Farewell Nokia: First ever 'Microsoft Lumia' set for Tuesday reveal For several months we've known the era of Nokia-branded smartphones was coming to a close, but on Friday, Microsoft gave us the date it ends: November 11. Screenshot of Microsoft Mobile's website Microsoft's next Lumia device likely won't carry the Nokia brand That's when the software giant plans to announce details for …
There was a little-known ("secret") Nokia sponsored link straight into BBC World Service streaming audio. It was fantastic because the audio stream started basically instantly on the non-Nokia bedside table device that I was using to access it. It stopped working a few weeks ago. Bastards.
Now my backup alarm clock device is set to Radio Japan.
Oh the humanity...
I got a nice message on my phone saying that all my contacts and other information on my symbian/n9 or other nokia phones will be deleted if I do not export it or port it to Micro$ofts leaking ship in the clouds - whatever it is called this month.
So to review. I have 2 phones. Less than 3 years old. One of which has Micro$oft software which CANNOT be removed (a precious 45MB of space on this phone). They have essentially killed any chance of the phone receiving security updates, or other information that would prevent a customer coming to harm or losing data.
At least the Meego/Linux phone has an open source alternative, but symbian I suspect you are SOL.
P.
I got the same email for the MeeGo (N900, then N950) contacts I have stored.
I've already switched to a Jolla and transferred (bluetooth'ed) my contacts across from the N950, but just for a laugh I thought I'd give the export option a go that is offered by Microsoft as way of obtaining all your data. What did it give me? It gave me an empty csv file (apart from the header row) with none of my 200+ contacts.
My one and only thought: OH JUST FUCK OFF, MICROSOFT.
If I read you correctly it seems MS will delete your Ovi/Nokia Sync contacts then sync an empty contact book to your phone. If I still had a Symbian phone my response would be "fuck you too very much MS".
Can't you just stop syncing your contacts to Ovi/Nokia Sync and then use a SyncML server or ownCloud with a plugin instead?
"And WP7 users were left high and dry with a certificate spoofing vulnerability and no update path"
That issue was actually with malicious certs - not the OS - and anyway WP7 was patched to block them:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/2524375.aspx
"I wouldn't buy that same phone with the name Microsoft on it. That's a warning label, not a brand."
That's just moronic. It still has the same technology - the fastest / most battery and memory efficient / most secure OS, the best touchscreens / highest contrast LCDs / best microphones / best cameras / best maps / nav, etc. etc..
Microsoft have plenty of good technology of their own to add to that. Just think about what they did with the Surface 3 - that's an awesome device with great components and build qulaity and Microsoft have done really well with it - Surface has already turned a profit. I can't wait to see what new mobile devices they bring out at the high end in the next few months. The 930 is already an awesome device, but hopefully a 1020 replacement will be even better.
"By the way, Here has been released for every Android phone..."
Vastly inferior though: heavier battery use, slower GPS lock, less map visible on screen, slower POI search, poorer POI display en route, no LiveSight and is generally slower and more clunky to use. So the statement above that WP has the best maps / nav holds at least for now.
"MS's Here licence runs out in 2017."
At which point presumably they will invoke their option to renew it.
slower GPS lock
My old Arc S was one of the first phones released with a dual GPS/GLONASS chipset. That's right. Before Apple. Before Microsoft. It typically acquires a positioning lock of 3-5m accuracy about a minute after turning it on from a cold start. That's if the phone tower or wifi positioning that happens within a couple of seconds isn't good enough for you.
So if the "slower GPS lock" is hopeless bullshit, what about the rest?
"So the statement above that WP has the best maps / nav holds at least for now."
Good lord, have you ever tried to use the navigation?
Whilst it might be sufficient for city to city travel, it also fails with some extremely simple tasks.
It also makes no distinction between road types, as demonstrated when I used the sat nav in Cornwall recently it repeatedly favoured single track roads with cars coming the other way around every corner.
When trying to find my way back to a hotel near Reading, it tried (again) to take me down a single track road with a ford at the bottom (helpfully labelled with a warning not to go through it during high tides, but no mention of when high tide was). After getting back on the main road again, the sat nav spent the next 5 miles trying to persuade me to perform a u turn to go back down the same track again.
Planning a recent journey, I selected "Fastest Route" which gave me a travel time of about 2 1/2 hours. Changing to a "Balanced Route" actually dropped the travel time by 20 minutes.
Finally, when in the Isle of Wight we used the sat nav to find a decent pub - a journey of about 5 miles. To get back to our starting position it gave us a 9 mile route by asking us to continue along the road in the same direction. The system seemed totally incapable of thinking about performing a u-turn, or even turning out of the car park and heading the other way.
I use it because it's more convenient than a real map, but not by much. If could be a decent app with a little bit of thought, but at the moment it's bollocks.
Some believe that the Microsoft association was damaging the Nokia brand even before they dropped the name:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2014/01/23/just-how-much-brand-damage-is-microsoft-doing-to-nokia/
Microsoft seem to be oblivious to the fact that their brand is, well, hated.
"Microsoft seem to be oblivious to the fact that their brand is, well, hated."
With Microsoft products being ubiquitous in the workplace, I am really not interested in having them with me 24x7, I need a break from Windows products when I'm on my own time.
However good WP or Windows 10 gets, I really won't ever be interested in having it embedded like a fifth limb.
I'm convinced that one of the primary reasons for the success of the original Xbox and 360 was the scarcity of Microsoft logos on either machine, with the Xbox being the predominant brand. I'm quite happy with a Nokia phone, I'd be happy with one labeled as a Lumia. But for purely emotional reasons I do not want one with the M word emblazoned upon it.
I always knew Microsoft were incapable of learning from their mistakes, it now seems they can't learn from their successes.
The media are hyping up the "fact" that Nokia's brand is going because of that bunch from Redmond. Well kiddies, Nokia still exists in a big way, firstly its Infrastructure business is going great guns, secondly the HERE mapping platform is better than Google and Apple's mapping platform is just making it from water to land on an evolutionary scale. Nokia has also retained its Technology Development.
So, the brand may not be adorning mobile devices ant longer, but it is certaionly not dead.
What makes me wonder is how long Microsoft will be able to maintain the support from consumers with the Lumia range, it is NOT theirs they are interlopers who with a plant within Nokia destroyed the best mobile company and an OS with so much potential in Meego to be replaced with an also ran OS that just can't seem to get into double digit penetration figures no matter what is done.
So rumour has it that Windows Phone (tm) will be retired and instead we will have phones that run Windows. And what do we think a phone that runs Windows will be called ? Hmmmm.... a Windows phone, maybe ?
A rose by any other name and all that... (and btw I actually like Windows Phone, the OS. It strikes a nice balance between customisability and off-the-shelf utility where Android sometimes feels like a half finished system that the user needs to spend half their time fiddling with to get just the way they like it, and iOS takes a "like it or lump it" approach)
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