Post ATKCBA4zzeeZoIGzC4 by luis_in_brief@social.coop
(DIR) More posts by luis_in_brief@social.coop
(DIR) Post #ATK9IQXAumSf0WE0Xo by mjg59@nondeterministic.computer
2023-03-06T01:51:00Z
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Really wish someone on the Linux side of the business would write the history of what a clusterfuck Nokia was in the late 2000s. From all I've heard it's a genuinely staggering level of infighting, strategic incompetence, and so many timeline slips that if Elop hadn't gone with Microsoft then there wouldn't have been an N9 followup for at least 2 years
(DIR) Post #ATK9cvo8LmETnAvzw8 by mjg59@nondeterministic.computer
2023-03-06T01:54:47Z
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The migration to Qt (and associated delays) supposedly being driven by S60 people insisting that there be a migration path from Symbian to Meego because of the super compelling Symbian app scene is absolutely stupid enough that I believe it
(DIR) Post #ATKAHKkt0z3ukVgH9k by dirkhh@hachyderm.io
2023-03-06T02:01:54Z
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@mjg59There are many fun stories to tell.The amount of personal ego of people involved, the amount of blatant dishonesty and stupidity.And despite all that, the teams created an impressive phone with a cool UI and even a decent first set of apps available. Which for "strategic reasons" was only sold in like three markets (where it exceeded expectations).And then of course killed.But I thought it had a decent chance, had top management allowed it to succeed.
(DIR) Post #ATKAfQkWNeTkI1050S by mhoye@mastodon.social
2023-03-06T02:06:20Z
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@mjg59 I still have an N9 in a drawer, and power it on now and then whenever I feel like being a bit sad about paths not taken. I rolled with a Nokia E7 for a while, what was supposed to be the market successor to the N900 and run Meego, but somebody somewhere lost a fight, and so it shipped with Symbian, and the best phone hardware I've ever had in my hands shipped with the worst software I've ever seen on a mobile device.
(DIR) Post #ATKBFg4ksInAFSkT0S by byterhymer@mastodon.social
2023-03-06T02:12:49Z
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@mjg59 I had a Nokia E62.It had an "OWN" button.Nokia never approved my SDK key request.*sigh*Presumably: I could have gone the extra mile to have ripped some other entity's SDK key, but when Nokia's official channels were that daft?I decided it wasn't worth the hassle for the ever so small bit of joy I could have by porting something such as metasploit to the device just to make the OWN button do something that would only be hilarious to me & a handful of others.It was no HipTop. ;(
(DIR) Post #ATKBN8XnQcXCZJtBPk by mjg59@nondeterministic.computer
2023-03-06T02:13:03Z
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@dirkhh The version I heard was that the N9 was only in a shippable condition due to most of the followup-product team being pulled back to work on it, meaning that there was no successor hardware (which then led to the deal with Microsoft to gain access to their engineering support because otherwise Nokia would have had two years with no new high-end product releases, which meant there wasn't much enthusiasm for marketing a device that wasn't going to have had any successors)
(DIR) Post #ATKC143xVbraFmyJf6 by dirkhh@hachyderm.io
2023-03-06T02:21:10Z
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@mjg59 So I was trying to stay as far away from this disaster as possible because of conflicts with a few people in decision making roles... so while I can comment on the software side in some detail, on the hardware side I really can't...
(DIR) Post #ATKCBA4zzeeZoIGzC4 by luis_in_brief@social.coop
2023-03-06T02:23:19Z
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@mjg59 I too have really wanted this. I would settle for an explanation of why the Maemo devices couldn’t ship with a cell modem; I understand it was internal politics but past that I have never really heard much that made sense.
(DIR) Post #ATKCQga7Qz9MxOEQG8 by nonnihil@hachyderm.io
2023-03-06T02:26:03Z
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@mjg59Oh dear I remember those days.My personal favorite moment was when Nokia started charging developers €160 to file a bug report. My startup at the time was at the tail end of its runway and we were budgeting our bug reports trying to figure out if one report could exercise two different bugs...
(DIR) Post #ATKCa1ccZmBQoor62q by mjg59@nondeterministic.computer
2023-03-06T02:27:47Z
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@luis_in_brief My guess had been that S60 was politically powerful enough that there needed to be a pretense that the Internet Tablets weren't intended to compete with their smartphones
(DIR) Post #ATKGnSX4EbqRrRv2GG by brajkovic@toot.cat
2023-03-06T03:14:44Z
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@mjg59 Sounds about Linux/Qt.
(DIR) Post #ATKJIJgxLxV9KPO080 by rotopenguin@mastodon.social
2023-03-06T03:42:52Z
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@mjg59 if S60 was so good, then why wasn't there an S61?
(DIR) Post #ATKMpyFBtySmW88d8q by luis_in_brief@social.coop
2023-03-06T04:22:36Z
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@mjg59 yeah, I’d heard something similar at the time, I just couldn’t comprehend (then or now) how an org could be so scared as to kneecap a rival project, but only *after* spending zillions on it. Kudos to avoiding the sunk cost fallacy, I guess…?
(DIR) Post #ATKWSV3zECLAtcLPyy by Setok@attractive.space
2023-03-06T06:10:16Z
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@mjg59 I only got to experience it briefly but one mistake was biting too much: #Nokia wanted to fully replicate years of #Symbian functionality immediately, rather than doing some new things really well. That slowed things down, and then they added Intel to the mix, further reducing the pace. I was positively shocked when the #N9 came out. The whole UI had been rethought (again), but this time with some actual vision. It was exciting, so of course it was killed.
(DIR) Post #ATKWdGy3yWW4Mgi7UW by mjg59@nondeterministic.computer
2023-03-06T06:12:32Z
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@Setok I think it's more realistic to say that the N9 was dead on arrival - Nokia had already pivoted to Windows Phone by the time it launched, so spending a bunch of marketing money on it didn't make a lot of sense. The more interesting question is why that pivot happened.
(DIR) Post #ATKYhCeq8qCA42illY by Setok@attractive.space
2023-03-06T06:35:32Z
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@mjg59 that’s probably fair. Still, I had been quite negative about Nokia and even Maemo/Meego up until that point (having seen a bit of the inside). Too little too late, and little vision (beyond ‘Linux is good’). That’s why I was so shocked by the N9. I wanted more of it. It was lovely, despite some pretty nasty bugs.
(DIR) Post #ATKZG1j4mFQKIOJ8c4 by mcepl@floss.social
2023-03-06T06:41:39Z
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@mjg59 As one of (I am afraid) few users of N900, I will never forget and never forgive. I am currently using Nokia phone (they still know how to design a phone which actually works), but it is just a shadow of past days.
(DIR) Post #ATKb2agyB3rMax2kXg by greve@floss.social
2023-03-06T07:01:40Z
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@mjg59 My working theory at the time was still that Elop did exactly what he was paid for by Microsoft, in blatant disregard of his fiduciary duty to the Nokia shareholders, which were disproportionately pension funds, IIRC.So, although everyone with some technical insight knew this was likely a takeover by Microsoft, with dire consequences for Nokia, they appointed the fox as the head hen keeper.
(DIR) Post #ATKb9zIN6Lugva45QW by mjg59@nondeterministic.computer
2023-03-06T07:02:06Z
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@greve What choice did Nokia have other than Windows Phone?
(DIR) Post #ATKbI0OatVCQennZcu by climent@mastodon.online
2023-03-06T07:03:21Z
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@mjg59 funny you ask... I was reading this yesterday: https://www.osnews.com/story/26461/the-story-of-nokias-maemo-and-meego/
(DIR) Post #ATKfkzzZsBg9cWB5yy by ross@hachyderm.io
2023-03-06T07:54:22Z
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@mjg59 there’s plenty of ex-Nokia peeps on here who can surely fill in the gaps. Don’t make me mention you all by name :)
(DIR) Post #ATKhk6SsWRuxJUaGEy by cawhitworth@mastodon.online
2023-03-06T08:16:54Z
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@mjg59 I work with a couple of ex-Symbian folks, I’ll have to check with them.
(DIR) Post #ATKkJc3JGvvjKAgUSm by RezzaBuh@mastodon.social
2023-03-06T08:45:45Z
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@mjg59 funny thing is that the code was hardly compatible between Harmattan and Symbian. It wasn't just "recompile", even different components (almost the same but not!). So while the goal might have made sense (ability to use the same code and ease transition from Symbian to Harmattan while being able to publish apps on both platforms), it had been executed in the worst possible way.
(DIR) Post #ATKlEkTKdlL7wa6HmC by csimmonds@fosstodon.org
2023-03-06T08:56:00Z
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@mjg59 To what extent was the demise of Nokia for the best? They were never going to produce a cross platform open source mobile operating system. Nokia and every other phone company would have had proprietary, incompatible tech and apps. Apple x N. Instead we have Android. Not perfect, but workable. Discuss
(DIR) Post #ATKlLYvxwAzOBak6zo by RezzaBuh@mastodon.social
2023-03-06T08:56:09Z
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@mjg59 @greve from what we know now, Android is probably the only answer. N9 was the best phone I've ever had - probably the only where hardware was co-designed with software, with a real vision... But DOA. They even had to intentionally cripple down some features so it looked inferior to WP7 :).
(DIR) Post #ATLE0OfhnJVGwoOfFQ by greve@floss.social
2023-03-06T14:18:06Z
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@mjg59 By the time Elop was their best bet? Tough choices only after long history of really brain-dead internal structuring following a misled tenant of "internal competition." Three departments that acted like that scene in Monty Python - hating each other more than the competitors in the market.Would have required some hard restructuring, and focused management.I had the N9 myself. Great phone, and IIRC it would have been possible to run Android apps. That might have built a bridge.