Nokia Connection 2011 Round-up

With a ton of hype surrounding the build-up Nokia Connection in Singapore 2011 got underway only a few minutes after the scheduled date. Starting with a view statistics on the significance of the South-East Asia and Pacific region both in terms of population but in terms of market penetration of mobile devices. After this brief interview and few relatively old statements on the support of Symbian to 2016 and the newer moves to Windows Phone ecosystem. Nothing new here.

This was then followed up by a painful demo of Symbian Anna, supposedly coming in August. (Lolwut!?! :P). After this astounding demo, Nokia moved on to present a few new S40 devices, the X1-01, C2-03 touch and type dual sim slider. While not particularly exciting in and of itself, the announcement of Maps for the S40 platform was certainly the key takeaway from Mary McDowell’s presentation. This mapping solution is somewhat like Skyhook in that it doesn’t utilise GPS but instead uses cell tower triangulation in order to determine location.

After Mary’s presentation, Marco Argenti, Senior Vice President of Developer and Marketplace relations.  Again, there was painfully little information available here but the key takeaway is that Qt support will eventually be making it’s way to the S40 platform in the very near future.

Elop hit the stage soon after to introduce Marco Ahtisaari the Senior Vice President of Design at Nokia.

He cut to the chase immediately, introducing the N9 hardware and some of the software from the curved glass screen to the multitasking user interface.

There’s so much to talk about here. The entire device is practically assembled and put into a single piece of coloured polycarbonate. High def video, stereo audio capture, 16:9 aspect ratio  8 megapixel sensor with Carl Zeiss optics and autofocus of course all made the cut. The user interface can’t really be explained properly, at least in words, but fluid as greased lightning is the closest approximation. Check some photos below or simply head to the following link for more information.

Elop subsequently concluded the event with little fanfare, but I honestly believe, as mentioned earlier that this device is simply a hint at Nokia’s potential in not just in manufacturing and engineering but in holistic design. Much like concept cars give buyers a better impression of their manufacturers, so too does the N9 serve to better Nokia’s image.

Tags: MeeGo, N9, Nokia Con, QT

Category: Nokia