Nokia's Elopocalypse two years on: Has Microsoft kept its side of the bargain? It's two years since the "Elopocalypse". This week in 2011 Nokia's new CEO Stephen Elop set Europe's biggest technology company off in a radical new direction. Nokia would license its flagship phone software from Microsoft, rather than develop its own, set fire to three of its own mobile platforms, and eventually shed …
I just bought a Lumia 820 last weekend and I'm quite pleased with it so far. The interface is fast and responsive. and the phone itself has a pleasing solidity that's been lacking in my previous handsets. More applications need to take advantage of the Live Tile feature though. I understand Live tile is supposed to function in a similar fashion to widgets in Android but aside from providing shortcuts, they don't seem to offer much else. I'm still getting used to the phone so I might have missed something.
Stick a 32GB class 10 SD into it and sync some music to it and watch it all go to fuck, probably requiring a factory reset to get into some state of normality. I suffered that on several occasions with both a Samsung and Sandisk micro SD, and that occurred with both with the shipped and the 'portico' update.
The whole Xbox music thing is an utter mess and completely unfit for purpose. The syncing applications are a load of shit. The micro SDcard support doesn't work with commodity class 10 cards and every now and again the mobile baseband will hang causing texts and calls not to get through. All documented issues on the Nokia support forums too, so definitely not an isolated case of bad hardware.
Those are the main reasons why I sold my 820, that and of course the complete lack of app traction.
The OS simply isn't ready. It needs a lot more work to bring it up to standard. It's been rushed, it feels rushed and it acts rushed. Which is a pity, because I was waiting for it a long time to replace my WP7 device.
Thants because the Sandisk SD cards have a big problem - Amazon have had thousands returned. Get a Samsung - works fine for me....No issues at all.
Xbox music is also great - just stream whatever you want whenever you want - no need to worry about 'if it is in your collection' etc.
The phone itself automatically syncs everything to Skydrive without issue.
All in all a very polished experience.
Thants because the Sandisk SD cards have a big problem - Amazon have had thousands returned. Get a Samsung - works fine for me....No issues at all.
Do you have a source for this, because it sounds a bit as though you are trying to shift the blame - he said he also tried a Samsung SD card which also went to fuck, so it doesn't sound like it's a card specific issue (and I've not heard of any problems with Sandisk cards from Amazon).
Live tiles haven't really worked so far. At least as a user of Win Pho 7. Because apps weren't really multi-tasking, they weren't really allowed to do the clever stuff. So, for example, my weather app would update its live tile when I looked at it, but it never seemed to manage to do it again until I ran the app again. Whereas what could be simpler than a weather app that shows you the picture of today's forecast? Not that iOS can do it either... The people hub could keep changing, showing bits of photos, but only if you were plugged into Facebook and got your phone filled up with all the pointless Facebook chatter. No, I really don't care how much of a melon-farmer you've just been...
Sadly the only thing that really seemed to work well on the live tiles was badges. Which is no better than what iOS can do, and massively worse than Android's brilliant widgets. Although, none of the non-techies I know have managed to customise their widgets very much, so maybe it's not the huge advantage it ought to be? Many things frustrated me when I was on Android, but the ability to customise the phone to perfection is something I missed on Win Phone. I've just taken delivery of a work iPhone 5, and as a phone it's a step back from WP7. My trusty £130 Lumia 710 is sadly going out to pasture. As a mobile computer the iPhone is superior, but then it does cost 4 times as much...
One thing I've noticed that should worry MS and Nokia is how prominent the new Blackberries are in the phone shops. They're getting pushed in a way Windows Phone and Nokia's Lumias never did. Does this mean the phone companies are going to push Blackberry as the 3rd way (to keep Google and Apple honest)? They never seemed to have their hearts in pushing Windows Phone...
They can't. If they really want one overarching platform they need to unify Windows 8, Win RT, and WP. But as the Win RT is tanking, Windows 8 is getting slated, and the priority for WP is probably featuring matching BB10 instead of making nice APIs I can imagine internally management are like a rabbit trapped in front of the headlights and don't really know where to go from here.
Unify? Phones are a fundamentally different form factor from desktops. What works in phones, does not work on the desktop in an usable way, and vice versa. (But of course they can share a lot of low-level code underneath; I have understood this is already the case with WP8, and the same way Android and the Linux desktop distributions share the same kernel code).
"What works in phones, does not work on the desktop in an usable way"
That depends on what you mean by "what works" - if the UI, then yes, you're right. If you mean the technology stack then no. And that second one is where Microsoft should be focusing.
All three platforms (W8, WinRT, WP7 and WP8) use a declarative language (XAML) on top of an object-oriented framework (either the Windows Runtime or the .NET Framework). The languages across all platforms are C++, C#, F#, Visual Basic.NET. All there now use DirectX instead of GDI.
So XAML and languages tick the box already. What's up in the air is whether consolidating the Windows Runtime with the .NET Framework is the way to go, or unambiguously separate them into current (Windows Runtime) and legacy (.NET Framework).
XAML is the ace in the hole though - it lets you quickly skin a new presentation layer on top of an existing application and data layer, which is !almost! portable between Presentation Foundation on the desktop, Windows Runtime and Windows Phone.
It's the almost part which means its not unified. You can take any technology/language/framework and one of them will be slightly different on one of the three platforms, it'll be there but you're not allowed to use it, or it'll be missing (e.g. see here).
They did a lot of behind the scenes work for WP8 but people complained that there were few visible changes from WP7. They're only about half-way there but they've got to concentrate on features instead of technology for WP8 if they don't want it to bomb.
Bla, bla..
What matter is the consistent API. If you don't have the same, consistent API across all platforms, you can't claim they are any compatible. Only XAML is not enough, especially because he mobile and desktop UIs are by definition different and expressing both in XAML makes no difference.
If it adopts a platform agnostic approach.
Imagine offering, WIndows 8, Android and other platforms on its hardware. will be a surefire winner due to its quality assurance and supply side management/logisitcs pedigree.
IF possible, even revive Meego, Maego, Symbian, whatever.
This could be its last chance saloon moment and could make out to be the the biggest turnaround in its corporate history.
HTC does, Samsung does it, Huawei and LG do it, Why cant Nokia make multiple platform handsets? And if ego is the problme due to Elop at the helm, get rid of him and get someone with an open mind, having no hangups about Microsoft sugar daddy.
I'd bet dollars to salmiakki that one of the requirements of Nokia's "favoured partner" agreement with Microsoft is that they remain bound tightly to WinPho for the duration of the agreement. Any move to platform agnosticism will likely result in Microsoft withdrawing their regular support payments, and probably an increase in the WinPho licensing fees as well (or at least a "warning" that they may "have to").
"Any move to platform agnosticism will likely result in Microsoft withdrawing their regular support payments."
If MSFT did that, NOKIA would be dead. MSFT is turning NOKIA into a heroin addict where the heroin is MSFT subsidies. The more this goes on, the more "going cold turkey" is no longer an option. At that point, NOKIA will have no choice but to become an operating division of MSFT.
"I'd bet dollars to salmiakki..."
Oh, ta. I promised my daughter a couple of packs of salmiakki. Forgot. Ta muchly for the reminder...
(Salmiakki is a Finnish candy, based on licorice, that has the same effect on non-Finnish girls as eating garlic before a first date, farting during it, or requesting (same date) the Karaoke Lapland singing style of Joiku - which to me is the sound you would make if your toenails were being pulled out, one-by-one)
The PAYG Nokias are quite cheap indeed (at least if you use 3's prices as a guide) compared to comparable phones from Samsung or Apple. It seems a good way of checking if people buy the brand or the price.
It should be interesting to see where this goes and I am a big fan of there being more competition in the mobile phone space.
The jury is still out on that, and we'll only know in a year or two's time.
But what if MS see retail buyers as secondary to business users? IN MS shoes, yes I'd want to have something shiney to put in the shops to sell retail, but the real long term value is not through shop sales to individuals, but through getting business users on board. Eat the lunch that RIM used to enjoy, take back business users from Android, sell related services, reduce the corporate traction of other platforms.
Most corporate IT buyers don't care about apps. They want a decent mobility solution based on phone, email, text, maybe IM. A few built in fripperies like mobile internet and navigation are welcome, but third party apps count for nothing. They want t it to be secure, play nicely with the existing IT infrastructure.
A mid to low end smartphone with MS software really ought to do that, and if few retail users buy it, does that matter? I wouldn't buy a WP8 phone, but of far more importance to MS is whether my employers would buy 10,000 of them.
@ dogged - "How many Androids were sold in the first two years of the OS's life?"
The original G1 sold pretty well, IIRC, though not barnstormingly so. However this is not the first year of Windows Phone is it?
"Coming soon, new awseome phone OS! Look, all these bloggers say its the best thing ever for users and developers even though there's no way anyone has got one yet and we just announced it yesterday! And it's got so many apps! Look! Shiny! No of course the last one didn't sell very well, it was crap. But this new one is revolutionary"
Which then turns to - "Well yes, of course all these features you like from iOS and Android are missing, it's a new OS, give it time, Windows Phone has only been out a few months hasn't it? And of course the sales are slow, duh, new platform!"
Are we going to have to watch the same pattern with Win Phone 9?
And still very happy with it.
The platform is just about staying alive DESPITE being dumped by nokia two years ago.. Applications like Yappari (a Whatsapp client) are still making releases.
It strikes me that if Nokia had stuck with their Maemo platform instead of sacrificing it to the gods of Redmond, it could have been a game-changer for the whole industry.
I *really* like my Lumia 920, but still have and use my old N900. Resistive touch feels pretty dated now, but the OS is built like the Lumia 920's hardware - it's a tank. I love that N900. My all-time favourite Nokia was the E90 though. Still have it, but don't use it.
I had the N770 and N800. Nice units but software development was a PITA. Never understood why Nokia did not enable the JAVA features in the CPU and / or produced a Java(ME) VM. Would have been a boost for the little units and back than ME was still a contender.
No - just not with a snake, I am mainly a JAVA developer these days. Could offer C/C++, 68k assembler and Fortran77 (as well as VB, VB.NET, DICOL, Step5, C# and some SQL dialects). Java was totally out and C would required a rather complex sandbox setup IIRC.
I think the 'get into bed with MS' strategy was the best alternative at the time. Remember, their products were not great and their technical bureaucracy was incapable of producing but internal fights were easier. The alternatives were to go android and fight toe to row with HTC et al ( not an inviting prospect) or try and carry on with the internally developed new tech which was stuck in the mud.
MS have a reputation for throwing money and resources at things until they get them right, and that must have been attractive to Nokia at the time - first mover advantage and better integration on a platform that MS will just keep throwing money at until it succeeds.
It may not be working yet (and MS may yet fail) but it gave them breathing space (especially from investors ) to get their engineering depts back in a good place and be in a better position to slug it out on android should MS fail.
> to get their engineering depts back in a good place
Only if you define "good place" as "the street, looking for a job"...
Actually, startups have been increasing in Finland recently due to talented people having been kicked out of Nokia. That may yet turn out to be a blessing: the tech sector is no longer so dependent on one big company.
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