Ex Nokia engineers full touch screen phone proto, years before iPhone, Cancelled by cautious management

It reminds me of the S.E. P800. That was a Symbian handset which some Nokia fans say had a better implementation of Symbian touch that S60 slapped with touch.

I don’t know if this slipped my memory or if it is entirely new to me. This prototype from ex Nokia engineers was apparently cancelled by Nokia management 10 years ago because of fears that no one would want a phone that would have lots of finger prints on its screen. To be fair, a touch screen only phone was thought of as ludicrous in 2007 when iPhone was first announced. It wasn’t just Nokia, but everyone else who saw only the drawbacks from having physical keypads and QWERTYs. Things like this need a visionary to dictate what people WILL want, as opposed to simply catering to their current ‘needs’ which they aren’t aware of.

http://asia.cnet.com/founder-says-newkia-branding-will-not-be-on-its-phones-62222330.htm

MyOrigo was another Finnish company that was working on the next gen smartphones. “Newkia” chief says that their proto was built by ex Nokia engineers.

Perhaps these new ExNokians can still produce great things that can revolutionise the industry, before the bigger, more prominent new kings of mobile?

I’m not sure if this predates the 7700 from 2003, but it looks completely different and something possibly acceptable in design and size for that time. P800 btw was from 2002. I remember it going up against the 7650/3650 in newspapers and thinking, dayuuum, these phones are sooo cool, whilst my parents thought these colour screen thingies with cameras were gimmicks.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard or seen examples of some potential Nokia game changers where Nokia management canned the idea perhaps due to lacking the insight to see the real potential. Too much bureaucracy, too many layers of management, too many disjointed teams not speaking to each other and more leading to Nokia at the time sometimes missing some great opportunities that would have kept them even further ahead from the competition.

http://mynokiablog.com/2011/03/11/why-nokia-failed-2000-man-years-on-uis-that-didnt-work/

 

Cheers Fadi and Jiipee for the tip!

Category: Lumia, Nokia