Nokia N9: a pretty good effort without Microsoft

For a company that partnered with Microsoft to take advantage of what most believed to be a stronger mobile platform seems to do a damn fine job at making a v1 mobile operating system on their own. It’s as if webOS and Metro had a baby, a cute baby.

I know that there’s already enough mobile platforms to go around but it was a surprise to me to see Nokia N9‘s OS at release will be offering features Windows Phone 7 users will have to wait for in the upcoming Mango update – for example multitasking and deep-linking.

If that wasn’t enough, the N9 has a super-sleek quick settings menu – something I’ve been longing for in Windows Phone.

10 insightful thoughts

  1. It’s an interesting platform but still smacks as a ‘face saving’ exercise to prove to shareholders that all the money spent on MeeGo wasn’t entirely wasted.

    The hardware is beautiful though, as expected.

  2. Looking at all of the hardwork and features they have added to Meego makes the Nokia Windows Phone partnership make more sense. Nokia has put a lot of research into features and functionality (like NFC) that they can lend to the WP platform and bring the innovation with them.

    I thought Meego was dead in the water from all aspects but seeing this has changed my mind. They were simply missing the “platform” pieces, the OS seems great otherwise.

  3. So I take it this is not Windows Phone 7.x based but rather based on MeeGo?
    Wow… that’d be great! (Given that they probably aren’t as shabby as WP7 with their APIs, e.g. for calendaring and native development etc.)

  4. The partnership still makes more sense from Microsoft’s point of view (needing an OEM) than Nokia’s. And in fact, given what’s been shown here with Meego, the partnership with Microsoft now makes even less sense.

    Unless they keep Meego as a platform, the money spent on developing it was a waste. All that cash to release only 2 or 3 phones?

  5. Nokia mobile phones are only fit for the rubbish tip! I got my first Nokia mobile phone back in 2005, and the user interface sucked, whilst every other mobile phone maker had geared up to provide modern mobile phone UIs, and the battery life left a lot to be desired. Now things might have moved on drastically since then, but I still wouldn’t touch Nokia mobile phones with a barge pole!

  6. Nokia, the company I love to hate. I had high hopes for many of their products they were pushing 2-3 years ago. They are just not “hip” anymore. Missed the wave. Playing around with several of their new models; they do the job but they aren’t up par with their competitors IMO.

    Mac

  7. This is the phone to rule all others. Pity that Nokia will probably not push it hard enough.

    Same as with the N900—one of the most amazing devices ever made, and certainly the most powerful and adaptable. Still, hardly anyone has heard of it, excepting the hacking community.

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