Family of MeeGo-Harmattan protoype devices?
I posted this over at MobilePhoneInnovation, so I figured I should post it here as well, since it is something a few readers may be interested in taking a look at.
I’ve been doing some digging and have come across an interesting quote by somebody that was a part of getting MeeGo-Harmattan to where it is today. I am not going to identify who they are, solely as I don’t want people to harass them. The information though is public, so people can find it if they look. When discussing an app feature modding the System, they said their “patch restores functionality that was originally intended to be in devices that have the hardware keyboard.” Since the “consumer devices with a hardware keyboard were canceled” the SW in the N950 was left locked to accomodate for the only consumer device, N9
Doing some more digging and using my own knowledge, there are approximately 7 devices designed (and apparently prototyped), incl. N9 & N950, made for MeeGo-Harmattan. I have only 2 images, one of a device, one of the concept drawings, but here is a list of different devices:
- N9: This obviously made it to market and for good reason. It is gorgeous. No need to explain this further
- N950: Again, this is a known device. Regulated to a dev-only device for various reasons
- N9, but with a camera shutter, and improved camera
- There is the silver N950 we have seen a few times, and that was featured on Transformers 3. It had an earlier version of MH (earlier than what came with N950s). It had support for its 12MP camera, but with lower internal specs, and was shelved rather quickly.
- This was a device that looked very similar to the N8. It follows the rumours of there being a MeeGo succesor to the ex-CameraPhone King
- Apparently this prototype matched the design of the Nokia One exactly.
- Another QWERTY device with MH on board. No more info has been shared with me, but I assume it would have been the successor to N950
Here are the images I have of the initial N950, and design of N9 w/ physical camera. Trying to source more. Will update if they come to my attention.
Showing blueprint for N9 w/ camera button
I am pretty annoyed personally. We could’ve had a family of MeeGo-Harmattan devices, and even a better N9 than what currently exists (even though many argue it can’t happen). What are your thoughts?
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Hi! My name is Michael. Like the others, I'm also a Student, living here in Sydney. I have a real passion for the latest technology and I'm a real Nokia buff! My aim is to keep those of you, like myself, updated with the latest in what's going on in the Nokia World. Currently sporting N9 & Lumia 820, with other Nokia devices in my posession. Get in touch on Twitter via @MFaroTusino, Google Plus or even simply drop me an email at mike.mnb[at]outlook.com or tips[at]mynokiablog.comSubscribe
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Sites That Link to this Post
- Nokia MeeGo-Harmattan The Hidden Family - Nokia DNA | August 9, 2012
- Exclusive: Leaked Images of RM-581 “Columbus” Harmattan Prototype – N8-esque from 2009 : My Nokia Blog | September 2, 2012
- Nokia MeeGo-Harmattan The Hidden Family - Nokia DNA | November 7, 2012
- ¿Prototipos de dispositivos de la Familia MeeGo-Harmattan? | MundoMeego | January 16, 2013
well, FUCK YOU ELOP.
+1
+1000000
I’m glad that Nokia isn’t using that OS with no future anymore.
LOL!!!!!! it has no future because it’s killed. i’m glad there still some people here to laught at..
Yes, it was killed because it’s pointless to spend money on something with no future.
you won’t have a future when you kill it.
An OS won’t have a future when you don’t have the money to develop it (and yes, to be competitive MeeGo was going to need a lot more development because so far you had the first version of the mobile OS but not the full ecosystem). And Nokia doesn’t have that money because of the mistakes that were made during the S60V5 era.
wp has a long way to become competitive system to the meego. I think wp is dead, no games, only 2 years old titles, no support from gameloft and another companies makes wp dead. who will buy device which has no advanced features or software? meego is still more advanced than wp8. only Elop would be able to destroy meego because it’s better that ms system. Nokia is dead because of wp, and wp9/10/11 and anything else from ms will change it. future of ms is also unclear. when mobile devices become more usefull and poular that pc, windows will be dead.
Bb10 is probably more advanced too. Doesn’t matter. Ecosystem is all that matters. And MS trounces Nokia in that regard.
WP has more than 100000 apps and third partu devs are certainly more interested in it than they were in Symbian or MeeGo, just look and the Windows Phone Marketplace growth compared to the Nokia Store. Devs didn’t give a sh*t about Nokia (when the company was on its own), how can this be so hard to understand… I mean, you don’t even need to understand, you just have to look at the facts and accept them because they are true.
Now, about the future, I don’t know how can you see it so clearly, but something tells me that you are only looking at the WP8 when you should be looking at the hole picture: Windows8+WindowsRT+WindowsPhone8+Xbox&Kinect+Skydrive+Office2013+Bing+SmartGlass+etc…
And of course ecosystems matter! Why do you think Android and iOS are on top? Because the only have a smartphone OS and nothing more? Of course not! They both have a huge ecosystem supporting them, unlike Nokia had with Symbian or MeeGo.
OMFG
:-D:-D:-D:-D
+1
meego-harmattan devices were perfectly poised at that time. however elop did not want another ecosystem to trump his pet wp phones from nokia. but the customers wanted meego more than wp. the results are out for the interim, until wp8 phones are out. for the moment elop has lost. whatever his crappy projections are. wp8 phones are another battle for another day. these mango/ tango/ jango phones are osborned already.
/end of rant
You have a very strange and erroneous view of poise. Nokia had already failed to convince devs and companies to support its Qt strategy. Yes, failed. If devs had bought the Qt vision they would have already been making qt Symbian apps. And the major companies simply weren’t. Before feb 2011
Funny you say that.. Over the last few months, there have been lot of N9 apps on Qt and lot more on their way..
At least the old & true Nokia didn’t get to the level of paying to get apps done for their platform unlike MS & the new Nokia are..
All developers I talked to was waiting to start coding on QT. The first full version of QT mobile toolkit was released in March 2011.
Guess what happened? All, and I mean all the developers(I knew) ran towards Android.
The writing was on the wall for them.
Each and everyone said it out loud that Nokia was dumping a good solution for some outdated or stupid WinCE technology .
meego sucks..
Not as much as WP7.x though..
My thoughts: water under the bridge.
That Macbook N950. Soooooooo gorgeous.
I really wish that one came out
.
Hope Jolla comes up with something similar if not the same.
I agree! I know a person with it (how I got that photo) and I have even wanted to trade my N950 for it. But being a prototype, with lower specs, it can barely run PR1.0 FW, so it would be useless. Still gorgeous to have alongside my MBP
Are the internals so different than the ones of the proper N950? They look the same size and mostly the same shape, I wonder if internals transplant from N950 to it could be possible, even if held by epoxy?
I really hope someone Andres breivik Stephen Eflop
sick
What a pathetic comment. We’re talking about mobile phones here, lumps of material, not life and death. It’s quite clear how some of you are so closeted from the real world that you would become so upset by something that is, in the great scheme of things, no that important. Are you about 12 years old? Get some perspective you utter cretin.
40,000 people have lost their jobs thanks to alot of elops decisions.
thank you for helping justify murdering people is ok.
Faulty logic that assumes had Nokia not undertaken massive change, zero jobs would have been lost. You really want to make that claim?
So what’s your point? The fact that you have tried to defend that comment shows you to be an utter cretin too. PERSPECTIVE!
I dont believe you. elop said that they couldn’t deliver more meego phones on time!!!!1!!!!!11i
.
.
.
:/
Prototype =/ product.
Agreed! I believe the N9 was the first device that was ready for consumer launch, while the rest were merely only ready for prototyping. This is why the Commercial SW focused on the N9′s abilities, and the N950s suffered feature wise (lack of 12mp support, lack of landscape support, etc.)
Exactly. I also heard that the hardware-camera-key version of the N9 was dropped as the team felt more and more confident about pushing for an (almost) hardware-key-less design.
Been told the same thing. I think they could have done only power button personally
Hardware volume buttons are quite handy but I’m quite glad they didn’t add the camera button. The less buttons the better IMHO.
well I think for me personally, they could have taken out the volume keys, but add the camera button, so, basicly have power and camera button, cause physical camera button is handy for takinh self pics, or pics with friends.
As I’ve said earlier – no buttons, not even a power one – quite achievable, surely to wow everyone and certainly not expensive… If only Nokia wasn’t – Nokia…
I guess every manufacturer is like Nokia in this particular case (i.e. no one has and I suspect won’t in the short term at least)
well, atleast they had a prototype,
while in windowsphone they would start from scratch?
im pretty sure they were almost ready, time wasnt the main problem from MR elop’s point of view, war of ecosystems blah blah blah was..
the N9 did well with minimal support, how hard was it to finish this meego family, and help nokia gain some cash while winphone gets ready,. ..
everyone does it(HTC/samsung etc).. for real, they are surving with more than one OS :S…. .meh
FUD spread at the time purposely or inadvertently by him…
He wasn’t referring to Harmattan prototypes*, he was claiming that vanilla MeeGo couldn’t be re-adapted for diff. hw platforms quickly enough.
Google search for “My disagreement with Elop” & read it carefully.
*At least one or two of which (beyond N9/950) we KNOW were very well advanced.
Follow TMO heavily enough over the last 10mth & you would’ve seen peeps with inside info. share what they know.
Can’t be foobared digging it all up, do some research there…
Actually, not even “My disagreement with Elop” disagreed with Elop when he said they’d only have so and so many MeeGo’s out. He didn’t say ONE, Elop never said one. I’m remembering the number may have been four MeeGo devices or something like that, it was a low number but more than one. Obviously Elop was referencing the then-plan of how many MeeGo’s were supposed to come out in a timeframe.
What the “My disagreement with Elop” disagreed with was, could Nokia have done more MeeGo’s if it so decided, in a similar time than they did with Windows Phone. And I think the obvious answer is, of course Nokia could have. Elop was wrong to suggest otherwise and anyone can see that they could have done more MeeGo’s if they had put their energies to it. And yes, MeeGo might have worked.
But Elop never claimed Nokia could only bring out one MeeGo, he said they would only bring out one. The number of MeeGo’s in the pipeline according to Elop was something like three or four. Consistent with these prototype news! Stop misquoting the man, the myths and misquotes just muddy the real issues that he can actually be criticized of.
The problem with MeeGo wasn’t that Nokia couldn’t make new devices fast enough. And it was a cop-out from Elop to suggest that. The real problem was the speed of development (lack thereof), see how late the N9 was, and their belief that they could not build an ecosystem for it. If they had believed they could, and replaced Symbian with MeeGo, they could have come out with more MeeGo devices by 2012 at least.
Exactly. He actually said on 11 Feb (in the Q&A) session that they had concerns on 1) “how rapidly we could expand across the whole price spectrum with Meego” 2) “whether we could quickly enough build a 3rd ecosystem without the help of a partner like MS”. Note: not whether they could do it but how quickly it could have been done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQtPZ4IwsWU
The mistake he later made was to talk of a specific number of devices.
+1
And still he is the first Nokia CEO with bodyguards…
+1
How quickly people forget. Ollila had years ago major threats against him, there were convictions, bodyguards, police, the whole shebang. Far bigger than anything with Elop.
But I know it is easy to conjure all kinda of myths about Elop and think they’re true.
Janne keeps protecting Elop. So maybe you should apply for that job.
However you twist it , Mr. Elop is one famous CEO with a mole written on his face.
And both points turned out to be false. N9 was available even before first WP7 stop gap phones, let alone the supposedly real WP phones that we have yet to see. And the partnering with MS, they replaced diverse group of large backers behind MeeGo with one company that already proved it’s failure in mobiles and that it has very hard time to do anything outside of the legacy monopoly. If Nokia will be able to successfully launch WP ecosystem with MS, certainly they would be able to do it with MeeGo.
nn:
Since when was N9 about “expand across the whole price spectrum with Meego”? And it was out barely a month or so before Lumia 800.
Now, MeeGo might have worked. I maintain that opinion. However, it is not hard to see what the risks with MeeGo would have been. For example, the strength of Microsoft’s presence on the PC, in gaming, at the office and backend, stuff like that would have been really hard to replicate in the MeeGo ecosystem – and that is more and more important for current mobile devices.
Both WP and MeeGo had their unique challenges. Both could have worked. WP can still work. MeeGo can still work for Jolla. Nokia made their call doing what they thought would be best for them, it doesn’t mean it was the only possible alternative. It is just the one they felt would be best. Many disagree and that is fine, this is not a black and white issue of right or wrong. Many opinions have merit here.
N9 was available sooner and with far more features than WP7 phones, that’s a fact. What they are doing so far, is that they are putting the exact same HW into different cases. Or if the HW actually is slower, they just cripple functionality without trying to refine the OS. I don’t see why they couldn’t do the same, at minimum, with MeeGo. And that’s the WP7 stopgap, with WP8 it’s new start and God knows when there could be WP8 phones at all price points. I’m quite sure it wont be in Q1/2013, which was supposed to be the too much late date for Meltemi.
It was all classical Elop, he gives reason for killing X and then replaces it with Y, which is far worse. I’m sure if he attempted to give another even bit more specific explanation, it would be the same complete bullshit like the “no more than three devices” defence.
That’s utter nonsense. It was proved beyond any doubt that strong presence on PC, in gaming or in office SW is irrelevant for success in smartphones. Look at who rules or ruled handset market, and who failed.
On of the reason WP is failure is that MS views smartphones as extension of their old business, so they waste resources on stuffing smartphones with nonsenses like native Offices or Xbox integration, which almost nobody uses or needs. Elop, coming from MS, is captured by the same folly.
But the fact is that smartphone is going to be the primary device with which you can kill and consume all your PC, gaming or Office competition, again see what Apple and Google are doing. This is what makes Elop’s subordination of Nokia to MS really amazing feat, he was able to turn the situation upside down and make it look as if it wasn’t MS who was at the edge of cliff and that Nokia wasn’t the one who had all they keys.
nn:
Look, first off, let me underline: MeeGo might have worked. I didn’t choose Windows Phone, Nokia did. So you don’t have to convince me of MeeGo being able to work, it might have worked just like Windows Phone may fail. I am simply trying to discuss the rationale behind Nokia’s decision and some challenges that I think are different and unique to MeeGo and Windows Phone. Nokia made the choice which is better for them, I didn’t. So you don’t have to convince me of the opposite choice, because I place merit in both approaches.
This is true. However, Nokia never *ever* claimed they couldn’t bring out a MeeGo device faster than Windows Phone. Their argument was that they could span the entire price range faster with Windows Phone. (Equally they felt they could ramp up Windows Phone faster than fix Symbian.)
The N9 is fairly highly specced machine, especially memory-wise. We know Nokia’s roadmap for MeeGo was in the high-end and Symbian was supposed to handle the mid- and low-ends. Because Nokia felt Symbian was no longer viable, they had to span the entire price range (except what Series 40 can handle) with whatever they would use. So they’d have to span MeeGo to where it was not originally going or they’d have to span Android or Windows Phone.
Could Nokia have pushed the N9 to Lumia 610 levels by spring 2012? Maybe. But those who’ve used Harmattan on lower specced prototypes were less than impressed by it from what I hear. And Meltemi wasn’t going to be ready fast enough for that either. So, at least I see potential challenges in the area of pushing MeeGo down to the lower price-ranges and that is one argument Nokia made. I doubt we (as in you and I) can ever be completely sure how good of an argument that is, but at least I can see the challenge of pushing a 1 gigabyte, 1 gigahertz device down to Lumia 610 levels. Apparently Harmattan needs quite a bit more juice than Maemo 5.
But Nokia never made any distinction between WP7 and WP8 in that case. I’m guessing they’ll keep on selling Lumia 610 for quite a while. WP8 will probably matter less in that price range.
The problem I have with this is that the board went along with all this. Even if Elop might be able to bamboozle the public, I doubt he could the board. I believe there were various geniune challenges with MeeGo, more so than just bait and switching arguments. Now, did they make the right call? Who the heck knows.
Let me clarify: My point was that there were differing ecosystem challenges with MeeGo and with Windows Phone. Both have unique strengths and challenges. I listed some things Microsoft brings to the equation, but not all of them. There are others too. Vice versa, MeeGo certainly was bringing other things to the table.
Perhaps smartphone will be that. And yes, I can see what Apple and Google are doing. But they have also been very, very good at creating an ecosystem around their products. Apple has the Mac, the Apple TV, the iPad, and the way these things play together. Google is more and more making strides to the living room and other places in your digital life. And of course Google has the search and the ads and so on. Then there is the content question: getting the apps, the books, the games, the video, the music and so on.
These things do matter. And Microsoft does bring relevant things to the ecosystem, that would have been missing with MeeGo. Now, MeeGo might have brought some other things (and had other benefits, like bigger control for Nokia), certainly. But I think you are going too far if you are just outright dismissing Microsoft’s ecosystem contributions as irrelevant in the modern age. I sincerely doubt that. But it doesn’t mean MeeGo couldn’t have worked too, it just means that the challenges are different there – the gaps to fill for Nokia would have been different there. They felt Windows Phone was the best choice, you don’t, and that is fine.
MeeGo could have worked. And I would have liked to have see them try with it. OTOH, I like Windows Phone too – I owned both prior to February 11th because that’s how I roll.
My point is that if Nokia will be able to launch WP ecosystem with MS on their back, then they certainly would be able to do the same with MeeGo, Because WP is worse in all key areas.
Of course the plan was to cover lower prices with Symbian, so even if the claim about MeeGo was true, it would still be irrelevant to the previous Symbina/MeeGo/Qt strategy.
But if we examine the claim just for the sake of argument, at minimum they could employ same tricks MS used on WP and Meltemi showed that with some care it could be brought to much lower HW (and although you are again bringing the dubious claim that Meltemi was late, Q1 of 2013 would be still sooner than WP, and anyway, at the beginning of 2011 somebody evidently thought it is possible to do it fast enough).
Contrast it with WP7, which is confined to just a few HW combinations and can’t move to higher or lower HW. WP8 is supposed to change that, but it looks like they are again going to start with only midrange HW and when low/high ends are coming is open question.
WP7 proved it’s failure, with new and incompatible WP8 arriving it will be even worse. It’s totally insane to think phones that are unable to win now will succeed against the same competition (plus truckload of new lowend phones) next year or the year after. So maybe Elop will be able to fill some empty lines in his excel tables, but no way current Lumias will “cover” any part of the actual market.
If you want to believe in the conspiracy theory that BoD has secret analyses proving world is flat, water dry and thus validating Elop’s moves, then of course I can’t stop you. Except things like voluntarily betting everything on WP without any way out or plan B are matter of basic sanity and risk mitigation, not some deep hard and uncertain analysis about future events.
So PC/Xbox/Office are out and now we have video/books/music/etc. The only problem with this new argument is that MS is pretty much impotent in all these areas. Nokia is even forced to launch own music services, pay for development of games, etc. MS simply brings nothing to the ecosystem, their strength is in PC/Office (and to some extent Xbox) and these are irrelevant for smartphone success.
nn:
I’ll try to keep my response short so that we can agree and/or agree to disagree.
That is perfectly fair. I’m not quite as confident about that as you are, nor do I think WP is worse in all key areas, but we agree MeeGo might have worked.
I think moving fast away (not February 11th fast, though) from Symbian would have been a good idea in any case, so on this one we somewhat disagree.
Meltemi indeed would have brought Linux-based system to the lower-end, although I’m not exactly sure how “MeeGo” it was. But sure, Linux. It wouldn’t have been out Lumia 610 fast, but still not impossibly late either.
On the other hand, they did get it out on Lumia 610 specs in a timely manner. So while I do get what you’re saying, it didn’t stop Nokia from getting the specs they wanted for Lumia 610. Mango didn’t support it originally.
I’ll make my judgemet on WP7 after the Q3 results, if Lumia makes a nosedive I agree WP7 has failed and all the expectations then are on WP8. If Lumia keeps on a positive trajectory then I’d say Nokia made WP7 somewhat work, Q2 was positive. It is at least true WP7 without Nokia would be a complete failure, with Nokia maybe not quite that bad.
As for WP8′s failure, I don’t share your pessimism that it will fail, but I do agree it can fail.
I think this is based on the myth that Windows Phone is inherently unsellable. I know a lot of people buy into that line of thought, I just don’t agree with it. I think the reasons WP has a hard time with are many, but in itself it is a compelling product that can do well, given the right circumstances. I know you disagree and that is fine.
All I’m saying about the BoD is that I don’t think Elop bamboozling them is as likely that Elop banboozling the public. Jorma Ollila and Risto Siilasmaa spoke very directly about the merits of the strategy and reasons for choosing it, I respect especially the latter of them too much to completely ignore it as PR talk. Elop had to convince the BoD and I believe they have valid reasons for their choice (I’m not saying the reasons are good or bad, time will tell, but just that they had valid reasons).
Maybe. Although without full knowledge of what arguments and information (and contigency planning) affected their decisions, it is hard to be certain. But I always agreed Feburary 11th was a mistake in any case. For what it’s worth, Risto Siilasmaa said they have a contigency plan in case WP8 fails. I don’t doubt him. Whether or not the plan is any good, that is a different question.
No, PC/Xbox/Office are not out, nor do I think they are as irrelevant as you make them sound like. Ecosystem is the whole thing and Microsoft certainly brings in compelling pieces with their Office, Xbox and now Windows 8 ecosystems. I get it that you disagree, but we can agree to disagree on this one.
I don’t think Nokia is forced to do any of those things, they want to do many of those things to differentiate. But I think you are again dooming Microsoft to ecosystem irrelevancy too fast, depending on the region Microsoft does bring significant existing ecosystem to the table also in areas of video/audio, app development or seeding it etc. I get it that you think it is “impotent”, but I don’t agree with. Let’s agree to disagree.
I disagree. First, tablets are bound to have an impact on smartphones even if we assume PC/Office becomes irrelevant (which I don’t think it will). Even Android is struggling with a meaningful tablet contribution, through Windows 8 Nokia’s chosen ecosystem will hopefully make great gains in this area. Windows 8 is a catalyst for the ecosystem in many ways, also in the office, the PC, but elsewhere too. Xbox (including the video/audio etc content this includes), SmartGlass, Kinect, the living room play, all – if played right – can come together as a compelling ecosystem alternative to that of Apple’s (iDevices/Mac/Apple TV).
MeeGo would have had significant challenges in creating that breadth of attack, although it would have had other strengths and up-sides for Nokia. MeeGo certainly could have worked (at least for all we know, we don’t know what Elop/Öistämö knew then they had their oh shit quality time together), but I think you are too quick to dismiss how the Windows 8 ecosystem can work in Nokia’s favor too.
So, much we agree with, some (especially Microsoft’s ecosystem contribution) we disagree with.
@Janne
It seems that after few rounds your argumentation boiled down to the old tired “everything is grey and everything is roughly equally possible to happen” tactic.
For example see the disagreement on the irrelevance of PC/Office to smartphone success. I backed up my stance by evidence, namely the ten years history of smartphone market. You provide none evidence or even reaction to my, you only repeat assertions that essentially it maybe could hypothetically be partially helpful to some extent, probably, only time will tell.
And because both arguments are obviously equally persuasive, we can proceed to say that the plan of voluntarily betting whole company on strategy that never worked before and cutting all ways out for the case it will fail, could have it’s merits.
Even by your own accounts, 610 isn’t comparable to Meltemi as the latter was way down price/hw wise, so I don’t know why you are attempting to compare their supposed launch dates. 610 has lower HW than Mango, but it is the same HW the previous/first version of WP was running on. And if they turned the multitasking in N9 off and banned skype or angry birds, I’m sure they could bring down HW requirements of MeeGo considerably.
Some purely made up stuff there Janne, really you should have more integrity than that.
http://mynokiablog.com/2012/08/09/family-of-meego-harmattan-devices-protoyped/comment-page-1/#comment-631687
I’ve never heard of any of that stuff you talk about, and I follow the community far more heavily than you.
I must admit you are creative at making stuff up, I can only assume it’s made up, as you provide zero proof for your “claims”.
Who’s saying he said one, you’re the one inserting that.
Look it was quite obvious at the time that he was attempting to be misleading OR it was accidental.
Pretty damn hard to believe it was the latter, given the full context of events at the time & Felipe’s insights.
But it seems you’re ready to whole wholeheartedly embrace the latter, who’s doing the misleading?
And he was never specific about no’s for meego proper devices that’s rubbish, he made some vague assertions but they were just that, due to the available info. at the time.
“The real problem was the speed of development (lack thereof), see how late the N9 was, and their belief that they could not build an ecosystem for it. If they had believed they could, and replaced Symbian with MeeGo, they could have come out with more MeeGo devices by 2012 at least.”
Had that debate ad infinitum, so forgive me of I dont address it directly.
Feel free to have your version of history riding high there. There’s really no point any more, given that he’s successfully jettisoned Qt entirely now.
To clarify, I was referring to this claim that Elop said they couldn’t deliver more than the N9 – and was correcting that:
It is the message to which you were responding and further commenting on.
I said I think it was a cop-out from Elop aka in your words: misleading.
But if you think that is THE reason Nokia was trying to communicate as their reason to ditch MeeGo you and Felipe are wrong. There was so much more to that message, like Viipottaja points out above. But yes, it was wrong of Elop to suggest that they couldn’t have done more MeeGo devices than were on their roadmap at the time. It was misleading and wrong.
Yes, I know there was so much more, I was only addressing the OP’s comment.
At the time the narrative was still being fully fleshed out…
Elop got his supposed rationale better refined & communicated as time went on.
So, let’s get this straight: Are you calling Elop and Kai Öistämö liars on this one?
WTF are you talking about, lower the fanboy paranoia & re-read the sentence.
Do explain. There is no fanboy-paranoia, I *am* reading your message:
You tell me “the narrative was still being fully fleshed out” and Elop’s “supposed rationale”…
So what *are* you saying? Or are you content with hinting at something, but not really saying it?
I’m content with saying exactly what I meant, you take away what you want from your paranoia.
I repeat, read again….
But your statement is ambiguous. The only conclusion is you don’t have the guts to say out loud what you are hinting out.
“*narrative* being fleshed out”
“*supposed* rationale”
Come on. Don’t think I’m stupid, I can see what you are saying there. You are saying they cooked up a story. Unless you don’t mean to and you want to clarify it, which I’d like to hear to understand you.
Supposed rationale, as in; we dont know the full story other than what we’re led to believe & even that’s a tiny snapshot, HENCE…”supposed rationale.” HELLO, common freaking English, that clear enough for you!?!
Thank you, so by supposed you mean what we suppose Elop’s rationale was – instead of Elop’s rationale being called “supposed rationale”? Fair enough.
You do realize the words is synonymous with e.g. conjectural, hypothetical, putative, reputed, etc. When you wrote: “Elop got his supposed rationale better refined”, you see how that can be read in many ways.
I genuinely read you hinting that Elop’s rationale was not genuine (and thus Öistämö’s or Nokia’s public rationale wasn’t genuine). That’s why I asked originally do you think they are lying. You could have simply clarified the first time I asked.
I have no problem with your clarified comment. Obviously we don’t know Elop’s rationale, we only have what we think/believe it is. Supposed is a fine word for that. We suppose it is this and that.
Now we know that the publicly given info on Meego (Qt) has been at minimum flawed. (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232056703101.htm)
Only 3 Meego-driven phones by 2014: This could possibly mean actual Meego, not Maemo based devices. Still, what is the problem, if they would have been API compliant and supporting Qt?
Also, how much better was WP then when they knew alread then that 7 would be uncompliant with 8. And 8 was work-on-progress, hence could fail.
“how rapidly we could expand across the whole price spectrum with Meego”:
– How could they do that with WP then? MS people seems to think that WP8 will not go to lower price points (dont have the source here). Also Elop started to talk about the opportunities they have found to get WP to lower pirce points only during few last months.
– Why on earth did they still continue with Meltemi, if the plan was to get WP down in price? A platform incompatible with WP!
On top of that I’ve heard that PV and some UX innovation was in the works that could be out by now for Meego. And we might have to wait until next Spring or later Nokia people keep repeating how WP will get PV.
Disclaimer. I have never said that Nokia should not have taken WP into their portfolio. I was pro WP as the plan B and main platform for North America. Also, Ive never said that Nokia should have kept pushing Symbian. It seems that Linux+Qt could have replaced it this year. Also, as Michael points out, they already had work on a tablet going on. Still waiting…
Btw. This does not sound coherent: “Elop’s third priority has been dubbed New Disruptions. It’s a fully sanctioned skunkworks, with teams in Helsinki and Silicon Valley, staffed by top technical talent from the discontinued Symbian and MeeGo efforts, especially MeeGo. That initiative began when Nokia hired a crew of inventive open source evangelists in 2009 with orders to dream up entirely new devices. A few months later they were reassigned to develop a replacement for Symbian. The goal, as Elop told a group of engineers in Berlin on Feb. 29, is once again to “find that next big thing that blows away Apple, Android, and everything we’re doing with Microsoft right now and makes it irrelevant—all of it. So go for it, without having to worry about saving Nokia’s rear end in the next 12 months. I’ve taken off the handcuffs.”
It sounds like the Future disruptions was in fact Linux/OSS. Ie it does not exist anymore.
Qt had failed already. Nobody is doubting the ability of you or the geniuses at Nokia to make amazing devices. If the N9 had come out 2 years earlier it would have been unstoppable. But android had already sucked up the ecosystem oxygen. It’s unfortunate but that’s life. Excellent hardware is a necessary but insufficient condition for success.
We’ll just have agree to disagree on that one, it never ratcheted up in the manner it would have, not even close, so we’ll never know.
We’ll get more idea, if Jolla is even small success. With Nokia’s power and the lost two years taken back and support from Symbian and later Meltemi,the market could look a lot different.
It was always about the ecosystem. That’s the only thing MeeGo didn’t have going for it. Unfortunately it happened to be the most important thing…how else do you think Apple can get away with selling the same phone for 2 years? Because of the apps. People want apps, Nokia couldn’t get them. Before or after feb 11
Ditto.
Yet 400,000 of the 650,000 apps on the Apple app store haven’t been downloaded even once..
@Ebon & Unicorn N9s…Yet, the 250,000 apps that are downloaded is a number that exceeds the total number of apps in the Nokia store.
No doubt, there are a large percentage of apps in the Nokia store that aren’t downloaded either; thing is, the Nokia store is so barren that reporting that statistic isn’t worth the time.
All the developers I talked to were waiting to start coding on QT. The first full version of QT mobile toolkit was released in March 2011.
Guess what happened? All, and I mean all the developers(I knew) ran towards Android.
The writing was on the wall for them.
Each and everyone said it out loud, that Nokia was dumping a good solution for some outdated or stupid WinCE technology .
Oh, I’m feeling sick to the bottom of my stomach of what might have been.
Wasn’t a suprise, but annoying still. But I can understand why.
Woulda been really cool if the Pureview was running Meego.
Jolla Mobile is coming soon guys
RIP NOKIA, we had so much fun together !!
+2
For the record the N950 was supposed to be the N9, it was meant to be the masses device, but once it got leaked (about 6 months before launch I think) as well as the fact that Meego got scrapped they decided to ditch it (I think it would have been more expensive to manufacture them) and spend even more money developing the current N9 just because “they’d already put so much money/time into it”
You’ve been listening to too much Eldar there Ali.
Not Eldar, Spoke to the former N9 product manager (now lumia product manager) when i was in Spain, this is coming directly from him; I don’t even bother reading Eldars posts.
Reportedly the N950 had some flaws in the HW design that needed changing, also I believe they dropped it because of lack of uptake in the HW KB style phones. They just don’t sell in a large enough volume to have as a halo device.
Nokia prematurely killed it’s Meego OS so early. Even before it’s stable enough with WP (till now it’s struggling). They could have kept it for high level Nokians like it was targetting (N800, N900 …).
Fortunately Jolla is coming. May be it will become the new Nokia
I really don´t understand all the high hopes people have for Jolla. It might all come together and they will deliver awesome stuff, but so far they have shown nothing, no OS, no HW, no nothing. How can someone get excited about that?
I mean, you all the right to be excited, but there is so little that says Jolla will be succesful.
Mr. Harangue, you want us to be excited for another microsoft monopoly?
Excitement isnt about Jolla itself. It’s that Meego has a way to live. I have used many phones and many mobile OSs (carry an iphone now after my N9) I will have to say Meego as an OS was way better than iOS. iOS as an ecosystem is better than Meego. If they had made Meego compatible with android (or any other ecosystem) that’s all was needed. Look at the new BB 10. It has of meego in it’s heart somehow and it is also getting good reviews.
Even if Jolla did run android apps, they’d still be ugly android apps and not beautiful Nokia style ones.
Agree…..!
I want the N950…pentile is annoying
n950 design and 808 design are the best! symbian menu button need to be replaced by swipe, yes i am dreaming:)
jolla, hope you can get some idea of designing phone.
You know, they can probably get rid of the buttons in Symbian for sure.. if the UX is qt, I don’t see why they can’t apply the same thing they did with meego.
n9 with camera button, and nokia dare said n9 copied lumia fucking 800
?? When did they say N9 copied L800?
A mistake they made in the making of the N9 video, slight mix-up where instead of sayin the N9 inspired the Lumia 800 they said WAS inspired by
You mean the making of the Lumia video?
I remember seeing that and thinking what an outrageously cocking big lie the whole thing was.
More like a PR mistake. Nokia never claimed on stage or anywhere like that N9 being influenced by Lumia. Elop for example has been very clear what influenced what, Lumia mimicks the N9 design. People making these PR videos screw up all the time details like that. There are many examples of it.
Never attribute to malice something that can be explained by incompetence. Had Elop wanted to lie about this, he’d shown Lumia 800 before N9 and never told the true story, but he didn’t lie about – and neither has Nokia overall. If some single video has a mistake in it, so be it and sure criticize that, but that doesn’t mean it is Nokia’s overall message or an intentional lie.
Come on. Be reasonable.
there was also a tablet and at least 3 other devices on development.
a tablet…? Microsoft had to step in eh..
lol
That is what was meant by Nokia One. Nokia One was a tablet concept
even if nokia had released all these devices and more, it would not have saved it from the android onslaught and the ios ecosystem,
it would have been nokia’s last product releases before going bankrupt,
+1
so the lumia saved them???? in the US of A maybe, but unfortunately, it’s not the world
i would argue, but i don’t want to be baited,
Definitely not, heck Nokia is still facing rough and even rougher times. However, think about the uphill battle they would be in if they would have gone Harmattan. Not only would they have major cost on building the ecosystem and all that goes with it, but they would also have to develop devices. All those investments and very little projected return.
WP hasn’t proven to be any better so far, but atleast they didn’t have to invest as much in the infrastructure that goes behind the shiny screen we have in our hands. Think of maintaining psuh servers, app servers, store servers and all of the people that work on them. All costs the Lumia range doesn’t have because MS needs to pay for that.
So there is more to just making your own devices and OS than just what we see on the face.
Good news to report: the Lumia 900 has out sold the HTC One X for the month of July at AT&T.
last product before going bankrupt?
seriously get your facts straight and keep the nonsense to yourself. before Feb 11 nokia was growing sales and increasing revenue and profits. yes iOS and android gained marketshre, but that has nothing to do with going bankrupt there is a big difference. nokia lost marketshare, but gained sales and profits nonetheless, they are losing everything now
Really no need for Nokia to waste these prototypes – I am glad they used the form factor with the buttons for the Lumia 800/900 and hope to see the N950 on a QWERTY device for WP8.
Bring it, Nokia!
Only a stupid person kills their business on a promise of a future business, this is not rocket science. It’s common business sense.
Any chance to get a picture of the “similar to N8″ looking device? I would really like to see it.
I clearly remember someone saying something like “Oh shit moment” and ” the emperor had no cloths”.
Oh my oh my Oh poor meego stabbed for an even poorer WP7.
Yeah, it was Kai Öistämö according to his interview, who in early 2011 came to the conclusion they couldn’t make the MeeGo ecosystem work.
Let’s say that Meego would have been bigger risk than WP was. And working for 2 platforms wasn’t an option. Nokia didn’t have that kind of money.
Early state prototypes are nothing when compared to final product. It would have taken more than a year to complete these protos and that’s too much. At the same time you need to build ecosystem and everything around it. N8 should have been the very last Symbian product. And that’s 2 years ago.
Agreed. Just think of all the extra costs they would have incured with going from proto stage to production stage. Setting up manufacturing lines, distrubition lines, creating packaging, getting certification, advertise. All costs that probably make up the lionshare of development cost.
And what is the difference to WP then added that they lost their price negotation power since WP had limited HW support.
You should not be using the “Oh shit” interview as credible source. You yourself replied to me earlier that there might have been errors. This was after I quoted the article, where it is described the way that Elop collected the facts and then Öistämö made the conclution and had the oh shit moment. Combined with “My disagreement” it would lead to the conclution that Elop was selective choosing his sources and facts.
Fair enough. Obviously Elop could have been selective. But you also have to admit: It is possible he wasn’t and he actually wasn’t the one that sacked MeeGo. Kai Öistämö was interviewed separately too and his story matched that of Elop.
Look, management gets a lot of signals. Some of them will always be mixed and they have to make judgement calls. MeeGo not working was a major judgement call. It was not a God given truth. MeeGo might have worked.
But you have to admit. A lot, a lot of people at Nokia, higher and lower, have also spoken in favor of the strategy and the reasons for choosing it. Very strongly even. If this was just Elop’s masterminding, I sincelerly doubt that would have happened.
People just want to believe Elop is the sole reason. I doubt he is.
“even poorer WP7″
means WP7 was a much better choice technically /s
http://www.engadget.com/photos/nokia-n9-review/#4545593
Here you will find picture with a white N950 with a camera buttom. (In the middle of the album.)
Even there is a Carl Zeiss sign at the back of N950 and no developer sign.
That is the one I showed above. I wish I knew how engadget got one, very jealous
I really wonder when F*cking eFlop will be replaced. MeeGo is the perfect contender for iThing OS and the green robot OS, but eFlop had planned to kill it from the very beginning to adopt WP, first strategy to destroy Nokia and make it in a condition where Microsoft can buy it cheap enough :/
how ever there is a strong possibility or hybrid lumia with refined n950/e7 design but a keyboard based design… One point i wanted to stress here is the actual lumia 800 protos were prepared by Anton Fahlgren and Axel Meyer , i heard it in a interview with the design team and stefan pennanbecker the vp of industrial design. The windows 8 ui realy complements the lumia design perfect match.
When u guys talk of elop’s assessment u have to first understand that meego os was never done and based on that kai ostiamo reached the conclusion and informed elop who panicked … N9 harmattan was a separate dev that kept maemo going and was to b replaced by meego bt meego never made it.
‘t. elop lied. Simple as that. The progress made on the N9 ux, faulty as it is, beats wp any and every day of the week. Spent the week going from store to store and every sales person advises against the lumia. They even suggest Asha 311 over lumia. speaks volumes.. (I specifically insisted on Nokia phones). Sad that every one else sees what Nokia doesn’t. Consumers just do not want wp, and no matter how much they try, Nokia can’t cram wp down our throats. there are getter options available.
Wake up dude!!!
don’t you understand the business logic at Nokia. It now only about being logical to MS.
I still hate WP8 coz it’s not as open as meego. True that android and iOS have thousands-millions of apps, but not all of them are being downloaded. I’ve read in gsmarena that there are about 400,000 apps with 0 download. Just some trash to the market/store? For me, meego’s ui has more futuristic look with it’s simplicity than those of android and iOS. WP has the most boring UI though it’s fast even with a single core unlike android.
The impression that wp was only disliked by fanboys was dispelled during the last week.. even though I personally would not use a wp phone, I was hoping there might be a grain of truth to the hype around the wp move by Nokia. Sadly hearing the crap about lumia from the sales people quickly dispelled that myth. From not selling, to returns of faulty units to customers just brushing it aside was brutal. out of 10 retail shops, only 3 stock lumia. even then no 900 or 800. On the bright side, asha doing well, good comments on the N9 except for dead OS crap, as usual symbian is dead yada yada yada. All pushing for Android, both high and low end. Stupid CEO and stupid board killed Nokia.