Re: France Wants to Sue Apple for Planned Obsolescence

In article <[email protected]>, Hergen Lehmann
<[email protected]> wrote:

> >>> As to "the consumer has rejected it", phones with integrated computers
> >>> of some sort existed before the iPhone and were largely rejected by
> >>> consumers are large.
> >>
> >> Being from Finland, I'd like to point out that this view is a bit
> >> US-centric.
> > 
> > it is not.
> 
> It is.

it is not. symbian phones were available worldwide, and they did not
sell in appreciable numbers..

> >> Nokia had their Symbian smartphones (first models came out
> >> in 2001), they just didn't in the end succeed against Apple and Google.
> > 
> > that's because they weren't very good. in other words, consumers
> > rejected it.
> 
> They were actually quite reasonable for was possible around the turn of 
> the millennium.

perhaps so, but that doesn't mean they were any good. they weren't.

> And no, consumers did NOT reject them. 

they did not sell well, so yes consumers did reject them.

> Some early Nokia 
> computer/phone combos were actually quite popular here in Europe, for 
> example, all technology-affine management guys used to have a Nokia 
> Communicator at some point.
> 
> In the end, it was three factors which killed Nokia:

really just one: it wasn't anywhere near as good as iphone and android.

> 1. They were too early.

that's not a flaw.

> The technology was still too expensive for the 
> average customer and the mobile networks not ready for large-scale data 
> usage.

wifi.

> Syncing appointments and receiving/sending text-only eMail were 
> basically the only reasonable over-the-air functionality. 

which could be done on a flipper. 

> Not because 
> the devices didn't provide a browser and installable Apps (they did, 
> starting with Symbian), but because data transmission was just WAY too 
> slow and expensive.

the browser and third party apps were not particularly good and
comparatively expensive, most apps in the iphone app store were free,
and of the paid apps, they were a buck or two. it was also *much*
easier to write ios apps, especially since code could be shared from
the mac. 

> 2. Nokia had far less marketing power than Apple and Google (especially 
> outside of europe) and used it poorly. When Apple started aggressively 
> marketing the iPhone, Nokia just reclined on their leading position in 
> the European market.

that's because they knew they didn't have anything that could come
close to the iphone and android.

people wanted iphones and android phones. the products sold themselves.

> 3. The phone branch of Nokia was ultimately bought by Microsoft, which 
> immediate stopped all improvement on Symbian in favor of the Mega-Flop 
> called Windows Mobile.

true.