AAS Insight 86 - N97 Mini, X6, X3, N900 at Nokia World

great podcast, but i'm kinda disappointed!! why wasn't my question answered?

Will a new firmware update with kinetic scrolling and enhanced home-screen come to the Nokia 5800?

Maemo may not be as popular as symbian, but Im willing to bet that the average user, who isnt necessarily familiar with symbian would have an easier time navigating and multitasking on maemo. People like visual, gesture based, animated UI because it is easier to understand. the UI is more centric on how people work, rather than asking people to learn an unnatural way to navigate. This is why the iphone is so popular.

Maemo may not sell as much as symbian, but I think it should have been nokia's main os, because it makes more sense in the way you use the device to the average user.

If I give my dad my n97 and ask him to navigate and use the internet on it, he would probably throw it against the wall. Give him an iphone, and not only will he be able to figure it out, but he might even enjoy it! I think maemo, due to its people friendly UI would have similar results. That is the power of a user friendly UI vs a "easy to use once you figure it out" UI.

By the way, I have actually done this test With my parents since I own both iphone and n97.

smellta,

I guess this is what puzzles me about the reasoning the AAS gang have given about why the N900 won't sell as well as the N97 mini or the N97. I agree with their sales forecasts about the N900 although I think they're a bit on the pessimistic side and I would provide an upper bound of a ratio of 2 to 1 (n97/mini to the N900) but the reasoning doesn't make sense. The argument I've heard both from AAS and from Nokia is that the N900 is a niche device.

Considering the capabilities of the N900 and the direction that Maemo has taken in this iteration, I see the N900 being as much of a niche device as something like the Palm Pre or the iPhone variants. That is to say, a niche with tens of millions of devices sold annually. Granted, it's not the hundreds of millions that the Symbian devices will sell but that isn't really the appropriate comparison. The comparison should be about the high-end (i.e. high priced), media rich, data-driven, converged device and I really think the N900, N97, N97 mini, iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre, i8910 etc devices compete in this space. Considering the field, I don't think the N97 competes all that well.

The impediments to the sales of the N900 as I see it are:

- Heavy data focus and tight VoIP focus surely isn't going to please operators
- Lack of customizations isn't going to help either, which will results in fewer operators to push the device
- Small set of languages supported for Maemo, thus far
- Maemo 5 is being release when the platform is in a state of flux, i.e. transitioning to Qt
- The brick-like form factor and weight

But in listening to the podcast, the impression I is that the N900 isn't going to sell as well because of it's data/media focus. Considering how many units the other devices with this focus have sold, I just don't see that logic.

Am I missing something?

When the n95 was released it was also a geek device. The handset was quite large and build quality was poor but it's still one of Nokia's best seller. I think AAS forecasts are way off. I guess we will wait and see...

I see the N97 + Mini will not exceed 15m sold by the N95 + 8GB because the buyers are going to drop off. During the N95 there was nothing that can topple the device in terms of features for nearly 2 years. This doesn't apply to the n97... Remember all the hype about the 5800XM sales? I don't see the mass appeal any more even though it's still relatively cheap.

AAS vs the rest of the media...

I dare to call your bluff. Nokia N95 8 GB was release in October 2007 according pdadb.net. Thus it cannot be two and a half year on the market.
Bob Nabob.sk