N9 confirmed for September Launch in Australia – Exclusive to Vodafone

Spoke to my friend at Vodafone today, regarding the conference he went to during the week.

He had a hands-on with the device and is quite impressed. He said he wants one, despite at first being skeptical when I told him I thought it was better then the iPhone. He now agrees :p

He informed me that it is being launched in Australia next month, exclusive to Vodafone retailers. The 16GB model will be available for all, but apparently he was told the 64GB is for “Vodafone employees only”. No confirmation on whether or not the 64GB is only available in Black.

Some interesting things he told me about Nokia’s presentation:

– Cocky attitude when discussing the N9. Do they think this is going to be their saviour?
– Stating why would they bother with and waste time “publishing banking apps when it can be done in the browser”. Does this mean app development isn’t a concern for Nokia? Or is this based on them releasing the N950 dev kits? Either way it doesn’t matter seeing as the N9 can adopt Android Apps based on Myriad’s Alien Dalvik.
– When asked about Sea Ray Nokia did not confirm (nor deny) that it would run on WP7.5 Mango. Could it be a Nokia variant of the OS?
– Reason for N8 faults – Since the device is manufactured in an extremely cold climate, when it is shipped around the world (countries with hotter climates) the parts expand and breakage, as well as disconnection, of hardware occurs.
– No mention that they are limiting the number of handsets produced. Nokia really thinks this has game changing potential it seems.

He also said when he gets the device (presumably before public launch), he will allow me an exclusive hands-on for the readers here at MyNokiaBlog. I’m quite excited 🙂

Knowing that the N9 is indeed confirmed for September and the rumour that the iPhone 5/iPhone 4S is to be released in the “last weeks” of September, based off rumours of an “event-blackout” seen only for the launch of the previous iPhones, Will we see the N9 and iPhone 5 go head-to-head?

Michael

Tags: Conference, MeeGo, N9, Sea-Ray, Vodafone AU

Category: Firmware Update, Linux, MeeGo, Nokia, Nseries, Qt, Symbian, Windows Phone