Hasta La Gadget!

Earlier this year, we brought you word that Nokia has decided to place all of their eggs in a single basket – which means that they do not have any Plan B so to speak, throwing their entire lot with the Windows Phone ecosystem. I guess it was rather premature to go along with the general consensus, as Finnish phone manufacturer Nokia has stepped forward to claim that they do have a Windows Phone ‘contingency plan’, after all.

Chairman Risto Siilasmaa dropped hints over a live Finnish TV talk show that Nokia has a backup plan just in case the upcoming Windows Phone 8 software tanks. Risto Siilasmaa is also F-Secure’s founder and former chief executive, having appointed as Nokia’s board chairman just a couple of months ago, and has thrown his weight behind Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system that more or less signalled the end of Symbian on most of Nokia’s handsets. Just what do you think Nokia’s Plan B actually is?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 get WiFi Hotspot feature in latest update, Windows Phone 8 prototype from Nokia ,

As Nokia starts to roll out its latest slice of Symbian-powered hardware across Europe, the manufacturer has bundled up some upbeat usage statistics for its developers. It’s a mixture of global clout, big user numbers and several mobile platforms, with Nokia declaring support from 145 operators, across 52 different markets. Its app hub, Nokia Store, is now available in over 190 countries, while there’s now over 100,000 “content items” for its simpler Series 40 handsets, with those devices accounting for 42 percent of the last billion items downloaded. The Nokia Store itself has now served over five billion downloads across all of its mobile OS’. There’s also some good news for its most recent addition, Windows Phone, which has already caught up with Nokia’s own selection with over 100,000 apps to choose from. Over 20,000 Lumia phones have been offered to developers in tandem with Microsoft’s Windows Phone seeding program and, according to the beleaguered phone maker, the ecosystem is now “starting to thrive” — which is good news, considering Symbian’s lingering death sentence. Nokia also took the opportunity to highlight its exclusive third-party app offerings from the likes of CNN, ESPN and Sesame Street — although the jewels of the Lumia series’ app provision arguably remain the in-house likes of Nokia Maps and Mix Radio.

Nokia Store has 120,000 apps, over 120 million users, foggy future originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s a sad, and slightly ridiculous, coda to the story of Vertu, Nokia’s wrong turn into making bling-tastic handsets encrusted with diamonds and gold: a servant in China convicted of stealing one from her boss has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined 20,000 yuan (over $3,000).

The story, as published in the English edition of the Chinese People’s Daily Online, notes that Ms Zhang Yun’s defense was that she had not realized the value of the phone when she took it, and did so in the first place because she had not been paid. The incident happened in Henan Province.

“I didn’t know the cell phone was so expensive,” she had told the court, according to the article. “I don’t know anything about the law and I thought the cell phone was only worth one or two thousand yuan to make up for my salary.”

In fact, the phone was a silver edition and was worth 68,000 yuan ($10,000) — an absurd sum of money for a mobile handset anywhere, and even more so in a country with a per capita income of $7,600 (compare that to the U.S. where the per capita GDP is over $47,000).

Crazy prices, in essence, was one of the problems with hallmarks of the whole Vertu project to begin with: Nokia is a business built on massive volumes of handsets, and the move into smaller-scale, higher-margin luxury editions, coupled with concierge services for those who bought them, ran counter to that. It’s just my opinion, but I wonder if Nokia mis-called the whole concept of status in mobile handsets: a top-of-the-line device like an iPhone or the newest Galaxy S III, or even the Lumia 900, is status enough for most people, and if they insist on something shiny, there are replaceable covers for that. Update: Some readers believe that Vertu was actually very successful among its target audience for Vertu. Nokia has never talked about how profitable Vertu was.

So when push came to shove and Nokia began to think of ways it could quickly restructure in the face of growing losses in its main handset business, Vertu was an obvious candidate for the chop. A 90 percent stake in the company is now being sold to private equity firm EQT for around €200 million; Nokia for now is holding on to the remaining 10 percent.

Back in China, a lot of people are up in arms over the severity of the sentence and fine — and they are taking to sites like Sina Weibo to discuss it. It’s hit a nerve perhaps because it plays up on the long-standing, still-central idea of class struggle in the country: “catering to the rich while turning its back on the poor” is a typical comment.

The People’s Daily notes that the court has defended its action, saying that the fine is proportionate to the value of the device. People are now rallying around Ms Zhang to offer free legal support for an appeal.

Ms Zhang said that she had intended to give the phone back to her boss when he had paid up what he owed her. In the meantime she’d buried it in a turnip pit (yes, the silver Vertu went into a turnip pit) and had intended to use it herself — a fact that was discovered on the surveillance cameras that the household had installed on its property (sounds like a great boss, huh?). Ms Zhang had only been working for the household for just over 40 days when this happened back in December 2011.

Update: Another reader in the comments below notes that the sentence has been overturned by the higher court. I’m looking for a source for that development.

Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This past week, Samsung introduced its first Windows Phone for China and both HTC and Samsung each chimed in about Android 4.1 — the sweet treat better known as Jelly Bean. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of June 25th, 2012.

Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of June 25th, 2012

Mobile Miscellany: week of June 25th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jun 2012 21:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Open Street Map has been helping Flickr display geotagged shots for some time. That crowdsourced map data has led to more than a few photos being located in a gray blob, however, which is why Yahoo just struck a deal to put Nokia maps into as many nooks and crevices of the world as possible. The addition will make sure that Instagram photo tour of Africa is often accurate down to the street corner, not to mention give a slightly Finland-tinged look to the maps themselves. Open Street Map isn’t going away, but it’s now being used only for those areas where regular coverage is spotty or non-existent. The images already apply to any existing and upcoming uploads — there will be no question that self-portrait was taken in Tanzania.

Flickr brings in Nokia map data for precise geotagged photos, Instagram shots just got eerily accurate originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 12:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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