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In a question and answer series with Nokia’s Niklas Savander hosted on Twitter, the question of whether or not the manufacturer could be looking towards Android to help their handsets get the upper hand in the smartphone market was again raised. At this point it should come as no surprise what the answer was. A definitive “AMEN!” was raised in affirming Nokia’s stance behind its Symbian and Meego operating systems. Here are some choice elements of the Twitter exchange:
@diogoney: why does Nokia refuse to use Android? It has the hype, good press and devs Nokia needs so bad!
@NiklasatNokia: our platform choices (symbian and meego) gives us the best opp to deliver value and of course qt will play key role
@NiklasatNokia: AMEN! RT @LessThanDoug Android in not the ans. We need Symbian to be cleaned up and given more power and better UI, now though
So at least for the foreseeable future Nokia remains steadfast in resisting Android as most other major smartphone manufacturers look towards Google’s OS as a sure-fire way to boost the value of their brand. It’s a shame, really, because Nokia has been known for some high quality hardware in the past, and we would love to see what they could come up with using Android.
[via TalkAndroid]
Meego is fine, but symbian is 100% crap. They need to ditch it ASAP.
“We need Symbian to be cleaned up and given more power and better UI, now though”
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Still won’t give you any commercial apps.
Never say never… as their sales numbers drop, they just might re-think their position. The Smartphone will soon be taking over the laptop/portable computing market for sure.
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Ask em’ again next year, lol…
Only a shame in your opinion because you love all things android. Nokia is in a very different situation than most of the android manufacturers as they have two very capable open source mobile operating systems of their own and one amazing development framework in Qt.
I think Nokia w/ Qt has a very bright future and could challenge android once again.
Disclaimer: I like Android a lot and my current phone is an EVO.
This puts them in the same boat as the iphone, Palm (now HP) and Blackberries. They will have to create their own market. Only time will tell if they have the ability to create enough of a market. How many different ways do these manufacturers think app developers will go?
Their smartphone strategy will follow the palm and dodo bird’s path to extinction. They should hedge their bets like Samsung, bet on a sure win and use the profits to finance other developments.
What Nokia should do is release a Qt and Mobi for Android and get some of that cross platform goodness going to expand their market since one of the major selling points of Qt is being write once deploy anywhere.
would this be like when a redneck says “Watch this!” or “Hey hold my beer!” aka “Famous last words”
Nokia will be changing their mine soon, or be selling off like Palm..
I was a Nokia devotee for many years until the Ovi Store launched. Thanks to Ovi’s disrespect, arrogance and deceitful practices I will NEVER buy a Nokia again.
I am now the happy owner of a Google Nexus One and will never look back at Nokia again!
I agree with Simon I have never liked Nokias and gave it a try with the N900 and although it outperforms my Nexus One (in graphics anyways) the Ovi store support, Ovi maps were terrible. Im gonna stick with Android for a while. If Nokia ever decides to go Android ill be first in line to get it simply because of their feautures and build qualities.
eh…their loss.
simon what happened with Ovi?
The CORRECT answer is: “We will the OS that is best for our customers and shareholders.”
NOT
“We will continue to use the OS that we have been using regardless of its widely known faults and limitations and rapidly declining market share.”
yeah, and thats their mistake. I have friends who have recently bought nokia’s and feeling bad for that. i could never look back at casual phone, expecially symbian phone. nokia should at least release some android powered phones and try to see how selling goes then.
loved comment #8 by elijahblake :D
It would be interesting to see the users of smartphones around the world, and their take on Android. I know there is a lot of hype in the US and UK with Android, but what does the rest of the world think of it. If Nokia were a big seller in the US, I would agree that this is a monumentally stupid decision. But the US is only a small part of the world’s smartphones.
I am pretty much giving up on Nokia now. They seem to keep a closed mind about everything. Why not make a line of Android phones while continuing to develop Symbian and MeeGo?
It’s this very attitude and behavior that will sink them in the long run. I even got turned off by the Euro crowd (in general) that still supports Nokia. They hate our (USA) guts and their general train of thought is, “You are American and you are stupid and you are greedy and you are ignorant!”. I do fine in their forums until they get the slightest hint that I am ‘American’ and then they all go on a ‘let’s-flame-the-US of A’ rants.
I’m just going to stick to Android, WebOS or Blackberry from now on. Trying to play nice and keep an open mind to Euro products just ain’t working out for me…
@ Daniel
We are over 300 million strong Daniel. Hardly a ‘small part’ of the world’s smartphones. Asia and North America are a HUGE market and Nokia is beginning to lose steam in Asia too as Android gains traction over there.
It’s that very attitude I was talking about. Nokia will sink even faster if they cling to it.
Nokia’s smartphones are huge everywhere in the world but the US. They’ll do fine keeping afloat and making money, but they definitely missed the boat on Android. Nokia’s phones are topnotch, one of the only made in Europe and not China/Taiwan. Too bad they have zero market presence here in the US but partnering with AT&T caused their US death.
I purchased the n900 too and became completely disgusted with the ovi store. Nokia has just moved itself one big step closer to obsolesense…
Nokia is *so* 1990’s…There are two major OS systems. Android and Apple. All the rest are sweeping up the left-overs. People are bailing from Blackberry and jumping onto Android daily. Windoze is, well… Palm appears to be hanging by a thread. iPhone 4 numbers seem inflated and (according to the Class Action Suit) their user base is frustrated. So now, we (Android) are even getting iPhone converts as well. We won’t feel Nokia’s decision…But they on the other hand *will*
Look at their upcoming flagship device, N8:
-Same processor as Droid (good but getting outdated)
-3.5″ AMOLED screen (good but 640×360 resolution not good)
-16GB internal storage (good) but 256 MB RAM (not good enough)
Despite the 12MP camera with Xenon flash. If this had Android on it, I don’t think I would take it over any of the current high end devices.
Sorry. Similar processor to Droid.
Android is steamrolling everything… the numbers don’t lie… and that means it gets developer attention… and where developers go the platform wins. Now tell me again why all of a sudden all these developers will start developing for meego????
i had a nokia smartphone e72 and i didnt like it, the user interface looked outdated and just confusing to get around – too many menus within menus, etc. so symbian just doesnt have the power to progress anymore. i believe that’s why maemo/meego came around…. i have an n900 and as you all know its on maemo, it really has power.. its not perfect by any means, but i can see how exciting meego devices will be…
@Tony QT is not going to save them….not that they are lost but… It’s not really saving KDE again not that they are in trouble. But what I mean to say is that’s it not pulling people to it more than anything else. Now the overall package I saw of Meego on the tablet is a winner if marketed right and I would love for it to succeed. But we’ll probably never see it in America anyway so my backing is with Android first so that I can have access to these products. And since QT is open source anyone could port it to Android if they wanted. But I really don’t see much reason to. Mobile apps are real simple to begin with.
A few years ago Nokia was not serious about CDMA phones as they didn’t want to buy chips and pay royalties to Qualcomm. But this “no Android phones” statement will be the day Nokia jumped the shark.
That’a boy Nokia. Stick with your pride and ride the sinking Symbian ship. Nevermind that you could reinvent yourself by bringing a more appealing Android OS to your awesome hardware.
Seriously I love Nokia hardware but the UI and software don’t hold up to the competition.
I am actually a little upset about Nokia’s decision here. I used Nokia phones for several years and loved them. But I think they need to keep up with the times and cash in on the android market. I do believe that Nokia has quality phones, they just need a better OS to compliment them.
how about if maemo from NOKIA colaboration with android from GOOGLE make new system again..
how about that guys.. that will be sickness operating system.. and damn, them will goooooood more anything
Why all manufacturers stick to one OS per device? Is it so hard to give people choice? Sell devices with couple systems on CD/download. Anyone can connect it to computer to flash whatever OS he likes…
After all, they are just computers now. And since meego/iOS/Android/palm os are linux/unix based, they should have little problems porting drivers.
What they need? Few extra devs? Community could do it. They were able to port android to Touch HD2, they are actually doing it on N900. Give them just a little support. I would get Nokia hardware with android even if I had to pay full price for it. But symbian is outdated crap, Meego? It doesn’t exist yet, and may never do. We not only need OS but whole environment with apps. Look what happened to palm.
The same applies to HTC and any other manufacturer. I would buy and flash Touch Pro2 with android if I could have all hardware working.
Manufacturers need to realize, that they can move a lot more of their great hardware with OS choices.
Look how much apple grew when they switched to Intel and anyone can have windows next to OSX!
I agree – i would be rushing to pick up an Nokia device supported by Android….
Alas – we will have to wait a couple of years… I feel it is inevitable.
everything is kind of put into perspective when you compare their’ flagship ‘n97 to any old android even the g1. need I say anymore
I have an n97 and a G1,& honestly Nokia Hardware simply beats HTC’s hardware in all regards(Excluding Ram & the Resistive Screen),the battery lasts me 2 days of heavy usage(Fm transmitter,Bluetooth & numerous phone calls)but Having to Reboot my device everytime i accidentally leave my contacts list open in the background is a BIG NO-NO.
But personally i think Offline Maps like OVI maps is Great.If Rock solid Hardware came out for Android(My Brother has a Droid & my mate has a EVO 4G),it would destroy all other Mobile OSes.
Answer out Geek Dreams Nokia !!
“Nokia Reiterates Not Considering Android for Future Handsets”
Tom Reiterates Not Considering Nokia for Future Handsets
I like Nokia phones and I’d love to see NOKI(A)NDROID .. :)
Nokia phones always had impressive hardware specs. Too bad it is led down by Ovi(everything) and Symbian. For Symbian, I will be lenient and say ‘wait and see’ as Nokia makes the transition from Symbian^3 to Symbian^4.
At the very least, I say, Symbian(mostly owned by Nokia) and Google/Android should pool resources together to have a common app distribution platform. Keep the Symbian on Nokia phones, and you still can have ported apps thanks to Qt.
Looks like NOKIA will be making less money without ANDROID with their own OS in it. kinda a sad move by NOKIA.
I think the bottom line is that they want their ovi maps and market, not google’s.
They are going to go bankrupt in the long run if they stick with Symbian. Meego especially with an Intel chip would be very tempting. I’d use that just because you could easily port anything to it. No Java layer.
Their real problem is the low end which will get wiped out by Chinese manufacturers in the long run.
Nokia sells 500 millions phones every year. Every year!!! 60 % of the world’s market. Iphone about 20%. Balckberry is only 17%.
@dvdivx
>Their real problem is the low end which
>will get wiped out by Chinese manufacturers
>in the long run.
It is already happening! They are scared of that! Not Android, not iPhone but low end!
@Max, how many of the phones they sell are very basic models that as another poster pointed out, are likely to be replaced by Chinese or Indian competition?
Nokia = Suicide by OS.
-shoulder shrug- oh well, a digital thinning of the heard.
I mean herd. Ouch…
Nokia’s choice not to adopt Android is the worst decision any mobile phone manufacturer can make.
Nokia will adopt Android eventually and they’ll regret not doing it earlier.
When Nokia does, their first phone will have killer hardware and win all their fans back.
Android’s just a kid, got a long life ahead of it. Only Android fans can see the evolution of it.
Nokia: meego no likey android. yousa people ganna die!
Who knows what the smartphone market is going to look like in 5 years. It’s still in it’s infancy. Nokia’s position on Android is an unfortunate one as it has all the momentum.
There’s honestly not enough developers that want to support all of these Smart phone OS’s. QT looks like an interesting idea but I don’t want to support another IDE for consulting.
Nokia will probably lose out on the smartphone market.
I am sorry but maemo and Symbian (depending what flavor you have) is far superior then Android.. For one Maemo is a full running Linux OS.. Android is a java application on top of a linux kernal. For anyone that says else-wise are not technically savvy and or never tried maemo. The key point is.. running a java application (android) cannot use the full potential of hardware as if you were running compiled c++ code directly from the kernal. (Think of layers, android relies on java that relies on other code that then can rely on more code) That is why android is not superior it is just HYPED UP here in the states… (My n900 device can run android, windows application, Apples OS10, Apples IOS, windows 95, 98 2000 and so on.. I can port any X11 based applications i choose. and this is ontop of Maemo).. So dont confuse Nokia’s business practices (ovi store for one) with a operating systems and true performance.
I’m not the most fan of smart phones, but the N8 gave me hope until I saw the operating system (symbian). I think it should be better to live up to the other phones. The system is not bad but is very basic compared with Android and Apple that are in a higher level. The only way I’ll buy the N8 is if Nokia improve Internet speed, increase the resolution of the phone and make an urgent improvement or update to Symbian because the device (N8) is by far the best in design, camera and HD recording. Please Nokia, make changes or updates in system but no in the N8 design or camera features.