Nokia to launch Android smartphone?

Nokia is "months away" from launching its first mobile phone based on Google’s Android operating system, according to reports. The Finnish mobile phone firm is supposedly ready to unveil the mystery touchscreen talker at the Nokia World conference in Germany in early September,“industry insiders” quoted byThe Guardian, say. …

[Emo]

Shame

Thats a Shame, Android would be less buggy than Nokia's Symbian OS.

And faster too i bet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good story

................................tumbleweeds...........................................

[supersat]

smartphones, eh?

Sure, Symbian might be their choice for smartphones, but remember that they're getting into the "multimedia computer" business, which are CLEARLY different from phones: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/nokia-goes-batshit-crazy-bans-the-word-phone-173810.php

Nice of Nokia not to mention their "multimedia computer" OS strategy...

[Anonymous Coward]

I had my suspicions

I thought Nokia would stay with Symbian too. However all I know is my local Nokia apps R&D place has started recruiting a lot of Java developers for the first time instead of the C/C++ developers it traditionally recruits. This makes a lot of sense if Nokia are looking at developing for Android (which uses Java) instead of Symbian (C).

[Peter Zero]

Shame

If Nokia gave Android a go, I'd be on it like a fat kid on cake. I love Nokia, and Symbian works, but it doesn't work how I want it to. I mean, at least give me the illusion I have some control. None of this signed apps crap. More visual customisation. SOMETHING.

[Tom Chiverton 1]

Symbian

Wont their due-in-Q4 N900 use a Linux (OpenMoko) base though ?

[Al 6]

N900

The N900 is likely to ship with the next iteration of Maemo which currently has no phone stack. I would guess they're more likely to use oFono than freesmartphone.org for the phone stack since oFono is an Intel/Nokia project. However it is likely the community will include freesmartphone.org support. It is on the todo list for those running this on Openmoko hardware:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Hardware/Freerunner

There's no reason Android wouldn't be able to run on the N900, and if Nokia don't do it someone else will. That's the beauty of having an open device.