Gabor Torok's Forum Nokia Blog - Transforming mobile industry

Transforming mobile industry

2008-10-20T15:06:34Z

Great summary, thanks.

Kostya

I think innovation is not over yet

2008-10-17T10:27:01Z

Hi Mark,

Let me disagree with one of your statements, namely that hardware innovation is almost over. Well, although I agree with you that the pace of it might have slowed down we will still hear a lot about NFC, mobile phone projectors, displays providing better touch-screen experience, IPv6 (whatever that requires in hw), etc. to name but a few. I think hardware still has a lot of room to improve + new hardware will be introduced in the future, too. I must admit, though, that as I've written above "tech specs" will become less important than providing a good end-to-end user experience that eventually requires good hardware and software alike.

As to Apple's full control, I wouldn't be too paranoid. I think they're smart enough and will eventually grow out this childhood disease. :)

Thanks for your comments!

Fantastic Summary

2008-10-16T21:46:43Z

Hi Tote,

I really like your comprehensive summary. It'll be interesting to see how much more has changed in a month's time (or even next week).

I'm not sure Samsung is making such a big mistake in the short term (longer term who knows what they're actually doing). For all their posturing, the other manufacturers still sell the vast majority of their devices to network operators - not direct to end users. Most of the analysis I've seen tends to forget this fact. In the midst of a global recession we're not likely to see many people opting for unsubsidised devices.

Nokia seems to have taken the stance, "you networks have messed this opportunity up for too long, it's our turn now! (but we might let you join in)". I hope it works out for them.

Frankly, I think you'd have to be pretty crazy to invest heavily in iPhone development at the moment with Apple just arbitrarily removing content from the App Store. There's not a very big jump from "this is too similar to one of our own apps" to "this is too similar to an app we're going to release soon (after we've copied your idea)".

However, I think Apple jumped in with their usual focus on the user experience at just the right time. There really isn't much left to cram into phones like N95, iPhone or 5800 Xpress Music. Faster processors, better graphics/video chips and improve the battery life and GPS performance. Maybe a bigger screen would be nice for some, but not for everyone. To a certain extent the industry has to start competing on software and services because there isn't much else left to compete on. The next generation of hardware (dual core ARM Cortex processors etc.) will give similar performance to a laptop in most cases, with rather better battery life. Where do you go from there?

It's an exciting time and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Mark