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Author Topic: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.  (Read 11973 times)

superboyac

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Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« on: September 21, 2010, 09:13 AM »
OK, he didn't say that literally, but that's what he meant.  Read:
some analysts agree with Anssi that relying on Android as the universal OS may lead to "permanently low profitability" with users failing to distinguish between different brands if they all offer the same experience.
I don't know about you, but this goes back to all the things I've been bitching about lately.  Why do phones have to be tied to carriers?  Why can't I just get whatever phone I want, and then choose whatever carrier I want?  What Anssi is admitting is that their actual cell phone services are so lame that the only thing distinguishing the phones is the "look" on the screen...the wallpaper, essentially.  Not the service quality, not the hardware, not the functionality.  Look, Anssi, Nokia makes cell phones.  If you want to compete, focus on making a bad-ass cell phone.  If your cell phone is bad ass, it won't matter what operating system is on it.  Actually, you want to be distinguishable?  Why don't you make the very first cell phone that is not only bad-ass, but completely open for all carriers.  Ah, business...don't you just love it?



http://www.engadget....-android-is-like-pe/

Eóin

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2010, 09:37 AM »
Actually in Europe, where Nokia are based of course, cellphones aren't tied to network. Though it usually cost more because no one is subsiding the cost of the phone. Also most networks carry all the popular phones so you have choice when looking for a subsidized one too.

superboyac

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2010, 10:47 AM »
Actually in Europe, where Nokia are based of course, cellphones aren't tied to network. Though it usually cost more because no one is subsiding the cost of the phone. Also most networks carry all the popular phones so you have choice when looking for a subsidized one too.
This is what I always hear about as the "unlocked" phones, right?  i wonder why they are more flexible about it in Europe?  Also, the listed price of unlocked phones are ridiculous.  That's also a gimmick.  They make that price artificially so high just to force you to buy it through your carrier.  None of these phones are worth more than $200-300.  No more than the price of a netbook.

Renegade

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2010, 02:31 AM »
+1

The industry works at doing nothing more than trying to get as much money out of people as possible. I'm all for profit, but that doesn't mean I'm all for screwing people.

It would be very nice to see total decoupling, as THAT would make the market truly competitive. i.e. Decouple everything so you buy 3 things:

  • Phone - the device
  • OS - e.g. Android, Windows Mobile
  • Service - i.e. the carrier

That would be nice. Or perhaps if they insist on the same BS, at least give us solid state hardware.

mobile manufacturers who go the Android route are doing no better than Finnish boys who "pee in their pants" for warmth in the winter.

HAHAHA~!

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Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

superboyac

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2010, 08:47 AM »
It would be very nice to see total decoupling, as THAT would make the market truly competitive. i.e. Decouple everything so you buy 3 things:

  • Phone - the device
  • OS - e.g. Android, Windows Mobile
  • Service - i.e. the carrier
Hell yeah!

MerleOne

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #5 on: September 22, 2010, 09:05 AM »
It would be very nice to see total decoupling, as THAT would make the market truly competitive. i.e. Decouple everything so you buy 3 things:

  • Phone - the device
  • OS - e.g. Android, Windows Mobile
  • Service - i.e. the carrier
Hell yeah!

Just imagine the complexity !  A user should install the specific drivers for a given hardware, then configure it to match its plan.

I once bought a Nokia, the one that could be unfolded so as to propose a big qwerty keyboard. It was not on my Carrier catalog.  It was a living hell to configure it.
.merle1.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2010, 09:07 AM by MerleOne »

Eóin

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #6 on: September 22, 2010, 09:18 AM »
Having your choice of OS would be fantastic, but I think phone hardware isn't standardized enough yet.

That said, if you go the unsupported, void your warranty approach, it's amazing to see what the hackers at xda-developers can do with HTC's phones. They've ported various WM versions and Android to all sorts of models.

Renegade

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2010, 07:06 PM »
It would be very nice to see total decoupling, as THAT would make the market truly competitive. i.e. Decouple everything so you buy 3 things:

  • Phone - the device
  • OS - e.g. Android, Windows Mobile
  • Service - i.e. the carrier
Hell yeah!

Just imagine the complexity !  A user should install the specific drivers for a given hardware, then configure it to match its plan.

I once bought a Nokia, the one that could be unfolded so as to propose a big qwerty keyboard. It was not on my Carrier catalog.  It was a living hell to configure it.

I don't think it would be that complicated. Vendors would jump on the opportunity to roll out packages of pre-configured devices that meet your requirements. I don't think you'd have to lift a finger.

The Dell site is a good example. You pick a computer, then customize it. I think it would end up being about the same. Sure, you could still buy software and hardware off the shelf then do it all yourself, but most people wouldn't. They'd want simple packages that met their needs and allowed them to interoperate with people easier.
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JavaJones

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #8 on: November 15, 2010, 08:32 PM »
There are some additional complications in the US when it comes to network/frequency/spectrum support which do make it actually technologically more difficult to make a single phone which supports all major carriers. That is of course in addition to the carriers making this difficult or impossible since only 2 of the 4 major carriers (AT&T and T-Mobile) support SIM cards. With Spring and Verizon (the other two), it's much more difficult to bring in a phone bought out of contract or from a different carrier.

That being said, it doesn't have to be this way. With the coming higher-speed network deployments ("LTE"), they have the opportunity to standardize more. Each carrier tends to own a different portion of the spectrum and has vested interest in keeping their customers on their spectrum and away from other carrier's service, so this is very unlikely to happen (in fact it's already not happening - Sprint and T-Mobile have both already rolled out "4G" networks with different technologies and spectrums. But it *could* be more standardized...

And what about explicitly allowing alternative OSs? Great I guess, but useful only to a small minority of purchasers and so clearly not a priority for handset manufacturers, especially when you consider issues like DRM control necessary for current content streaming agreements (e.g. Netflix). Having your customers able to use a service like Netflix seems a lot more important than enabling some DIY people to tinker (and, granted, produce some cool stuff).

Interesting though how some businesses do "get by" on "mere" aesthetic differentiation for their products. Think of watches for example. Most watches sold have the same essential functions. In truth the more techie watches, like with a calculator, or pedometer, or whatever, sell far less than the basic digital watch, or analog fashion watch. The major difference between all watches is aesthetic in most cases: fashion. Cell phones could be similar (and this is part of what Apple has done with their products :D). There's nothing saying that Nokia, Motorola, and others could not compete and sell just as well when relying on aesthetic differences vs. technological. In fact, underneath all the bluster about "Droid this" and "Droid that", the real differences between most models in a given functionality bracket (e.g. smart phone vs. "feature phone") are incredibly small most of the time. Maybe 200Mhz more CPU here or some more memory there. Rarely you will have the option of a slide-out keyboard with one model, or a front-facing camera. Front-facing cameras will become standard soon, and slide-out keyboards are functional but also influence aesthetics, and are really a binary decision/difference (have or have not). So really the feature differences are minimal and much is about aesthetics or ease of use/UI already.

Thus I agree we should have more standardization (let go of Touchwiz, Motoblur, and Sense UIs!), incorporate the best of 3rd party UIs into Android core, and go from there. Each manufacturer can put out one portrait, one landscape phone, with each having a variation of slide-out keyboard or no, and then lots of different aesthetic variations. Imagine, isntead of buying a case that has a pattern you like and attaches poorly to your device, instead you can buy the device with leopard print on it permanently. Hehe.

- Oshyan

kyrathaba

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #9 on: November 15, 2010, 08:34 PM »
It would be very nice to see total decoupling, as THAT would make the market truly competitive. i.e. Decouple everything so you buy 3 things:

    * Phone - the device
    * OS - e.g. Android, Windows Mobile
    * Service - i.e. the carrier

+1

halo1982

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #10 on: November 16, 2010, 05:14 PM »
OK, he didn't say that literally, but that's what he meant.  Read:
some analysts agree with Anssi that relying on Android as the universal OS may lead to "permanently low profitability" with users failing to distinguish between different brands if they all offer the same experience.

I don't know about you, but this goes back to all the things I've been bitching about lately.  Why do phones have to be tied to carriers?  Why can't I just get whatever phone I want, and then choose whatever carrier I want?  What Anssi is admitting is that their actual cell phone services are so lame that the only thing distinguishing the phones is the "look" on the screen...the wallpaper, essentially.  Not the service quality, not the hardware, not the functionality.  Look, Anssi, Nokia makes cell phones.  If you want to compete, focus on making a bad-ass cell phone.  If your cell phone is bad ass, it won't matter what operating system is on it.
Yes, it will make a difference. Because Symbian has a terrible ancient development environment. While they are getting away from that by switching to things like the Qt framework for the interface, no one wants to program for it outside of Europe. Nokia has made some totally badass cell phones, most recently the N8. But no one wants it because there are no apps on the Ovi store for it, because developing for Symbian is a nightmare. Which is why there are hundreds of thousands of Android and iOS apps and only a handful of Symbian apps.

Actually, you want to be distinguishable?  Why don't you make the very first cell phone that is not only bad-ass, but completely open for all carriers.  Ah, business...don't you just love it?
They, and everyone else, have been doing this for years in Europe. Unlocked GSM phones are the norm over there, but they also have locked, contract-subsidied phones, which are also capable of being unlocked. But that's Europe, where all the countries have GSM 900/1800 support and UMTS 2100 support. In the US because of our spectrum licensing, things are quite different. We have two different GSM bands, 850MHz and 1900MHz. AT&T uses WCDMA/UMTS on those bands too. But then there's T-Mobile that uses the standard 850/1900 bands for GSM service while using the AWS bands of 1700/2100 for WCDMA/UMTS/HSDPA (3G). And that European phone that supports 2100MHz UMTS will not support T-Mobile's network, because they use 1700MHz for downstream and 2100MHz for upstream, or vice versa, I can't remember. The N8 (and upcoming E7) actually does support all five of the GSM/UMTS frequencies so it could work on both AT&T and T-Mobile's 3G, but no one in the US wants a Nokia with an awesome 12MP camera because they can't check in on Foursquare or whatnot do to the lack of developer support on the platform. If you look in the Nokia Ovi store, most of the apps there are in languages that are not English.

Furthermore, you have Verizon and Sprint. Both networks are CDMA2k based, using 850MHz/1900MHz bands. But a totally different network type than AT&T and T-Mobile. Yes, there are hybrid GSM/CDMA phones that you could use on either Sprint or Verizon, but assuming you buy one from them at the unsubsidized price and use it on the other carrier's network, you'll have hell getting it activated and even more hell getting data features to work. Oh plus Sprint still has that old 800MHz iDEN network (Nextel) that they claim they will be phasing out, but it was supposed to start phasing out iDEN once they bought Nextel, and the network was *supposed* to be totally decommissioned by 2010. Presently Sprint keeps rolling out iDEN phones, though...

Then comes LTE. That *may* end some of the problems listed above, but probably won't. AT&T and Verizon are both going to transition to LTE, but the there's Clear/Sprint who currently use WiMAX for their "4G" network, incompatible with LTE, though they've said they have the option to switch to LTE once WiMAX dies a slow death (which it will/is). Sprint/Clear deliver WiMAX in the 2500MHz band, not sure where Verizon or AT&T are going to deploy LTE. But that could fracture things even further. And who knows what T-Mobile will do. They're deploying HSDPA+ in major metro areas right now, still on the 1700/2100 AWS bands, which is damn fast (I have an air card), faster than WiMAX. But as far as LTE goes that's anyones guess if and when T-Mobile will deploy, and T-Mobile doesn't have the spectrum to deploy it on the 850/1900MHz bands. So AWS it will probably be, leading to more incompatibility.

So the US wireless industry: currently 4 or 5 different types of networks with different spectrum allocated to them, all incompatible with each other. For a truly universal phone to work in the US and the world, it would have to support GSM/UMTS 850/900/1800/1900/2100 plus that other band they use in Japan (700MHz maybe...I forget). Plus have CDMA 850/1900 support, plus throw in iDEN 800 just for fun, then WiMAX 2500 just for the US, and next year LTE on god knows what bands, then the few other different frequencies used in other random parts of the world, plus throw in TD-SCDMA for 3G in China and...you get the picture. Expensive expensive expensive, no point in it. That's why when you travel abroad you should just use your own unlocked phone (assuming it supports the world bands you need in the countries you're going to) with a prepaid SIM, or buy a burner phone if you're visiting some place especially exotic...

And as a user of several Android phones, I can say that yes, Android does offer a mostly similar user experience throughout the phones you use, and having a Galaxy S/Samsung Vibrant (T-Mobile) which is also known as the Captivate on AT&T, the Fascinate on Verizon, and the Epic 4G on Sprint, it is hard to distinguish phones more and more now. Which is why, as you say, manufacturers should make them more badass. But there is no universal solution, and like it or not, the OS DOES have a LOT to do with a phone's appeal right now.

zridling

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2010, 12:11 PM »
Why do phones have to be tied to carriers?  Why can't I just get whatever phone I want, and then choose whatever carrier I want?

Google tried, but just as they were set to rollout this very thing in '07 with the Open Handset Alliance which included 78 hardware vendors and phone/data carriers. Then one-by-one they reconsidered when they saw that far more money could be made if, like Apple, they all separately built their own phones and tied them to their networks via long customer contracts. It's a TOTAL ripoff. It would have been dreamy to be able to buy an unlocked phone, and THEN let carriers vie for your business on it. But the capitalists who decide that the customer should always get screwed first, last, and at all points in between told Google they wouldn't participate.

The whole idea was over before it ever got started.

superboyac

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2010, 12:35 PM »
Why do phones have to be tied to carriers?  Why can't I just get whatever phone I want, and then choose whatever carrier I want?

Google tried, but just as they were set to rollout this very thing in '07 with the Open Handset Alliance which included 78 hardware vendors and phone/data carriers. Then one-by-one they reconsidered when they saw that far more money could be made if, like Apple, they all separately built their own phones and tied them to their networks via long customer contracts. It's a TOTAL ripoff. It would have been dreamy to be able to buy an unlocked phone, and THEN let carriers vie for your business on it. But the capitalists who decide that the customer should always get screwed first, last, and at all points in between told Google they wouldn't participate.

The whole idea was over before it ever got started.
What a shame.  Which is why I'm still holding off on getting any data plan.  All I want is GPS, really.  I'm just going to get a dedicated portable GPS device.  Any recommendations?

KynloStephen66515

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Re: Nokia CEO admits that the cell phone industry is a gimmick.
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2010, 05:07 PM »
Actually in Europe, where Nokia are based of course, cellphones aren't tied to network. Though it usually cost more because no one is subsiding the cost of the phone. Also most networks carry all the popular phones so you have choice when looking for a subsidized one too.
This is what I always hear about as the "unlocked" phones, right?  i wonder why they are more flexible about it in Europe?  Also, the listed price of unlocked phones are ridiculous.  That's also a gimmick.  They make that price artificially so high just to force you to buy it through your carrier.  None of these phones are worth more than $200-300.  No more than the price of a netbook.

Generally, even if you buy a contract, the phones are open to any network (Generally excluding, but not always, the "Network 3" as they really don't care if you use that phone they gave you, or you sold it.

If you do happen to find a phone locked onto a network, its generally for a reason (iPhones are o2 only) so if you unlock them, other carriers wont be able to offer you the services available on the phones software.

Other than that, 99% of phones are unlocked to the major networks, and ones that have been locked, and sold to a pre-owned phone shop, will be unlocked by the store staff and sold as "unlocked".

This is possibly because of how many times users change networks to get a better deal, or because thier friends are on another network and its cheaper to change and call them from the same one.