Dear Internet Diary,
I’ve bought an iPhone today. A used 2G with a broken screen.
It was (really) cheap, a spontaneous deal and I bought it because I want to enjoy some apps like this one – which will most probably never be available for Symbian S60 3rd. Heck, it was even cheaper than a used iPod Touch (which are also still very expensive). Imagine a 2y+ old 2G iPhone still sells for the same amount (on eBay Germany) you could also cough up for a brand-new Nokia business phone.
So why this video? Because it’s cool and it represents to some extent what I’ve thought about the iPhone(s) & other “smartphones” in the past.
The apps, however, the missing apps…. the missing apps really did it for me.
My Nokia E72 is a great phone and I will continue using it as a phone, but – and that’s the important part – it will not be the device that I’ll pull out for some entertainment. Mind you, though, the same could be said about my N95, which obviously comes from the eNtertainment range of phones. However, I wouldn’t want to compare the iPhones with any Nokia phone, but the way apps are made available to consumers.
Sure, there are now free Ovi Maps with free navigation and a few other apps I’ve mentioned earlier, but that’s maybe 5-10 good apps for my E72 vs. a plethora of apps on Apple’s Appstore. And it’s not that there are no other Symbian apps – there are quite a few interesting ones out there – but you most probably won’t find them on Ovi, Nokia’s all-in-one website (“the door”) which also includes Ovi Store.
Now, Nokia’s “Appstore” Ovi Store is nothing but a lame joke. And this in February 2010. They could do SO much better and start selling all their R&D beta apps, market them accordingly and show what’s really inside their devices (think of all the sensors). Ovi Store is also available online, via a browser – which I think is a very good approach (does that also exist for Apple’s Appstore, or will you have to visit their store using iTunes?). The Ovi Store application for Nokia phones though is a failure. Imagine what could be done if e.g. the developer of (the Twitter client) Gravity was to redesign this app…
You’d think that Nokia is where German car manufacturers used to be some time ago – at least from a customer’s point of view: a company run by engineers who are trying to deliver a perfectly engineered product, but then getting stuck in bureaucracy and end up selling less than they could.
Nokia. Great R&D, but such lame implementers. Great hardware, lame software. Why?
I don’t know. What I know is that I’ve just invested money into my first Apple product ever. Because Nokia couldn’t deliver.
