Podcast 21 is now live, by the way, with the Q&A that followed David Wood's talk at the Future Technologies conference last week. The question about whether smartphones were for the mass market fascinated me though - read on for some relevant photos of the current Nokia N95 marketing in the High Street and some thoughts...
Read on in the full article.
If you look at the online T-Mobile shop, you'll see that the specifications don't mention the built-in GPS anywhere (link below). It is amazing on how they miss one of the most important features!
It's interesting to see from the pics you post and other marketing that it's being done by talking about the N95's features in terms of things people already know about - e.g. the camera, or perhaps GPS, or indeed WiFi (my following point notwithstanding). This is really the best way to do it - throwing a load of techie terms at people will put them off very very quickly. You have to be REALLY careful how you introduce the average non-technical person to such a technically capable product. Even using "GPS" or "WiFi" is slightly risky. If you are sensible and intelligent (let's face it most marketing depts aren't - especially those having to market many different technical features to the lay public all the time), then you could say "Live maps that know where you are!" instead of GPS, or "wireless broadband internet" instead of WiFi.
Cardinal rule number 1 - never, ever, let geeks/techies/nerds design anything that interfaces with the nontechnical public - be that a phone user interface, or a poster on the high street. The fact that they usually are is the fundamental reason why the various aspects of the IPhone's user interface are being heralded as "game changing" and revolutionary.
Alex
phonething.com
I think Carphonewarehouse (UK) seems to have the best approach to advertising the N95. M$ still thinks people are attracted by having a mobile version of Office in their phone - sorry to disappoint but people (normal 😊 ) have better thing to do than doing spreadsheets on the move.
Why oh why can't this phone be done for the US too??? Wake up, US carriers!
Yeah, �50 buy price plus a 18 month contract at �35 a month, but it's crippled by the operator (like removed VOIP).
@Gues WHo, if you buy from the Nokia retail outlets you can get the N95 for UKP115 on a 12 month contract with Vodafone at UKP35 per month and the phone will be SIM free !