Roger Sperberg at TeleRead asks whether Nokia will succeed in creating a non-PDA handheld market. Roger is talking about all the failed efforts to do it so far with mini-tablets and much-publicized OQO. Well, it’s not a secret that handheld sales have been falling, and it’s not just an unlucky quarter, it’s a consistent trend, where the customers seem to be disillusioned with the ideas of multi-functional “portable desktops”. Meanwhile, iPod sales are gaining, the industry is getting the iPod envy, and Apple is trying to stay abreast by introducing the iPods with photo and video capabilities.
Sperberg (he’s got a device through Nokia Developer program, so why not send us some photos?) writes:
When the Nokia 770 arrives, it won’t have phone capabilities, but Nokia has announced VOIP for the 2006. Linux for Internet Tablets and for cell phones lets them hedge their bets on which way telephony is going. And this is good news for those of us who want a small-form-factor computer with great ebook reading and browsing and email instead of a PDA with make-do capabilities.
What started off as a simple exercise in open platforms and wooing software developers can lead to Linux being picked up by a major cell phone manufacturer. Mike Cane wrote in another day with a link to a report by ARCchart, which looks at the current events in Symbian world (where Nokia has 47.9% share) and internal conflicts, where Nokia was a frequent target:
Symbian has strived to assert its independence and to portray itself and being vendor agnostic, and this brought about frequent clashes with Nokia. Nowhere was this conflict felt more than when it came to Symbian’s desire to IPO – a move which would have ended Nokia’s virtual control of the OS.
Linux Pipeline asks whether Nokia will switch to Linux, and says it’s entirely possible, since Nokia will be able to offset the royalty payments.
Such a switch by Symbian would make Linux, in one fell swoop, the leading mobile device platform. It already is riding a wave with PalmSource’s decision to port the Palm OS to Linux and a defection by Nokia would seal the deal.
EnGadget has its share of opinions:
If they do make the switchover there’d be some potentially huge compatibility headaches, but nothing they couldn’t get over, especially since a lot of Series 60 apps are written in Java.
PC Magazine brightens the day with a short article on Nokia 770, which doesn’t have a whole lot to add to what we already know except for the quote from Nokia:
“We will be launching regular updates of the software,” says Janne Jormalainen, vice president of convergence products at Nokia. “The next software release, planned for the first half of next year, will support more presence-based features, including VoIP and instant messaging.”
South African Mail & Guardian Online (a name befitting an anti-spam product more than a newspaper, but what do I know) mentions Nokia 770 in its story on Skype.
In Japan, telecoms giant NTT DoCoMo plans to ship a Wi-Fi-enabled phone later this year, while Nokia unveiled a similar device, the 770 Internet Tablet, at the Linux World trade show in May. The 770 cannot be used as a phone, however. But there are many more waiting down the line. Vonage, a leading rival of Skype, already sells the F1000 mobile handset in the US and Europe.
Mobile Health Data magazine writes about Motion Computing’s new mini tablet, and suggests a similar category for Nokia 770 - mini tablet PC. At the same time, Motion Computing is coming up with a name of its own for LS800 - Ultra-Mobile Slate.
mdamt (thanks for the links to this blog) just got his Nokia 770 in a box with the charger, cradle, battery, 64 MB RS-MMC, bag, manual, booklets and an extra stylus. Now he’s getting rid of the white one.
The latest episode of LugRadio features “An interview with Yannick and Carlos from Nokia about the Nokia Internet Tablet and the company’s approach to open-source software”. Get a bittorrent client and to download the episodes in MP3 or OGG formats.
The official 770 page now features a new Flash presentation from Nokia (defaults to just an image for browsers without Flash plug-in). And this Friday, July 1st, is the official first day of Q3, when the device was promised. While no one expects Nokia to actually start shipping the 770 models day after tomorrow, we’re getting closer to the release.
Thanks to Roger pointing to this article in InfoWorld where Tom Yager seems to be impressed with Nokia’s 770.
The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is easy to describe: It’s a pocket computer with a huge (800 by 480 pixels) touch-sensitive LCD, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and Linux. Millions of open sourcers mourning the demise of Sharp’s Zaurus are considering removing their black armbands. The 770 has no hard drive, but there’s only one reason to have a hard drive on a mobile machine, and I don’t need an iPod that plays movies. The 770 displays PDF and Flash files directly, meaning everything I “save as” from my PowerBook is viewable on the 770.
Someone is certainly eager to get to the market fast. Australian online store Expansys already sells Nokia 770 for yet unannounced price, at which you can pre-order. It’s placed in GSM Mobile Phones category, so they might want to re-think that once the actual device comes out. An automatic “accessory finder” engine suggests a Bluetooth headset, a Bluetooth car kit and a Bluetooth keyboard to go with it. So that’s how I can launch AbiWord in a 770. A Froogle search for Nokia 770 as a phrase shows that Expansys is offering the device in other parts of the world, too.
