Nokia’s Visionary Wants to Out-Design Apple | Hacker News Reader

Nokia’s Visionary Wants to Out-Design Apple

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76 pointsBrajeshwar65 comments

This article is mostly counting angels on pins given that Nokia has months and not years left, but their Lumia hardware designs really are excellent.

They're beautifully tapered, the colors are distinctive, and the feel in the hand is lovely. I wasn't delighted with the sicky Pentile displays they used for the first run, but the new IPS displays should put that to bed. They're strongly reminiscent of the 2nd Generation iPod Nano, one of the most fantastic pieces of Apple design.

Despite all of Nokia's profound failures in the last few years, they found a distinctive and appealing design for their "flagship" phones that didn't mindlessly ape the market leader and they should be commended.

I only wonder if they could make the phone out of metal instead of plastic.

Nothing wrong with the right plastic in my opinion.

My problem is Windows Phone 7/8. It looks OK at a glance but I think it's actually less well thought out than either iOS or Android 4.0 in practice.

how so? my experience using it over the past year leads me to say otherwise; it feels extremely well thought-out, down to the finest of details (and amazingly so when you drill-down to the subtleties of the ui).

sure, not all the features were there with wp7, but from following the development of the platform pretty closely, i’d say their choices in what to put-out (and not include) in each release were also very deliberate. and what exactly would you say is missing in wp8 vs. ios/android now anyways?

What are your favorite things? How is the HTML 5 rendering? How is the wifi? What are its biggest faults? What do you feel like you are missing?

I am very curious. I am a long time Apple fanboy and a general UI junkie. Android still feels so inconsistent that I am not interested yet, but I am very curious about Metro on mobile. iOS has been relatively stagnant interface wise and while extremely functional and completely unoffensive, I am itching to try something new.

Just did a little Googling and found this HTML5 comparison: http://html5test.com/compare/browser/wp80/wp75/ios60.html

WP 7.5 is current devices, WP 8 is the upcoming devices (to be launched late October) and obviously iOS 6 is coming out soon'ish. So, though the WP 8 browser has plenty to catchup on vs iOS 6 for some features, it's still much much better than WP 7.5.

And apparently they announced today that there's going to be a Windows Phone 8 preview SDK out on Sept 12th. So if you're running Windows, you can download and try it out yourself.

Thanks for that- very interesting because IE seems to have parity on the desktop- MS must be really working hard.

if i had to pick one asset as my favourite it would be the one that got me hooked in the first place, the design. plain and simple. being, i’d say, a fellow ui junkie, it really is unlike any other interface (mobile or otherwise) that i’ve interacted with. and it’s because of the interface that, despite missing the occasional hot app of the day or some super-cool new feature available on another device, it never even crosses my mind to switch to another platform…

i know this probably sounds like total marketing bullshit, but it really does feel alive and in a very natural/real way, while also being super-slick and digital at the same time.

when people think of wp (if they know of it, lol), they think of big colorful tiles and blown-up (cut-off) typography; and while those are the most prominent aspects of the visual design, the way it all flows together puts that all in the background and what you experience using it on a day-to-day basis is what’s left, namely the content you’re interacting with. this is especially true as nearly every app is designed to fit-in, and in terms of usability, always function in a way you come to expect. this provides for a seamless experience switching between the os and apps that feels so unified you really forget there’s a difference.

beyond that (and actually, feeding into it), and why i really take offense to the original comment, virtually everything down to the smallest detail is incredibly well considered and implemented. there are so many little things you can’t pick-up on when looking at screenshots (or a spec sheet) that make the experience all the more alive… things like the gliding effect and acceleration/deceleration when sliding between screens (and the way that ‘blown-up’ test moves as you pivot); the lock screen animation that has a nice bounce to it; the way jump-list letters slide into one another as you scroll lists; and even the clicking noise when you lock/unlock your device, all just make it feel really satisfying to use. by contrast, using another device, no matter how slick and impressive it may be, just feels cold and boring to me.

..that aside, everything else works for me just the same as with any other device. pages load-up fine, wifi works (?), it runs great, and there are a lot of other neat features baked-in [1] that i don’t feel like rattling-off right now. biggest complaint i hear is the supposed lack of apps; it’s true that some big-name titles are missing, but the vast majority are there and there are many great third-party alternatives (and incredibly awesome devs) you come to really appreciate. it’s never really bothered me much, but if you’re an app-heavy user (or addicted to instagram or something) you may want to hold-off.

that’s my (very long take) on it. i’d just add that it is really worth trying out; no number of videos or screenshots or reviews or me rambling on can carry-across the experience of just picking one up. i had no ‘dog in this race’ when i first got on to wp, but now i’d say i’m firmly in the fanboy camp, so you never know..

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone#Features

Thanks for the detailed response, and like a good UI junkie you are into the emotional aspects of the user experience. I think the ambient data of the tiles is so seductive. I love that the OS and Apps feel merged- I'm sure that has slowed development for third parties too, but it does sound great.

The animation sounds very tight, which is something lacking that really frustrates me on Android.

Good call on instagram too, its a great social network for visual folk- and probably one of the few apps on the phone that I really love. Seems like it would do well on WP.

My question around the wifi is just because I have heard that it doesn't work as well as the iDevices, but as a heavy user it seems like you have't seen that.

Thanks again for the detail.

can you tell me why you think it is less well thought out than ios or android in practice?

They already did, and it seemed to be a solid device when I tried it a bit. Of course they are not very happy to sell anyone that as it runs the infamous 'burning platform', Symbian.

http://www.nokia.com/gb-en/products/phone/x7-00/specificatio...

What new IPS displays? Aren't they still using the OLED/ClearBack screen?

I don't think so. Their site says:

Display: 4.5 inch Nokia PureMotion HD+ WXGA IPS LCD, Super Sensitive touch, Nokia ClearBlack with high brightness mode and Sunlight Readability Enhancements

http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/09/05/video-introducing-...

It's IPS

http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/lumia920/specific...

Design > Display features

I really liked the OLED. The higher resolution will be nice, but the Lumia 900 rarely feels cramped, and the contrast is amazing. Blacks are solid black, but you can still read email in broad daylight.

Honestly, I'm amazed that Nokia are the only ones doing this. I read that every Android manufacturer except Samsung is losing money, yet they all continue to pump out uninspired black plastic blobs (Samsung included, actually). HTC showed a little spark with their One phones, I hope it continues.

If you want to get really depressed, read Gizmodo's (or Engadget's) review of their Meego(?) phone that was never sold because of the MS acquisition.

The review basically said that someone had finally created the perfect competitor to the iPhone. And it was never released. :(

Yep, it's pretty cool, my co-founder swears by it. It's on the market here in Sweden at least. Same shape as the other phones, but running apt instead. :-)

I got the N9 here in New Zealand a couple of months ago. It is absolutely brilliant.

By absolutely brilliant, I mean $200 cheaper than the Lumia 800 (which I also got for my wife); A mile better than the crappy samsung gio I previously had; beautiful hardware design; very hand front facing camera and auto adjusts screen brightness to ambient light; very good account management/integration.

The thing that lets it down is app availability.

I like the look of it and I'd love to have a decent smartphone with a great camera for my wife (no iPhone). My nagging inner nay-sayer is probably just the geek that bought into Maemo (and still wears the shirts).

That said and out of the way: Isn't Microsoft dictating quite a bit about the design features of Win7/Win8 phones? Put differently, is there enough room for design (as in, artistic, for simplicity distinguished from technical advance in this question) innovation?

The OS is outside of their control I assume. The basic form factor is a given, buttons etc. predefined. What, ignoring the tech specs and build quality, are the design features?

Or am I just misreading design over and over again as 'make it beautiful' instead of 'engineer it in a way that it works well'?

You're correct in that Nokia's limitation of design is in the hardware. The vast majority of the interaction is the software.

That leaves primary the touchscreen, shape of the phone and maybe a button. Also, the camera. I'd say thats about ~20% of the experience of using the phone, likely less.

First rule of out-designing Apple is you do not talk about out-designing Apple.

Yeah, makes me think the opposite. When you talk about it, it sounds like they don't care about design (or maybe even don't know what design is.)

Nokia has made good products in the past, and I do hope they will succeed in out designing Apple.

But I'll wait til I see it.

true, and it could be even worse. There's a quote from former HP CEO Leo Apotheker after the webos acquisition about wanting to be more "Apple-like".

I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in where managers / product directors / ceo's all talk about how they want to be more like Apple - even when their business model may not make any sense to be more like Apple. And then their execution plan is focused more on cost savings than actual innovation.

I don't think the designer said that. The author asked him some specific questions about Apple, but almost all of the Apple-oriented content of the article was from the author, not the designer.

It reminds me of RIM Playbook and "Amateur Hour Is Over!"

That didn't help RIM, let's hope it works better for Nokia.

Looks different and something I would want to grab and use. But honestly, Windows Phone layout is just boring. After I used it for a few times, I wouldn't want to pick it back up.

Not a Windows Phone user, but have used several and liked them fine - is it really any more boring than the iOS home screen?

Yeah, I really don't get this line of thinking. The iOS and Android home screens are about as boring as you can get. It's just a grid of icons.

There are no "Android home screens". An Android home screen can look however way you want. People trying to prove that Android copies Apple like to arrange the icons on Android to look like iOS simply because Android allows you to do this but it doesn't have to look that way.

Gotcha. To be honest I'm not that familiar with Android, having primarily used iOS for the past few years.

My home screens also have widgets to show the weather, books I'm reading, control various power options, media controls, etc.

It's not just a grid of apps, there is much more possible on the Android home.

Widgets let you do what live tiles do, but the difference is really in the discoverability. "Pin to start" is pervasive throughout the WP interface, and live tile functionality is built into the "default" app launcher icons. Pull up the location of my apartment in the navigation app? Oh hey, I can pin it as a tile for one-tap "get directions home"? Sweet! Stuff like that.

On my Evo I never made nearly as much use of widgets because adding them to the start screen was a different process from adding apps to the start screen, and not integrated into the apps themselves in the same way as far as I remember.

The other start screen thing I like about WP is that I hardly ever used the stuff on anything but my main, front-and-central home screen on my Evo. I usually just glanced at the home and then shut it off without swiping left or right to my alternate desktops, unless I wanted to launch an app on one of them. The WP "just swipe down to scroll through all the tiles" idea is really convenient for helping to remember everything you pin there.

The discoverability thing was maybe valid on Gingerbread and below. But with ICS and above, the widgets are integrated into the app drawer, and there should be no discoverability concerns.

They are, but every app adds 3-4 widgets to that draw. There are so many in there, in variations like small, medium and large size, that I never ever look in it.

Late response but yes. I have used them. Almost all of the Win 7 Phones that have come out. They all feel the same after a while. The tiles, that's all there is after a while.

>> Windows Phone layout is just boring

To me, that's a plus, because most of the stuff I do on my iPhone is rather boring. My usage revolves around the core apps, none of which is very exciting.

If Nokia can keep innovating on the camera front, they might have me switching on my next upgrade cycle.

Could you explain "WP layout is just boring"? How so? What does this mean?

I used a loaner WP7 phone for a month when abroad and when I came back to my iPhone I actually felt a longing for the WP. It was like iOS felt bulky, old and cluttered in comparison.

Put affordable 3D printing and thus production of small hardware enclosures in the hands of honest and open creative people (that excludes Apple). Let the electronic engineers design the boards, and the Asian factories mass produce them. But let honest creative people design and produce the enclosures.

There are so many more creative people out there who could contribute to how electronic gadgets look and feel but who can't because of the closed prototype-->offshore mass production pathway, which has not changed since the 1970's.

Everyone can see that continuing to rely on Apple as the sole source of creativity is not going to work.

Do dishonest creative people make worse design decisions than honest creative people?

I'm not sure what's new here. All the Windows Phones (7+) had a unique user interface. The array of live tiles, the emphasis on a narrow array of primary colors and the lack of UI customization always characterized Windows Phones. Also, Nokia phones have been known for good build quality for quite a while. Producing phones in colors other than black and white isn't new either.

Considering the limitations that Microsoft imposes on customizing the OS, I'm not sure how many avenues for differentiation remain for the phone body itself. There is only so much you can do with pure design. I think the more radical and original designs are only enabled by superior core technology like the size of the SOCs, batteries and other internal components. If you want a smartphone as thin and flexible as a credit card, then you're going to need advancements on a whole lot of fronts, most of which aren't within the purview of the designers. I think that Nokia needs to bank on something more than just phones that are outwardly a bit fancier than the competition. 4.7 inch screens and Gorilla Glass are old news.

> “Nothing else looks like this in a phone store,” he says of the 920. “It’s very, very, very organic. It’s almost super-organic,

Also wants to out-do Apple on reality-distortion :)

I am glad to see a company competing on visual/industrial design, where Sony and Dell have failed miserably.

Organic things like trees and such are well known for their smooth glass surfaces and straight edges. Be careful if you put one of these phones down in a park, you might lose track of it among any nearby sticks. :)

This goes beyond distortion and well into redefinition.

"Organic matter" always makes me think of "fertilizer" or "compost" (ha ha). But I do like the ID designwork Nokia have done.

I don't see how the new phones will change the game for them, though; they're incrementally better than the old ones (apparently as is the software).

I quite like the way these phones look too. Nokia, when they try, does a good job on such things, I think. It is just that nothing about them looks organic at all. So it is absurd that someone kept using that term for them.

Trees are not the only organic things. The Lumia could be some sort of tuber or fruit :)

Outside of a few "lost" years spent on weird keypad designs, for the most part, I think that Nokia's phone designs have been pretty good overall.

A good follow-up to this article could be [this review][http://www.domusweb.it/en/design/portable-cathedrals] of the deceased Nokia N9.

Thanks, excellent writing. I think I'll buy it after all :)

<cones> += [rectangles] http://cabin9design.com/media/content/50274%20Pine%20Cone%20... a nice Scandinavian touch

I don't have a smartphone, so I'm not the target market here.

But to me, it looks like a yellow iPhone running Windows. What have they "out designed Apple" on?

Are there subtle smartphone features I'm missing out on?

The Lumia phones really need to be held in the hand to appreciate the design. There are a few salient points:

- The colors are fantastic, the palette is incredibly vibrant without being gaudy.

- Despite the bright colors, the material feels high-quality and not plasticky, which is the fate that usually befalls brightly colored consumer electronics. The texture of the colored bits is really, really good - better than anything HTC or Samsung is fielding, IMO.

- The curvature of the device feels very natural in the hand, moreso than IMO most phones - particularly Motorola phones that feels very front-heavy and too-thin.

- The glass front feels like glass, unlike, say, Samsung's phones. My Galaxy Nexus's glass feels very distinctly plasticky, almost like a thin film has been deposited on top (and I suppose it might actually be just that).

- There's a comfortable heft to it that subtly reminds you that it's supposed to be an upmarket device, similar to iPhone, and dissimilar to Samsung's flagship phones, which feel too light to be taken seriously.

Couldn't agree more.

I already own an N9, which is a beautiful, tasteful piece of hardware in itself - no plastic-y feel at all and I have a Galaxy Nexus, too.

Really, no comparison.

On top, I find the metro UI design very elegant and convincing, I'm actually considering a Lumia. Can't wait to try one in my hands.

Not to mention the excellent build quality. I've dropped my N900 from my car once and onto the ground many times. It's got a single small scratch in the bezel to show for it, and it's the same story for my friend's N810. Nokia really knows how to build solid hardware.

Personally the thing that kills me about the iPhone 4 design is the seams on that metal on the side. I even didn't believe the leak at first because I thought it was a clear step backward for Apple.

The Lumia's have a few things going for them: A really sturdy unibody shell that's much more scratch/dent resistant than the Androids I had before, without the shatteriness of the iPhone 4 back (and minor scratches don't hurt the color, it's not just a surface finish). The curve is much more pleasant in hand than the iPhone or most other Androids I've tried. The back of the case is extremely clean, without the logos or fine print of an iPhone. And the 800 and apparently 920 have a curved glass front which is really slick (I hate that the 900 missed out on this).

The press-to-focus/press-all-the-way-to-shoot dedicated camera button is really really nice too.

The side-center sleep/power button location is also a nice subtle touch. Pick it up with my right hand, and it's right under my thumb. Pick it up with my left hand and its right under my middle finger. Easy to press to turn the screen on or off. I didn't think it would matter (and it looked weird at first) but it really is nicer than reaching up to the top of the device to shut off/lock the screen on my old Evo.

But in a world where well over half the people I know with iPhones have them in bulky or just plain ugly cases... how much does hardware design really matter? Everyone has an iPhone like everyone else, and then they put it in a usually-boring case. Heck, even on here, a ton of the people saying it looks nice are saying "but it doesn't have the apps" or such... which of course gets nice and circular!

>Personally the thing that kills me about the iPhone 4 design is the seams on that metal on the side.

I don't understand this thinking at all. The seams have a functional purpose to separate antennas.

I view the iPhone seems the same way I view a car door seam: it has to be there, and because it has to be there I don't perceive it as ugly.

Apple's real strength/genius was marketing.

I don't know that you can separate marketing from making great products as causes of Apple's success. I think both are needed.

The statement was concise and clear. You are reading into it.

If by "marketing" you mean "understanding what the market really wanted and then making it", then I agree.

There exists a treasure trove of truly feculent Apple marketing for you to peruse if you ever have the inclination. But here's a downvote if you're in a rush.

That's a bit too simplistic and really discounts the product. Over the past decade or so, Apple has recently had a very good run of ads (very recent ads notwithstanding). But I think that most of that started with the iPod ads. That is what gave Apple it's trendiness. What Apple is really good at is giving people a well designed product that does what they need, does it well, and isn't much more expensive (or even cheaper) than their competitors.

But really, it's a combination of product design and execution. Apple's hidden genius lies in their supply chain management. It's not sexy, but it's what Tim Cook executed masterfully. And that's what makes Apple its profits.

Nothing kills a bad product faster than good marketing.

This couldn't be more wrong if you tried to be wrong. Apple actually spent relatively little on marketing, and it's basically impossible to argue that the iPhone's success, for instance, was because of marketing. It wasn't. It was because of superior design, superior functionality and overwhelmingly good word-of-mouth advertising.

You don't have to hire a bunch of marketing suits if your product is obviously better.

I applaud their intentions but their latest effort just looks like any other smartphone only plasticier.

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