back to article Nokia's Windows phone outed on video

Nokia revealed its first Windows Mobile handset this week, giving a select crowd a glimpse of the Mango phone in action. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop made the presentation to the audience who were asked to put away cameras in anticipation of being shown something hugely confidential. Rules are made to be broken, though, and a …

COMMENTS

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  1. Neil 7
    Facepalm

    Lamest "leak" ever

    And no WP7 buttons on the front of the N9 body, which could just be an older N9 prototype with a camera button and different camera placement.

    All in all it looks like a rushed effort by Elop to steal some N9 thunder, and demonstrates that the guy really doesn't want one of his own products to succeed at any costs - what kind of CEO does that?

    1. Richard 31
      Paris Hilton

      Customisation

      I do seem to remember that MS have given Nokia free reign to customise WP7 as they see fit. This could include removal of the front buttons if they liked.

      1. Neil 7

        Too much effort, major change to MS UI design aesthetic

        I've never seen a Mango demonstration that doesn't include the buttons. Redeveloping the Mango UI at this stage to remove the three buttons (which would need to be re-implemented with gestures) would seem a huge amount of work for very little gain.

        The big deal for Microsoft is having Search (Bing) front and center, and the Start button takes you home... how would they re-implement these shortcuts with gestures - maybe in the same way they have with the N9, which would work for Home and back but probably not Search.It would require a considerable amount of UI framework redevelopment just to support one device (admittedly from Microsoft's new BFF) and I don't see Microsoft allowing that.

  2. Andy Hards
    Thumb Up

    And seriously, I mean it, no cameras! I shouldn't even be telling you this!

    I think it was probably a case of 'and you mustn't post this to your blogs guys' with a little pause while everyone got their camera phones out. And why not, Nokia could do with a bit of positive press for a change.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      What camera out?

      The video contains properly edited demo footage.

      This is astroturfing, not a leak.

      In any case, I do not see anything to make me particularly excited.

      At this point in time in order to be anything Nokia has to pull out an iPhone/Arc killer out of its sleeve. This one is not a bad phone, but it is nowhere near being an iPhone killer. It is an also-run which is not good enough.

      1. hewbass
        Facepalm

        ... they did reveal an "iPhone killer"...

        ... only it was a couple of days ago.

        It's quite noticeable that the N9 and the new WP device will never go head to head in the same market, so we will never find out which one the users prefer...

        Wonder how Mr. Orlowski feels about his myths of betrayal now? (well -- I'm guessing that actually he feels exactly the same way as he did before, BUT HE SHOULDN'T)

    2. DF118
      Thumb Up

      Indeed

      Considering the "leak" mostly comprises a stream from the event's projector cam, edited in with footage taken from a tripod-mounted camera at the back of the room, I'm definitely filing this one under "planned".

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    omg no

    DO. NOT. WANT.

    Nokia - worst phones i have ever had.

    Windows - worst os ever used.

    So, would i like them all together - no, i would not.

    Would rather buy a PC from PC world, thats how bad that is.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      re: omg no

      Can I ask which Nokia you had? I appreciate they make mistakes, but a large number of their phones seem to me marvellous unbreakable (and once considered v intuitive) warhorses, with call clarity and battery runtime like nothing else. My E61 is going strong after five years of daily use.

      Although, yes, my heart sank when I saw the "XBOX" button on the article photograph. Microsoft don't elicit affection like Nokia.

      1. N13L5
        Pint

        E-series was always very sturdy

        the N92/95/96 had pretty crappy cases, chipped like crazy, and the slide mechanism would get loose, rattly and sometimes get stuck too.

        Cameras were good though.

        The E-series were much more solidly built, a warhorse for corporate foam whippers to compete with Blackberry

        I think the majority of Nokia's phones had solid cases, excellent cameras, ever since the end of the N95 technologically behind.

        Apple 'disruption' considerably upped the speed of hardware innovation all around, Now Apple got passed mainly by Samsung and HTC. Nokia fell behind.

        If your flagship phones are last year's tech, (N97 etc) you loose street cred, which puts a downer on all your sales.

  4. Richard 31
    Paris Hilton

    Meh

    Am i wrong for thinking that having Windows Phone 7 on a Nokia sullys the Windows Phone 7 brand?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Malware

      "Am i wrong for thinking that having Windows Phone 7 on a Nokia sullys the Windows Phone 7 brand?"

      Malware sullied the whole Windows brand years ago. Nokia phones have always been very well built, their software sucked, but the the hardware was ... hard.

      e.g. the £15 Nokia I bought my mother 3 years ago is still going strong with no signs of wear - that was to replace her Nokia 3210 whose only fault was a dead battery - the £15 phone was about the same cost as the replacement battery with shipping.

      I would really like to see an Android Nokia phone - that would tempt me.

      1. Puck

        re Malware

        My mum too had a Nokia 3210 until a year ago! It got handed around the family for about 10 years - fantastic phone! It still works but Nokia won't make any more batteries! They *know* they make these things like 1950s washing machines - rock hard.

        1. Richard 31
          Paris Hilton

          still meh!

          I note that both of you refer to ancient Nokia phones. There is only so long you can trade on how good you were 10 years ago.

      2. Neil Hoskins
        Boffin

        "...I would really like to see an Android Nokia phone - that would tempt me...."

        http://nitdroid.com/

        Easy-peasy, and most of it actually works. Not a huge fan of Android, though, I'm discovering.

    2. N13L5
      Linux

      yeah, I think that's wrong

      More like the other way round:

      Another proprietary OS from the wish-to-be-a-monopoly-everywhere company goes against every good development we've had in the recent past.

      You really want M$ tollbooth's everywhere and be in another walled garden, like Apple's?

      Like managed living for the old. If you like to live as cattle, herded around by the Jobs and Ballmers of the world, go ahead... enjoy Don't be surprised when they keep milking you daily.

    3. hewbass
      Linux

      Yes.

      You have confused the object and subject of your sentance. Swap them around, and you'll be fine.

  5. Vic

    Those cameras are tripod-mounted

    Look at the way they pan; smooth, horizontal panning with no wobbling about. That's a mounted camera, not some illicit hand-held thing.

    This is a deliberate "leak". Nokia are trying something viral.

    Vic.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      null

      The video was made professionally, but for internal consumption and available to all employees, (and contractors) . Most big internal town hall meetings in Nokia are distributed like this. It will have been on their intranet for all employees to view, and it would have been easy for one of the disgruntled soon to be ex-Nokia Symbian developers to rip it and post it.

      If they wanted to deliberately 'leak' info on this there are a vast number of more interesting and more headline grabbing ways to do it.

      There is a very good argument for saying if they really want to keep things secret in future, they should just have closed room screenings at their sites round the world and not use the intranet at all. That however would need a change in their culture.

  6. Rosco

    Leak?

    Yeah, right

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Presumably

    Elop knew that everyone would be snapping away so this is an intentional leak....bit like being in government.

    As to the phone - I wonder who makes it, because I doubt Nokia could have knocked it together in the time they had available, given their usual development schedules. And of course, if Nokia didn't make it then it will be crap at making calls, full of bugs (I know there are bugs in Nokia phones, but they do do much more testing than most other manufacturers), have a terrible camera, and have a battery life measure in minutes.

    1. Neil 7
      FAIL

      I doubt they've got anything running WP7 yet

      The still frame in the article could be of a video running on MeeGo/N9 showing the WP7 UI - that kind of trick has been done before, many a time.

      Interesting how the still frame is also cropped at the bottom so that it doesn't show the three hardware buttons (Back, Start, Search) that all WP7 phones are supposed to have yet are clearly not present on a standard N9 and there's no room to squeeze them in without shrinking the display.

      All you see in the "leaked" video is an N9-type body with an extra camera button - you don't see WP7 running on an N9-type device, the demo of Mango is shown running on an emulator.

      It wouldn't be beyond the whit of man to assume Nokia had some old variants on the N9 design lying around and chose one to demonstrate as an example of what's coming for WP7, seeing as how well the N9 design went down, and also to pour some water on that fire.

      Seriously, this "leaked" video demonstrates nothing with regard to their WP7 accomplishments - it just comes across as a tragic attempt by Nokia to dampen any enthusiasm for their own latest product, N9/MeeGo.

      What a farked up company they are.

  8. Dazzz
    FAIL

    PR spin

    Obviously the PR people saw all the comments from people hating on Elop for effectively killing meego after they launched the N9 the other day and decided they needed to prove how wonderful the Nokia wp7 experience will be.

    Sorry Nokia you failed badly, the N9 looks way better than wp7

  9. pixie lott's g-string
    Unhappy

    oohh...it's a shiny zune

    oh, it's got IE on it........

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fake 'leak'

    The video must be a fake leak. It's from multiple points of view. It was most likely uploaded from Elops own iPad.

    Nokia shares went up 6% on release of the N9. Today we have a candid interview with Elop all but telling consumers to stay away from the N9 and this 'leaked' video. The shares fall back again...

    He's a real pro, for sure. Can we have an avatar for Elop as a hollow wooden horse with little Ballamers inside waiting to spill out? Or at least one where one half of the face is Ballamer and the other is Elop?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    I don't get Nokia

    They just about get a good Symbian touchscreen phone out (the N8) and then they show us all the excellent N9, but they somehow think their future is with Windows Phone?! Maybe it is, but no-one I know wants one (but a few would like an N9!)

    1. hewbass
      Facepalm

      Actually...

      ... it appears there are quite a few people looking forward to Nokia making a WP device, even after seeing the N9, but then there is no accounting for taste.

  12. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Oooh, look, it's a Windows Phone...

    ... and...

    ... er... does Windows Phones stuff...

    ... 8mpx camera (instead of the N8's 12mpx)

    ... Photos...

    ... Online game profile...

    ... Birthdays in the calendar...

    ... Office stuff does office...

    ... Custom built app does custom things via developer tools...

    ... A web browser...

    ... Full screen video player (like Symbian RealPlayer appearing)...

    ... Multitasking...

    ... Data transfer program to transfer data from Symbian phones to WP7 (you can check in but you can never leave!)

    All in all, I give it a meh out of 10.

    1. Neil Hoskins
      Meh

      In other words, a bit like the original iPhone launch

      I remember that one fondly. Tuning into the live video feed surreptitiously on my work PC, then:

      "It's got a touch screen.".... wild applause.

      "It's got a calendar."..... wild applause.

      "It's 3G.".... wild applause.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Headmaster

        @Neil

        If I remember right, the first one didn't even do 3G, just 2G/GPRS/EDGE.

        ... wild applause.

        1. J. R. Hartley
          Paris Hilton

          also..

          Also, who REALLY needs bluetooth or videos on their phone... APPLAUSE!!!

          Unbelievable.

          Paris, because she likes videos.

  13. Steve Evans
    FAIL

    sniff

    I wish I could comment, but seeing as that video refuses to play on both my pc running firefox and my android browser, I will just have to take everyone else's option that it's crap.

  14. Arctic fox
    Holmes

    Predictable?

    Yes, this "leak" is entirely predictable - as are the reactions to it we see on this thread.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Leaping from the burning platform?

    Looks more like leaping from the fire back into the frying pan...

  16. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    FAIL

    The browser as on the desktop

    Oh great, pity the user interface is completely different. Oh, it's IE9 which can do a bit of HTML5 (limited video support, no SVG animation, poor canvas, etc.) but is already outdated and outclassed by almost all other mobile browsers and as it's not cross platform no chance of synching bookmarks, etc.

    Hardware looks okay but then it looks like just another windows mobile. Unless MS decides it's worth pissing off the other suppliers by giving Nokia exclusive access to feature it's got less room for differentiation than on Android. And if MS does decide it's worth pissing off other suppliers, it's easy to imagine how that might affect their other channels - the only OS running on quad core ARM netbooks at Christmas will be Android. Well, presumably some people will put Ubuntu on theirs.

    1. N13L5

      tell me more

      Looks like I missed something big!

      What phone can I put Ubuntu on?

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        I didn't say Ubuntu on phones

        But Ubuntu will, apparently run on Android tablets and netbooks. Wouldn't surprise me if some people hadn't got it working on phones as well but I imagined it to be less useful on them.

  17. Michael Habel
    FAIL

    Glad to see...

    that Nokia did something about that nasty lookin WP7 UI

    I've stated it before, and I'll state it again... YUCK!!

    Whoever thought that page images that cliped the Display wad somehow a good thing, should be taken out back and mercilessly beaten down till they breath their last!

    Heres hoping that Nokia can somhow still save themselves and by proxy, Microsoft.

    By changing that crappy UI into something more like that in Meego.

    Sadly somehow I don't see it happening though...

  18. mafoo
    Coffee/keyboard

    yay

    huzzah, nokia has lost any competitive edge it has over its competitors.

    Welcome to be yet another WP7 oem.

    The delicious irony here is that Elop said himself that all Nokia R&D was concerned with for years was how high a megapixel camera they could put in their phones, and that he wanted to move away from that. Now the only way nokia is going to distinguish itself as a WP7 vendor is by how high a megapixel camera they put in their phones.

    1. N13L5
      Linux

      lol that's funny as hell..

      I still hope Elop is just lying or gets axed soon.

      Everything would be fine if Nokia, like other successful phone makers would simply offer more than one operating system.

      But I wouldn't be surprised if the M$ contract has a clause that forces Nokia to drop anything Linux, since they perceive Linux as a threat to all of their Monopoly efforts

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here is the full version

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6oidCTUw4s

  20. Sven Schubert
    Linux

    (OT)N950 information out

    according to here:

    http://thenokiablog.com/2011/06/21/nokia-n950-developers/

    the N900 may not have been the last full-keyboard linux-based mobile phone by Nokia.

    1. hewbass
      Facepalm

      You are right...

      ... the N950 is the last one.

  21. N13L5
    FAIL

    Elop really is a trojan horse

    Right at the start of his speech, he dooms potential sales of the MeGoo handset.

    Basically saying MeGoo is dead but that there's all this other "innovation" that will live on.

    What unbelievable disregard for potential buyers of the N9.

    And then the whole Mango demo, there's not one thing that's actually new. Google has been face-recognizing my pictures forever. I dislike face recognition... We all know what that kind of stuff will be used for when the next extremist government comes along.

    Two of the most successful smartphone makers make phones with more than one operating system. Nokia should do the same, but better: Just make one phone model, get both Windphone and MeGoo to run on it - done. Waste of money to make different models every time. Just maximize your sales opportunities per development dollar. Offer the same phones you saw fit to develop for both Windphone and MeGoo, a low end a mid range and a high end one as basics, then add whatever niche products you think you need.

    If Nokia's board lets Elop put all eggs into a single basket, they must be tired of their jobs. There are enough people around the world that will never buy a phone with an M$ operating system, but that would buy MeGoo today and continue to buy it in the future, if Nokia just assures them there will be future MeGoo phones...

    But as Elop is obviously biased towards throwing out the baby with the bath, I consider him a trojan horse.

    1. Vic

      Elop...

      > Elop is obviously biased towards throwing out the baby with the bath

      But be fair to the man. Both baby and bath might be gone, but he *is* keeping most of the bathwater...

      Vic.

  22. Rob Davis
    Thumb Up

    Sony and Ericsson did it, so perhaps Nokia and Microsoft can.

    Sony and Ericsson have managed to produce some decent 'phones, at the forefront of mobile phone photography with Carl Zeiss lenses and Xenon flashes. And now with the Androids and Playstation versions.

    Motorola, one of the earliest entrants into the mobile phone industry, has gone through perhaps a phase of phones that weren't favourite, but have bounced back with the Atrix, Milestone and the Defy for example.

    So what about Nokia and Microsoft, they could emulate this success. Given that Nokia have the hardware knowhow to build in some of the best cameras into phones. And Microsoft and a mobile XBOX edition (as hinted in another's post http://forums.reghardware.com/post/1102247 )

    1. hewbass

      Two answers.

      a). Sendo.

      b). Windows mobile.

      (I know Windows Phone alledgedly represents a change in direction for MS -- but you still need a Windows PC in order to get things on and off your Windows Phone, and, well, Sendo).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Actually

      Although Nokia do have a lot of experience at putting cameras in phones, a lot of the work is actually done by their third party suppliers (the people who supply the camera interface and processing hardware on the GPU). Look up the GPU in the N8 for example. to find out where a lot of the work is done.

  23. Andus McCoatover
    Mushroom

    Oh, Jesus fucking Christ,

    As Bob Geldof put it, "is that it?"

    Right, that's it, readers. I'm fuc*king topping myself. Definitely in "Suicidal Sid" mode now.

    (Icon, burning, - shit, can't even be bothered to wr

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Fins speaking english

    I don't want to be mean but that "Extrrrrremely "Fan" " boy, that's fun :-)

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