Is the N9 about to be unleashed?

Forums › Legacy mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Web OS, Symbian, Meego, Blackberry) › Is the N9 about to be unleashed?

Technofreak

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#85406 18-Jun-2011 10:37

Nokia have said they will be announcing a “Market disrupting device” at Nokia Connections in Singapore on June21st.

My guess from reading on other sites that it will be the N9, or the N950 which some are saying is a replacement for the N9.

The N9 is reported as running Meego OS. Meego is a development of Maemo and owners of the N900 which runs Maemo are very impressed with the Maemo OS.

If it is the N9 that is announced, and it indeed does run Meego, it is an interesting development as it had been reported on several sites that Nokia ditched Meego.

The N9 hardware had been described had being near perfect though as of late last year the OS was reported as having some rough edges. It’s reasonable to think that it has been much refined since then. It’s certainly a very nice looking handset with a pop out keyboard like the E7.

Here’s some unofficial specs that have been quoted on some sites for the N9. An Intel 1.6 GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 200 MHz GPU with 512MB RAM, 480 x 854 pixel display, HDMI output, Broadcom BCM4751 GPS chip, NPX Semiconductor PN544 NFC controller, Infineon XMM 6260 3G modem (21 Mbps HSPA+) and a Texas Instruments WiLink 6.0 WL1271 chip (802.11N) WiFi, Bluetooth.

As much as it will be interesting to see what device is announced, it will be even more interesting to see what Nokia’s plans are for Meego, (assuming the device runs Meego). It is my belief that Nokia as a major handset manufacturer needs a point of difference and I don’t think WP7 will do that for them. Perhaps Meego will be the OS point of different for some of their high end phones.

How will Meego fit along side WP7? What are the long term plans for Meego especially with the recent departure of one of the executives involved with Meego? Will the N9 (or the N950) be the start of a lineup of Meego handsets and perhaps other devices (Tablets, Netbooks etc) from Nokia, or will it be another one off fantastic handset like the N900?

Some links to info in the N9.

http://nokiamobilephonenews.co.uk/2011/06/17/nokia-n9-to-launch-on-june-21st/

http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/17/nokia-n9-gets-teaser-video-rick-springfield-soundtrack-video/

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#482474 18-Jun-2011 10:48

Nokia has made it clear several times that WP7 is their primary platform. Meego is what they have been calling their experimental thing. Nokia's Windows Phone handsets should turn out to be good sellers because that is the only OS Nokia will have to spend time and money on. Other WP7 OEM's are spending majority of their time and money on Android. Nokia's hardware has always been brilliant and in a lot of countries, people swear by the Nokia brand because they trust the hardware.

Do whatever you want to do man.

Technofreak

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#482481 18-Jun-2011 11:13

billgates: Nokia has made it clear several times that WP7 is their primary platform. Meego is what they have been calling their experimental thing. Nokia's Windows Phone handsets should turn out to be good sellers because that is the only OS Nokia will have to spend time and money on. Other WP7 OEM's are spending majority of their time and money on Android. Nokia's hardware has always been brilliant and in a lot of countries, people swear by the Nokia brand because they trust the hardware.

Bill, I agree with you about WP7 being a potential good seller for Nokia, I don't agree with it being the only platform.

If, as you say "WP7 will be the only OS Nokia will need to spend money on", why then, are Nokia rumoured to be releasing the Meego powered N9. Stephen Elop has dubbed the N9 handset as the company’s "future disruption in mobile ecosystem”. That indicates to me that WP7 is not going to be Nokias only platform.

Also answer me this, If WP7 is so good why are other WP7 OEM's spending so much money on Android?

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alexx

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#482802 19-Jun-2011 14:41

billgates: Nokia's Windows Phone handsets should turn out to be good sellers because that is the only OS Nokia will have to spend time and money on.

You do realise that quite a large number (if not most) of Nokia sales are coming from phones running S40 operating system? Now S40 isn't a smartphone OS - e.g. no multitasking - but it will do many things that smartphones of 2-3 years ago could do and run on low end hardware with good battery life.

So even if we believe that Windows Phone will replace all the Symbian, Maemo and Meego devices, that still leaves millions of S40 phone sales.

Back to the N9 (or N950)... I liked the old N810 and N900. The N9 running Meego sounds interesting, especially if the rumoured hardware spec is true. Lets hope the camera really is autofocus and it does HDMI out and USB OTG like the N8.

billgates

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#482807 19-Jun-2011 14:54

Technofreak:

Bill, I agree with you about WP7 being a potential good seller for Nokia, I don't agree with it being the only platform.

If, as you say "WP7 will be the only OS Nokia will need to spend money on", why then, are Nokia rumoured to be releasing the Meego powered N9. Stephen Elop has dubbed the N9 handset as the company’s "future disruption in mobile ecosystem”. That indicates to me that WP7 is not going to be Nokias only platform.

Also answer me this, If WP7 is so good why are other WP7 OEM's spending so much money on Android?

Because Nokia wants to experiment with Meego and see what they learn and get out of it. They have mentioned it clearly. If they were to embrace Meego as their main OS, then they would have not dumped it as their primary OS. Stephen Elop puts it right. It's not just a battle of devices anymore but a battle of Eco systems. Meego has no ecosystem. Nokia's and Intel's assets are not enough to create an eco system.

When iPhone and Android devices were released at their launch, it also took them a considerable amount of time to gain marketshare. By end of 2012, WP7 should start to gain momentum as mango will be out this year along with Nokia devices and Acer, ZTE and Fujitsu will also launch their Windows Phone devices by this year's end hopefully.

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billgates

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#482808 19-Jun-2011 14:59

alexx:
billgates: Nokia's Windows Phone handsets should turn out to be good sellers because that is the only OS Nokia will have to spend time and money on.

You do realise that quite a large number (if not most) of Nokia sales are coming from phones running S40 operating system? Now S40 isn't a smartphone OS - e.g. no multitasking - but it will do many things that smartphones of 2-3 years ago could do and run on low end hardware with good battery life.

So even if we believe that Windows Phone will replace all the Symbian, Maemo and Meego devices, that still leaves millions of S40 phone sales.

Back to the N9 (or N950)... I liked the old N810 and N900. The N9 running Meego sounds interesting, especially if the rumoured hardware spec is true. Lets hope the camera really is autofocus and it does HDMI out and USB OTG like the N8.

S40 is cheap feature phones that Nokia sells to compete with chinese and korean manufacturer's. They are not getting rid of that. I am comparing other OEM's like HTC, Samsung and LG who are selling both Windows Phone and Android devices but largely concentrating on Android devices in terms of marketing, pumping out new handsets and support. Nokia will only have WP7 so they will do everything they can to educate carriers, sales people about the benefits of WP7.

Do whatever you want to do man.

alexx

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#482821 19-Jun-2011 16:00

billgates: Nokia will only have WP7....

Plus S40, S60 (Symbian) and perhaps Meego. WP7 doesn't have the language support for many of Nokia's existing markets, so other operating systems are still going to have an important role there. If Nokia "will only have WP7" then they are giving those markets away to competitors - e.g. Arabic and many Asian languages. For India alone there is a need for Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada. Malayalam, Marathi...

billgates

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#482832 19-Jun-2011 17:04

alexx:
billgates: Nokia will only have WP7....

Plus S40, S60 (Symbian) and perhaps Meego. WP7 doesn't have the language support for many of Nokia's existing markets, so other operating systems are still going to have an important role there. If Nokia "will only have WP7" then they are giving those markets away to competitors - e.g. Arabic and many Asian languages. For India alone there is a need for Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada. Malayalam, Marathi...

S40 already has support for most of the regional languages in India. iOS and Android devices do not have support for regional Indian language and they still sell there because India's education system is English Medium schools unlike China, Korea, Japan etc. Smartphone users in India only need English on their phones.

The upcoming mango update for Windows Phone is adding further 14 languages on top of English, French, Italian, German and Spanish that are already supported. They are Chinese (simplified and traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish.

Symbian is almost dead. After 2012, there will be no more new Symbian devices introduced. S40 and Windows Phone will be there primary platform. Meego if it succeeds by 2012, will stay else it's bye bye to that too. Developer support behind Meego is not there. I think Nokia is only releasing the meego device because prior to their WP7 announcement, they had spent considerable amount of resources on it along with Intel.

It's all out between Microsoft vs Apple vs Google vs HP vs RIM. Don't see RIM sticking around for more than 5~6 years if both CEO's stay. HP has all the resources in the world to create a new ecosystem which they are building slowly.

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alexx

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#482857 19-Jun-2011 18:00

billgates:

S40 already has support for most of the regional languages in India. iOS and Android devices do not have support for regional Indian language and they still sell there because India's education system is English Medium schools unlike China, Korea, Japan etc. Smartphone users in India only need English on their phones.

Perhaps you can sell some English language smartphones to some people in India, but interesting to note that Andriod have Hindi language support.

http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.1.html

Finns and other europeans mentioned in your post tend to learn English too, but I doubt if you can sell many phone in those countries without supporting the local language.

billgates: The upcoming mango update for Windows Phone is adding further 14 languages on top of English, French, Italian, German and Spanish that are already supported. They are Chinese (simplified and traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish.

Compare with Symbian:
http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/TLanguage_enumeration

billgates:
Symbian is almost dead.

Elop seems to have done a good job of killing both Symbian and the Nokia share price back in February.

billgates:
It's all out between Microsoft vs Apple vs Google vs HP vs RIM. Don't see RIM sticking around for more than 5~6 years if both CEO's stay. HP has all the resources in the world to create a new ecosystem which they are building slowly.

Right now in the smartphone market, if we assume the collapse of Symbian, it appears to be Apple vs Google, with RIM hanging in there for the time being. Perhaps others will get 5-10%, but it's difficult to see which if any will break out of single figures.

Somehow this thread appears to have been hijacked from the Meego / N9 discussion. Back on subject... it would be interesting to see what the language support is for the N9. There are a number of Meego translation teams, but of course that doesn't mean those translations are ready for production devices.

http://meego.transifex.net/projects/p/meego/teams/

billgates

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#482862 19-Jun-2011 18:24

alexx:

Perhaps you can sell some English language smartphones to some people in India, but interesting to note that Andriod have Hindi language support.

http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.1.html

Finns and other europeans mentioned in your post tend to learn English too, but I doubt if you can sell many phone in those countries without supporting the local language.

Compare with Symbian:
http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/TLanguage_enumeration

Elop seems to have done a good job of killing both Symbian and the Nokia share price back in February.

Right now in the smartphone market, if we assume the collapse of Symbian, it appears to be Apple vs Google, with RIM hanging in there for the time being. Perhaps others will get 5-10%, but it's difficult to see which if any will break out of single figures.

Somehow this thread appears to have been hijacked from the Meego / N9 discussion. Back on subject... it would be interesting to see what the language support is for the N9. There are a number of Meego translation teams, but of course that doesn't mean those translations are ready for production devices.

http://meego.transifex.net/projects/p/meego/teams/

Android has sold many devices in India prior to the launch of gingerbread (2.3) which added Hindi in the language API. Majority of Indian do not speak Hindi funny enough too. Anyway point being Hindi is not a language that must be added straight away in the mango update to win over India as iOS and Android have proven over there.

Lot of people keep blaming Elop for the demise of Symbian including you but the question I ask is that if Symbian is so good and a capable OS then why is Nokia bleeding and has been losing marketshare much before Elop took over the job? Clearly Symbian is not working any more. I keep saying again and again as to what Elop has put it right, that it's a battle of the ecosystems now and Nokia does not have one. Everything has a shelf life. Windows Mobile once had a very respectable market share in the mobile space and now it's nearly dead. Refresh is important. MS has learned their lesson. Nokia too has learned their lesson. RIM seems to live a life of ignorance. IDC has predicted that Windows Phone will over take iOS marketshare by 2015 which of course takes Nokia's brand into the consideration.

When you look at Android which launched a year late compared to iOS and now has over taken iOS in market share in almost all of the countries including Europe and North America, it tells that people want choices and hardware at the right price.

Android and Windows Phone OEM's can deliver both. Apple only offers one price and one hardware. Don't see why Windows Phone will not gain market share.

I hope N9 turns out to be a disruptive device but from the demo's of Meego I saw at this year's MWC, it's not ready. Again Meego does not have a ecosystem because Nokia and Intel do not have the necessary assets to create one.

The market is also wide open for Smart phones. Only 30% of the mobile population owns smart phones. Plenty of time for Microsoft, Nokia, HP and RIM to catch up.

Do whatever you want to do man.

Technofreak

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#482921 19-Jun-2011 20:55

To the person using the same name as that well known person from Redmond. Your zealous promotion of WP7 is to be commended.

billgates:By end of 2012, WP7 should start to gain momentum as mango will be out this year along with Nokia devices and Acer, ZTE and Fujitsu will also launch their Windows Phone devices by this year's end hopefully.

Acer ZTE and Fugitsu are hardly big time handset manufaturers. Really Microsoft are relying on the sales of WP7 Nokia phones for it to gain any sort of foothold in the mobile marketplace.

billgates: Because Nokia wants to experiment with Meego and see what they learn and get out of it..

Why would they bother spending money on this if they didn't think it had a future.

billgates:Meego has no ecosystem. Nokia's and Intel's assets are not enough to create an eco system.

Neither did any other OS's have an eco system to start with. Right now you could hardly say the WP7 has a viable ecosystem either. There are other manufacturers other than Nokia and Intel who are/will be using Meego, mostly in tablets at this stage.

I am a bit bemused by your statement that Intel's and Nokia's assets are not enough to create an eco system. Are they not respectively the worlds largest IC and cell phone manufacturers?

However back to stuff more on topic - the Nokia N9 and Meego OS

Nokia seem to talking up what ever it is they are revealing at Nokia Connections on Tuesday, when they say it's "a market disrupting device". One has to assume that with a statement like that, it is something that will grab the markets attention.

If the rumoured hardware specs for the N9 are correct then it's a device that out points any other mobile phone currently on the market and if the rough edges have been polished of Meego then indeed Nokia may have a "market disrupting device" on their hands.

We will know after the announcement on Tuesday, Nokia do need some good news, I for one hope we are not disappointed.

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Technofreak

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#482923 19-Jun-2011 21:04

billgates: I am comparing other OEM's like HTC, Samsung and LG who are selling both Windows Phone and Android devices but largely concentrating on Android devices in terms of marketing, pumping out new handsets and support.

Twice now you have made a similar statement that Windows Phone OEM's are putting more effort into Android?

Why are they doing this if Windows 7 is so good?

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billgates

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#482935 19-Jun-2011 21:36

Technofreak: To the person using the same name as that well known person from Redmond. Your zealous promotion of WP7 is to be commended.

Acer ZTE and Fugitsu are hardly big time handset manufaturers. Really Microsoft are relying on the sales of WP7 Nokia phones for it to gain any sort of foothold in the mobile marketplace.

Why would they bother spending money on this if they didn't think it had a future.

Neither did any other OS's have an eco system to start with. Right now you could hardly say the WP7 has a viable ecosystem either. There are other manufacturers other than Nokia and Intel who are/will be using Meego, mostly in tablets at this stage.

I am a bit bemused by your statement that Intel's and Nokia's assets are not enough to create an eco system. Are they not respectively the worlds largest IC and cell phone manufacturers?

However back to stuff more on topic - the Nokia N9 and Meego OS

Nokia seem to talking up what ever it is they are revealing at Nokia Connections on Tuesday, when they say it's "a market disrupting device". One has to assume that with a statement like that, it is something that will grab the markets attention.

If the rumoured hardware specs for the N9 are correct then it's a device that out points any other mobile phone currently on the market and if the rough edges have been polished of Meego then indeed Nokia may have a "market disrupting device" on their hands.

We will know after the announcement on Tuesday, Nokia do need some good news, I for one hope we are not disappointed.

ZTE is the 4th largest manufactuer in the world. They over took RIM this year. Their android devices are very popular in Europe. They will be one of the primary OEM along with Nokia to offer Windows Phone devices in mid pricing range. Fujitsu is popular in Japan. They are the largest IT services provider in Japan and 3rd largest in the world. Enterprise cough cough around the world and Consumer market in Japan cough cough.

http://www.gsmarena.com/zte_becomes_worlds_4th_largest_manufacturer_android_is_top_os-news-2270.php

As I explained above in the post above, the sole reason why Meego device will be released is because it was announced in Feb 2010 at MWC before Elop took over in late 2010. Both Nokia and Intel have spent considerable amount of resounces already on this project. It's an experiment. If you see Stepehen Elop's MWC 2011 keynote, he explained Nokia's strategy around Meego. They are going to learn from Meego.

I think you are confusing ecosystem here. Ecogsystem is not hardware centric in smartphone race, it's software. Microsoft, Apple and Google have true eco systems. Desktop OS, Mobile OS, Search, Gaming, TV, Maps, Email/IM, Marketplace, Cloud, Enterprise etc

If Nokia had an ecosystem, Symbian and Nokia would not have been failing. Before you also mention that Elop failed Nokia and Symbian then you should check the financial and marketshare reports of Nokia before Elop took over.

The specs for N9 look good if they are true though.

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n9-3398.php

Do whatever you want to do man.

billgates

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#482936 19-Jun-2011 21:42

Technofreak:
billgates: I am comparing other OEM's like HTC, Samsung and LG who are selling both Windows Phone and Android devices but largely concentrating on Android devices in terms of marketing, pumping out new handsets and support.

Twice now you have made a similar statement that Windows Phone OEM's are putting more effort into Android?

Why are they doing this if Windows 7 is so good?

You mean Windows Phone 7?

They are putting more effort into Android because it's popular right now. Windows Phone is going to take another year before it picks up momentum. If you look at the marketshare of Android before the start of 2010, the marketshare figures were very low. Nokia is important for Windows Phone 7 because they will be concentrating on Windows Phone alone. They will do all the efforts in the world to promote their WP7 devices in retail stores because they are selling an OS that's new to the market and is yet to take off.

Do whatever you want to do man.

alexx

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#482972 19-Jun-2011 23:09

billgates:
Android has sold many devices in India prior to the launch of gingerbread (2.3) which added Hindi in the language API.

So obviously Google see that value of adding it.

billgates:
Majority of Indian do not speak Hindi funny enough too.

Given the huge number of different languages in India, that should not suprise anyone. However it is by far the most widely spoken language and considered the primary official language (together with English) of India. On a global basis, Hindi, when counted with Urdu, is one of the top 4 in terms of the number of native speakers (several hundred million). That's a lot of potential phone sales.

billgates:
Anyway point being Hindi is not a language that must be added straight away in the mango update to win over India as iOS and Android have proven over there.

It is one thing for Apple and Android phone makers to come to a country and sell to the english language market, but another thing for Nokia to support those languages and then take away that support.

billgates:
Lot of people keep blaming Elop for the demise of Symbian including you but the question I ask is that if Symbian is so good and a capable OS then why is Nokia bleeding and has been losing marketshare much before Elop took over the job?

Take a look at the share chart for the last six months, and note the relationship between the announcment of Nokia adopting Windows Phone and the drop in share price in mid February 2011. Selling for 8 EURO earlier this year, quickly dropping to 6 EURO and now almost down to 4 EURO.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NOA3.DE#symbol=noa3.de;range=6m

billgates:
IDC has predicted that Windows Phone will over take iOS marketshare by 2015 which of course takes Nokia's brand into the consideration.

IDC seems to be the only one that is saying that and clearly the investors don't think much of that advice or they would be buying Nokia shares, not selling. Given that you appear to be such a strong supporter of Nokia going to Windows Phone, you must consider the current share price to be a bargain. Have you purchased any Nokia shares?

billgates:
I hope N9 turns out to be a disruptive device but from the demo's of Meego I saw at this year's MWC, it's not ready.

There have been several suggestions about what the upcoming disruptive device might be. It appears something will be shown at Nokia Connection 2011 in Singapore on the 21st June - suggestions are.

1. Nokia Windows Phone... seems too soon to showing be a pre-production unit of a future phone and displaying a mock-up of a device that will never be sold won't help their credibility.

2. Meego device - it needs to be something special to be truly "disruptive", but it appears that one Meego device has been through FCC type approval and has been almost ready for some time, so this is what I'd expect to see. The counter argument is that if Elop doesn't believe in Meego as the future of Nokia, what is he doing in Singapore announcing the N9... or perhaps another manager will present this one.

3. There have even been rumours of a 1GHz clocked S40 device which seems crazy, but if Symbian is going to be phased out and Windows Phone is positioned at the high end, something is going to need to cover the middle ground. Can S40 move upmarket? This could be quite "disruptive" but a 1GHz S40 device still makes no sense.

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#482993 20-Jun-2011 06:59

Back on topic

Alexx,

I agree whole heartedly with your paragraph 2. This makes the most sense.

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