Beautiful hardware design, innovative user experience (borrows good stuff from Windows Phone and webOS), lots of popular built-in apps, outstanding camera, but...
...built on MeeGo, the operating system Nokia dumped for Windows. It's sad to see that Nokia's last MeeGo hurrah is on a flagship device that may never see a major update in its future.
This is Maemo 6, renamed to Meego Harmattan. The actual "Meego for Handset" can barely make/receive calls, and Elop was right in dumping it. Blame OPK for not sticking with Maemo.
MeeGo will live on and grow, but the N9 will be hobbled by Nokia refusing (not officially just in dribs and drabs) to provide the necessary updates (drivers and other binary blobs) that N9 owners will need to upgrade.
I'll wait and see how bad the vendor OS lockin is before considering buying what should be a device (and OS) pretty much perfect for me.
Nokia dumped Symbian for Windows, not MeeGo (although MeeGo was also heart-broken by the announcement). If the N9 does well enough, there will certainly be more where it came from.
Even when Microsoft debuted WP7, my feeling was that UI prettiness was "where the puck is" and not "where it's going". In 2011, a phone with a pretty touchscreen UI and a bunch of basic apps is more "where the puck was". Even if we assume the software runs as smoothly in the demonstrations (a level of trust that Nokia's last few flagships have not warranted), there's little that would impress an iPhone 3GS user 2 years ago.
A pretty phone does not put you in the game anymore. It's staggering how behind this is compared to the competition, who have advanced tablet ecosystems, deeply integrated video-calling and messaging, deep cloud services, massive application libraries, extensive content (magazines and books), powerful video/photo/audio editing...
This is painful to watch. Lesson learned: if you're dumping your platform to move to another, make sure there are devices built on the new platform available the day after the announcement.
Nokia have also made a limited edition N950 for developers [1]. The interesting differences are:
N950 is physically larger and is made out of aluminum, whereas N9 has a polycarbonate unibody. N950 has a physical slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The N9 is a touchscreen-only device. N950 has a different physical camera module than N9.
I love the phisical keyboard on my current phone and wish Nokia released the N950 as a consumer device.
The video featuring Nokia's SVP of design really fascinates me. He introduces the idea of using touch swipes as something really revolutionary, that "changes our perception of how we use technology". I'm sure it really would have been revolutionary, four years ago. Before Windows Phone 7, before Android, before WebOS and before iPhone.
Of course, it's just a marketing video. But the idea of using touch swipes to navigate around your smartphone is not even a little bit revolutionary in 2011. It's not new, fresh, remarkable or special in any way. It kind of makes Nokia look like they were born yesterday; enamored and fascinated with what they think is "new" technology.
I'm left wondering if what we're seeing in this marketing video is not what Nokia wants us to think about their new product, but how much of a dinosaur Nokia really is.
I think that using swipe as the main (almost exclusive) way to navigate around the phone's functions is indeed, well, not revolutionary, but (at least to some extent) innovative and yes, also "new, fresh, remarkable". Sure, UI borrows some ideas from WinMo7, maybe from webOS too, but it's still much fresher than, say, Android.
Swipes are not revolutionary, but using them as the main way to navigate through the UI is innovative, making the N9 not need any buttons for navigation.
Fairly convincingly nice and elegant UI. It clearly owes a lot to iPhone and iOS, although that is not to suggest that it improves on iOS, and certainly not on iOS 5, although the maps do look good.
The history feature looks like a privacy nightmare. One swipe away, and someone who borrows your phone for even a moment can immediately see everything you've been up to. Where is the empathy for the user? BTW if I let someone borrow my phone, that means I have already unlocked it for them, but it doesn't mean I want them to have one-swipe access to everything.
As an aside, next time they should consider having a more likable and less arrogant-looking person do the talking, and without (apparent) overdubbing. It came off as slightly creepy.
I'd love to play with one, but I don't expect it to make any dent in iPhone. I am curious what other cool features it has that didn't make it into the video... since it's Nokia, we can expect a lot, so they do have my attention at least temporarily.
So you'd basically want Nokia to make UI harder to use just because of those rare cases when someone borrows his phone to the person he/she doesn't trust?
The right response to that increasingly common problem, over-exposing yourself by lending a computer/phone, is to have a restricted "not the owner" mode. Crippling the owner's interface/abilities all the time instead of properly dealing with the truth that phones are not purely single-user devices is a strange denial of reality.
When you talk about privacy, are you referring to the recent app list? Doesn't everything phone do this in multitasking? iPhone shows recent apps with a double tap, Android with a long press, WebOS with cards...
I really don't like the idea of putting all of "my social events" into one unified screen.
I actually do read all of my friend's facebook messages (and I do add only actual friends).
I think I read about 50% of the tweets of people I follow.
Adding both timelines into 1 view would make me miss a lot of "important" things
Yeha there's gotta be some easy way to see multiple views (preferably within 2 easy taps). I can't have SMS notifications lost behind 200 tweets and check-ins and wall posts from 2nd cousins looking for magic potions so they can raise alpaca's.
This is not relevant to the OP at all, but I don't see any way to do private messages in Hacker News, so... A while ago you commented on one of my essays and I didn't respond: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2479738
As for your point about building character - I didn't see much of that in my sister when I was selling boxes with her or in her troop, I don't know how one would measure this one way or the other, and I don't think I actually criticized the cookie-selling practice at all, since the focus was on the price and whether money was being wasted by the organization. (Likewise, I don't follow your point about advertising. Walmart isn't exactly raking in all its profits and underselling Girl Scouts by auctioning off the advertising space on the sides of its cookie boxes.)
It looks beautiful and I like the more rounded icons a lot. But I wonder why the hell is Nokia launching a non-winmo device? People will not find apps for it and give it bad reviews and Nokia will end up getting even more negative publicity.
I don't know how they expect developers to make apps for a platform that they've publicly stated is only going to have this one phone released for.
I hope I'm wrong though, I still have an irrational fondness for Nokia hardware and the N-series (I bought and regretted every Maemo device they sold).
It looks likely to become MeeGo's flagship phone; they have a flagship tablet already.
I don't know about the mass-market appeal, but for my part I want an OS that actually feels like Linux under the hood, and Android doesn't. It has Linux at the core, much like OSX has BSD at the core, but it doesn't feel like Linux any more than OSX feels like BSD.
Maybe...if you could develop for it in Java and they put a lot of work into making it effortless to go from Android to their OS. At which point, you might as well just be running Android.
FFS. If your company name isn't "Apple," use Android. Availability of software is a key issue. I have no clue why anyone would want to build a completely independent and incompatible application library at this point. Buy some water pumps for Indian villages if you have that much spare money.
this what I eager to know too. I saw the WebTab came with a Terminal on main screen, but how about N9? Looks there will be no terminal or konsole be released officially becuz of the "simple and easy to use". and, let's look at if or not Qt will be stronger than Java.
I really hope this supports ATT bands for 3G!! I've been pulling my hair out because the N900 (an awesome phone that I had the pleasure to develop for in Python + Qt at $work) only supports EDGE on ATT. I will miss the physical keyboard but I think a real (read: not resistive) touchscreen will work OK.
On the bright side, AT&T doesn't classify the N900 as a smartphone, so they don't require a smartphone data plan. :) Hopefully they'll continue to apply the same logic to the N9: "Does it run iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, or Symbian? If no, then it isn't a smartphone."
Nokia N9 indeed great device, I classify this device in three ways:
Nokia N9 - Design, Social and Interaction
Design - Unibody Design , and no Home Button/s , Curved Shape Glass, Three colors
Social - Facebook , Twitter's OS level binding , creates a wonderful Social Experience without any efforts. Skype , Facebook chat available in built with Operating System
Interaction - Swipe gesture to access whole phone. Three states of phone Event Notifications, Applications and Current Application states maintained wonderfully
[+] [-] flyosity|15 years ago|reply
...built on MeeGo, the operating system Nokia dumped for Windows. It's sad to see that Nokia's last MeeGo hurrah is on a flagship device that may never see a major update in its future.
[+] [-] j-kidd|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fungi|15 years ago|reply
I'll wait and see how bad the vendor OS lockin is before considering buying what should be a device (and OS) pretty much perfect for me.
[+] [-] jflatow|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Geee|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jijoy|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] saturdaysaint|15 years ago|reply
A pretty phone does not put you in the game anymore. It's staggering how behind this is compared to the competition, who have advanced tablet ecosystems, deeply integrated video-calling and messaging, deep cloud services, massive application libraries, extensive content (magazines and books), powerful video/photo/audio editing...
[+] [-] erikstarck|15 years ago|reply
Bye, Nokia, it was great knowing you.
[+] [-] dave1010uk|15 years ago|reply
N950 is physically larger and is made out of aluminum, whereas N9 has a polycarbonate unibody. N950 has a physical slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The N9 is a touchscreen-only device. N950 has a different physical camera module than N9.
I love the phisical keyboard on my current phone and wish Nokia released the N950 as a consumer device.
[1] http://www.developer.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/3744886f...
[+] [-] windsurfer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crb|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tjogin|15 years ago|reply
Of course, it's just a marketing video. But the idea of using touch swipes to navigate around your smartphone is not even a little bit revolutionary in 2011. It's not new, fresh, remarkable or special in any way. It kind of makes Nokia look like they were born yesterday; enamored and fascinated with what they think is "new" technology.
I'm left wondering if what we're seeing in this marketing video is not what Nokia wants us to think about their new product, but how much of a dinosaur Nokia really is.
[+] [-] SandB0x|15 years ago|reply
Come on, Steve Jobs spouts this kind of hyperbole at every single product launch.
[+] [-] Tomek_|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blub|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wvenable|15 years ago|reply
Doesn't anyone remember this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU
[+] [-] juhanaj|15 years ago|reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSZssHGR-Qg
[+] [-] Geee|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisjsmith|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moe|15 years ago|reply
They ripped the style of the Apple product videos so perfectly (all the way down to an "every once in a while" opening) that it felt like a parody.
I was almost expecting a "One more thing..." in the end.
[+] [-] encoderer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] natch|15 years ago|reply
The history feature looks like a privacy nightmare. One swipe away, and someone who borrows your phone for even a moment can immediately see everything you've been up to. Where is the empathy for the user? BTW if I let someone borrow my phone, that means I have already unlocked it for them, but it doesn't mean I want them to have one-swipe access to everything.
As an aside, next time they should consider having a more likable and less arrogant-looking person do the talking, and without (apparent) overdubbing. It came off as slightly creepy.
I'd love to play with one, but I don't expect it to make any dent in iPhone. I am curious what other cool features it has that didn't make it into the video... since it's Nokia, we can expect a lot, so they do have my attention at least temporarily.
[+] [-] Tomek_|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nooneelse|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MatthewPhillips|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Geee|15 years ago|reply
Looks to be pretty incredible HW and UI paired with Linux goodness.
Better intro showing main features live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LffDQHp5E0
[+] [-] rb2k_|15 years ago|reply
Adding both timelines into 1 view would make me miss a lot of "important" things
[+] [-] encoderer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ansy|15 years ago|reply
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/21/nokia-n9-first-hands-on/
The UI appears to be extremely smooth. There's also a demo of transitioning audio from phone to external speaker using NFC.
[+] [-] gwern|14 years ago|reply
I've expanded http://www.gwern.net/Girl%20Scouts%20and%20good%20governance... to hopefully answer your wheat question.
As for your point about building character - I didn't see much of that in my sister when I was selling boxes with her or in her troop, I don't know how one would measure this one way or the other, and I don't think I actually criticized the cookie-selling practice at all, since the focus was on the price and whether money was being wasted by the organization. (Likewise, I don't follow your point about advertising. Walmart isn't exactly raking in all its profits and underselling Girl Scouts by auctioning off the advertising space on the sides of its cookie boxes.)
[+] [-] KleinmanB|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eco|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yalogin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Geee|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kumarshantanu|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zenspunk|15 years ago|reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISjb9E5A2ls
That is, this will be their one and only Meego phone, and they want to "get feedback [for] inclusion in their [WP7 phones]".
This looks like a great phone and OS, and I would actually buy it if Nokia were going to support it.
But they just don't get it, do they?
[+] [-] Geee|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwuphysics|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0nastic|15 years ago|reply
I don't know how they expect developers to make apps for a platform that they've publicly stated is only going to have this one phone released for.
I hope I'm wrong though, I still have an irrational fondness for Nokia hardware and the N-series (I bought and regretted every Maemo device they sold).
[+] [-] JoshTriplett|15 years ago|reply
I don't know about the mass-market appeal, but for my part I want an OS that actually feels like Linux under the hood, and Android doesn't. It has Linux at the core, much like OSX has BSD at the core, but it doesn't feel like Linux any more than OSX feels like BSD.
[+] [-] tgrisfal|15 years ago|reply
FFS. If your company name isn't "Apple," use Android. Availability of software is a key issue. I have no clue why anyone would want to build a completely independent and incompatible application library at this point. Buy some water pumps for Indian villages if you have that much spare money.
[+] [-] dave1010uk|15 years ago|reply
The specs look pretty good but as a flagship device from Nokia, I was hoping for an HDMI port, MicroSD card slot and FM transmitter.
[+] [-] i386|15 years ago|reply
When I look at this phone I think of the famous quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupry:
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Good work Nokia for not designing a phone by committee.
[+] [-] dave1010uk|15 years ago|reply
[1] http://forum.meego.com/showpost.php?p=22819&postcount=12
[+] [-] Feinux|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Geee|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jevinskie|15 years ago|reply
edit: It does indeed support ATT 3G bands (850 and 1900 MHz): http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/11/nokia-n9-hits-the-fcc-pac...
[+] [-] JoshTriplett|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0nastic|15 years ago|reply
http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-n9-00/sp...
[+] [-] desaiguddu|15 years ago|reply
Design - Unibody Design , and no Home Button/s , Curved Shape Glass, Three colors
Social - Facebook , Twitter's OS level binding , creates a wonderful Social Experience without any efforts. Skype , Facebook chat available in built with Operating System
Interaction - Swipe gesture to access whole phone. Three states of phone Event Notifications, Applications and Current Application states maintained wonderfully