight.
> - you can't use Android without Google
Of course you can. For example Microsoft/Nokia X was Android with all the Google replaced by Microsoft, Nokia or other services. It sold well enough (mostly to anti-Google Microsoft fans) that Microsoft had to kill it and bury it.
Most Androids do sell with Google because that is what most people want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X
But he's openly said he doesn't want to be president of the world, only America. So he won't do to Nokia what he's just done to Carrier
TRIUMPHANT Trump!!! After his success w/ Carrier
I hope they are successful. The Android vs. iOS competition has been giving most of us headaches for quite a while.
I wonder what strategy will they use this time? Will they make Marshmallow or Nutella phones, or will they redo their Tizen phones?
If they wanna do low end, that's fine, but here's what I suggest. Still have something like an Android/Cyanogen or Tizen phone, and keep some of the things that make smartphones better than low end. Like texting - retain the messaging app: typing is a lot easier that way instead of pressing 2 three times or 5 twice. Or simply keep WhatsApp there, and let it be a common interface for voice calls, video calls and text/pic/video messages. Have a brief list of apps, like a OneNote, WhatsApp, calculator, a couple of games and maybe maps. Oh, and have the ability to save phone contacts on an SD card, so that during upgrades/replacements, it's easy to migrate.
Doing that could enable Nokia to regain a segment of the market.
They voted to leave the EU. That doesn't change geography: England doesn't suddenly lie off the New England coast. Commonwealth - does it even mean anything anymore?
Our main manufacturing exports are jumbo jets and earth movers, and both do really well.
Uhhh:
Boeing had only netted three orders for the 747 this year. The sale almost doubles Boeing’s current backlog of 15 unfilled orders for the plane, according to the Chicago-based manufacturer’s website. The company said in July it was slowing 747 production output to six a year and would have to end the program if new orders didn’t materialize.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
No no no! If we're dialing back time for Nokia then we have to bring back the AMC Pacer...
Ahhh yes, the Pacer. Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter. It turned "clearing ice from the windshield" into an Olympic sport.
Also, you had to remove an engine mount and jack the engine up a bit to change one of the spark plugs or the oil filter. I can't remember which it was now.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I am bitterly disappointed. I was hoping we could be moved somewhere near Hawaii. Bali. Or anywhere warmer, with better food, and further from France.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
We need a nickname like this for Trump. "Crooked Hillary" is totally apt and accurate, but Trump is equally bad, just in different ways (looking at his cabinet picks here at the moment...), so he needs a suitable nickname in the same vein.
"Trumpster fire".
Firstly, Android is Linux. But in the sense meant here, no.
I think the parent poster might be referring to GNU/Linux.
Android does use the Linux Kernel, but slaps a completely different user space atop of it.
(Mostly written in "I Can't Believe it's Not Java(tm)" in addition a few core libraries replaced with alternatives that have non-GPL licensing, like the Bionic C library).
Bringing another OS into play in a market that is sewn up by two major players is pretty much guaranteed to fail
...except if that 3rd OS does run the Apps of one of the 2 major players.
Which is exactly what *Windows* failed to do (Android apps never got supported, at least the technology got recycled into WSL)
Which is where HP/Palm's WebOS bid on the wrong horse (They counted on compatibility with classic PalmOS apps. It did make sense back when they started designing webOS - as PalmOS used to be a major platform back then. But didn't make any sense as webOS smart phones go released - as Android had became the main platform).
At the end of the day, end-user don't care that OS their smartphone run.
They only care if they can play the same games/use the same chat app as everybody else.
Thus it's the app availability which is the most important.
As long as your OS can run Android Apps and tap into its vast eco-system, you're golden.
and I really don't see what a Linux phone would do for the average consumer.
Lower spec requirement, as proven by Sailfish OS.
Thus :
- either being able to run on lower-spec smartphones (and that's the reason while SFOS is being considered by some 3rd party developpers)
- and in theory should able to have more headroom on flagship specs smartphones.
A few other advantages (Turing Industries apparently found it easier to secure).
Do really think Nokia/HMD Global should waste millions of Euros in R&D to develop a Linux phone distribution just to satisfy a handful of nerds?
In practice, they *ALREADY WASTED THESE EUROS*. Then Elop sacked the R&D team, who went to create Jolla and develop SailfishOS.
The Linux OS already exist.
Nokia already paid for it.
It would be a bad business idea not to at least consider using what they've already paid to develop.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
or it's going to be a slider, which have proven to have mechanical problems
3rd party have successfully designed keyboard which are magnetic slide.
(No mechanical parts. Just carefully aligned magnet that accept 2 stable positions. Either the keyboard stuck to the back of the smartphone, or stuck in "slide out position" with the keys available for typing and the pogo-pins aligned with the contacts).
I you don't want the keyboard, you just remove it (un stick it).
This of course requires the availability of pogo-pins.
Jolla's phone and Fairphone's phone 2 were both designed with extra pins so that 3rd parties could invent such gadgets.
Android OS and access to the Google Play store.
Technically, only the "access Google Play store" part is important.
It just happens that Android OS is the most straight-forward solution to run Android Apps, but...
Going with a non-Android OS is doomed to failure, because of the apps;
...unless this non-Android OS also runs android apps.
Like the Alien-Dalvik engine available inside the Sailfish OS - for whose development Nokia already paid, until Elop decided to drop that R&D team (who subsequently formed Jolla)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Jumbo jets and earthmovers aren't consumer goods. So I'll admit that America still makes some pretty good industrial equipment. We make some kick-ass rockets too (SpaceX). As for passive electronic components, I'm pretty sure that's BS; that stuff is all made overseas now. We still make high-value stuff like Intel CPUs. But we don't do the assembly for electronics now either; that's all in Asia now, except for military stuff which is very expensive.
BTW, the #2 manufacturing country for exports is Germany. America doesn't export that much. That's not a great position for a very large economic power; we export a lot of low-value crap like coal and corn, but not stuff people (and businesses) in other countries actually want to buy (except Intel CPUs of course). Considering how dependent we are on other nations for manufactured goods, that's a big disadvantage; usually it's 3rd-world nations that export low-value stuff and import high-value stuff.
Amongst continents, the British Isles are a part of Europe. English culture can't change that, no matter how different it is from continental Europe
They screwed up the Grand Cherokee when they put that silly computer mode that shuts off the engine at stoplights and starts it again when you take your foot off the brake. Mopar starter motors are scary enough when you only use them once per trip.
Owned by Lenovo now.
Will he fix Nokia? More Trump news please!!!!
No. They're based in Finland. Hopefully he will follow through and eliminate nafta, cafta, and any talk of the TPP in order to level the playing field for American companies, though.
By level the playing field are you using the Military definition of leveling?
Because reducing your trading market from 7 billion to only 300 million will do exactly that.
No, not really. That's a good list and all, but "Hitler II" just doesn't have a good ring to it, the way "Lyin' Ted" or "Crooked Hillary" do, and more importantly, "Hitler II" doesn't actually have Trump's name in it! It's not obvious that it's referring to Trump because of this; someone could think you're talking about Erdogan or Putin. I'm looking for a catchy nickname that actually has either "Trump" or "Donald" in it, just like his nicknames for his opponents. Something with alliteration would be best (though "Crooked Hillary" lacked that). Maybe "Tyrannical Trump"? Though to be fair, it remains to be seen as he hasn't proven himself one way or the other, it's all just been rhetoric and bluster to this point.
BTW, the press really does lie. WaPo proved that when they sabotaged Bernie's campaign. Trump was exactly right about that. It's not just the leftist (really corporatist) outlets like WaPo either; the alt-right news outlets are at least as bad. They're all liars. Also, Hillary didn't give a shit about anyone else but herself too, so Trump isn't unique on that point.
It's a piece of shit: no removable battery or SDcard slot. Even worse, it isn't waterproof. That's a necessary feature on a modern phone; even Apple finally caved on this point.
Any better suggestions, shithead?
Export value from US is bigger than from Germany by about 15%. The biggest export is from China. It is abut 42% bigger than from US. If EU could be considered as a single country then it would have about 5% bigger export than China.
has anyone actually demonstrated this is feasible,
As mentionned above, Myriad's Alien-Dalvik has and is the official commercial solution powering the Jolla Phone in my pocket (and what I use with countless android apps).
I think I remember that this was also the official solution use by BlackBerry back when they offered Android Apps support on their (non-android) OS.
This was also a solution considered for HP/Palm's webOS... but the whole platform went belly up before commercial deployment.
SFDroid is another solution for SailfishOS, but opensource and thus used successfully by the community ports (e.g.: on Fairphone 2). I haven't tested this one.
Shashlik is yet another one, but I don't know how far they've reached.
WSL is what microsoft tried, but unlike the above, they weren't successful (and recycled it into the form that we now know of).
is it legally possible (would Google lock out such an OS)?
Technically possible :
- yes, I'm doing it, and countless of other sailfish OS users.
Legally possible :
- murky. In theory Google requires a commercial license between them and the phone constructor, in order to allow them to use the full commercial "Google Play" experience (as opposed to simply using the opensource android).
e.g.: As Jolla has never secured such a license (and the fact that it runs on a completely different OS might probably contradict the usual terms about the "google experience") the Alien-Dalvik installation on Jolla phones doesn't come with Google Play, but with Aptoid (and optionnally Yandex).
By default they activate a couple of repositories containing a few apps that have been curated and known to work good on the phones.
In practice:
- Google has never done anything against end-user sideloading Googe Play Store into their phones (be it Cyanogen-modded, running Alien-Dalvik, etc.)
And you could understand clearly why :
- They DO have interest going against crappy no-name chinese clone-makers, because it might degrade the perception of their Google Play brand.
- They HAVE NO interest going against en users. On the contrary: As this is end-user installed, Google don't need to go at great length to insure support (I might have found 1 or 2 applications that don't work on my phone). And as it is an *apps store*, google can earn tons of users who are happy to install paid content on their phone (There's at least a couple of games that I've paid).
So google has very strong monetary incentives to let users keep installing Google Play Store on unlicensed platforms.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]