Nokia Becomes The Fourth Largest Smartphone Brand in USA in Q3 2013 | Hacker News Reader

Nokia Becomes The Fourth Largest Smartphone Brand in USA in Q3 2013

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I am very glad to see how the company which I love and follow for so many years is getting more and more share in the US market. The best thing I like about Nokia is how they are obsessed with quality of their products, I think in terms of build quality and design, Nokia is the only smartphone/tablet maker at this time to be a real competitor to Apple.

Yes, Nokia is the only company that gives me hardware envy. I've been wanting to run Android on one of those gorgeous Lumias for a long time. I've never felt like running Android on an iPhone.

Maybe if they reach 10%+ someone will take the trouble of hacking Android into one of their phones.

What's wrong with WP?

Nothing wrong with it, but MS decided to go the Apple route by providing a locked-down system. That works well for 90%+ of the population, but I need to be able to use my device as I use my PC, installing and configuring anything I want. Android and its custom ROMs are the best offering I could find. Ubuntu and Firefox OS could be good alternatives too.

Iirc, they backed off on that. WinPhone isn't as open as Android, but it's not iOS either. There's still a heavy bias towards the 1st-party store just like there is on Android and I doubt the phones are as easy to root/flash/whatever, but they do let you download and install applications outside of the store.

Maybe we'll see a Humble Windows Phone Bundle some day.

They do? I thought sideloading was a developer-only privilege.

googles. Apparently I had Win8RT confused with WinPhone. WIn8RT allows you to sideload freely. WinPhone requires you get a (free) developer's a account, but still has tight restrictions.

... now I want to see phones running Win8RT.

> Apparently I had Win8RT confused with WinPhone. WIn8RT allows you to sideload freely. WinPhone requires you get a (free) developer's a account, but still has tight restrictions.

Windows RT does not allow you to sideload freely. Nor does WinRT, which is not an operating system, but a runtime environment.

You can sideload apps that you compile with a developer certificate, which is provided with a free copy of Visual Studio Express, but expires periodically. Corporations can sideload apps permanently if they have purchased sideloading licenses.

But there is no general ability to sideload, as a regular user who knows nothing about compilers.

Of course, this is just the RT environment. Windows 8 on x86 still has a desktop environment that is not locked down at all.

for me, it's the ux. this comment mirrors some of my feelings..

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1mc4vq/nokia_was_te...

Most of the thoughts expressed there are philosophical. e.g. a good UI should work for al skill levels, It should satisfy Gestalt rule, absence of dock, etc. Of these the last is not even correct. You can pin whatever tiles you want on the start screen including many deep links into apps that other OSes don't even offer (afaik)

As for the other two, again they are philosophical. If the user had said that it doesn't work for me because I am novice or expert user then I'd understand. What does it have to do with it following certain design principles? does it work for you as an individual or not? Isn't that the most important question. The comment does not answer that at all.

It's already been done. Get yourself an N9 (same hardware as the lumia 800) or an N950 (most beautiful phone hardware I've ever had the chance to use but hard to come by as only a few thousand units were produced) and install nitdroid.

The problem is that the OS and hardware really go hand in hand. Installing a completely different OS than the one the hardware was designed for often results in a disappointing device. The N950 running Meego for example is still to this day what I would consider the pinnacle of hardware and software engineering when it comes to smartphones. It looks gorgeous, it feels amazing - no other smartphone I've ever used (and I've used many) comes close.

But install Android on it and it suddenly looks and feels like an unsightly brick. The way android looks like, the UI gestures, the way Android is meant to be used in general is different than Meego and it doesn't fit the hardware at all. It's loads of subtle and seemingly small details but the end result is a very unpleasant device.

I'll look into it, although I was thinking more of a Lumia 92x or 1020, mostly for the camera.

I just mentioned this in another thread, but you could install Sailfish on the device, which is basically a fork of Meego, and use their Dalvik implementation to run Android Apps. At least, you will be able to do that when Sailfish is released.

Too bad it's now just Microsoft and they'll drop the Nokia name too. Microsoft has Lumia and Asha brands and they can use Nokia brand just for dumb phones. Quite intriguing is that neither Nokia or Microsoft has the right to use Nokia name in smartphones until 2016, when Nokia is freed again to release phones with it's own brand.

And Stephen Elop might very well be the new CEO of Microsoft.

It's only Nokia by name going forward. The name will likely be killed off once MS completes it's assimilation in to the collective.

And real Nokia might return to the smartphone business when the MS exclusivity expires.

Is it the name nokia that matters? I think MS got their cell phone business which is the one that designs and manufactures the phones and related tech. I am hoping that they stick to the durable and functional designs that made nokia popular

As far as I understand it, Microsoft got the smartphone part of the business. Nokia will continue to make feature phones, but Microsoft's Nokia will have exclusivity on smartphones for a set number of years.

Nokia is going to make the turn, against all the odds. This is really promising news for having a 3 platform horserace to keep things honest.

What are you smoking, dude? There's no more Nokia to make the turn. Their entire phone section now belongs to Microsoft.

Competition is good but for app development it's becoming too much. Android and iOS and WP and maybe Firefox OS? Who can handle developing four versions of an app? There's been a lot of debate on native vs web based on performance. But web may become the only reasonable way to release an app on all platforms.

It's probably not as big of a deal as you think. If you're piloting an app, you're probably going to stick to just Android for rapid development or perhaps iOS for the larger market share in certain categories. Eventually if you get big enough to justify supporting multiple platforms, you should be able to get enough staff to support them all individually.

If you're building for all platforms with no indication that your product is of high value, then this might be even beneficial for developer focus on finding product market fit.

Xamarin or competitors might be a good way to handle different platforms for your app.

If you're using a PaaS like Parse.com then the only thing you'll really be changing between devices is the frontend.

This should be true for ANY backend, as long as you don't use a data serialisation mechanism that is really specific to a given language.

real programmers do it natively. :) And if anyone wants an app written on all 3 platforms, feel free to message me.

Thus why cross-platform solutions are having tremendous growth. If web won't win out, it'll certainly be a cross-platform solution in the long run. My money's on web, if performance of those webviews catches up to native.

The performance of the web views doesn't have to catch up, it just needs to be adequate. Just like on the desktop browsers still deliver a much weaker experience than native apps, but almost nobody is releasing new desktop apps anymore.

What you want is to give the best user experience, not a generic webview or cross/plateform framework. And to get the best user experience one needs to go native period. There is no debate , web based app performances are low on anything more than a basic CRUD app...

I just recently got a Nokia 1020 and I love the camera so much. People keep asking "so does it REALLY have that good of a camera?" My favorite thing to do is to take a random picture while they watch, and then zoom way in on some text that's unreadable to their eyes, or zoom in on someone's skin pores.

Sounds impressive until you realize they're #4 with 4% market share.

in the US. In Italy, the Nokia line is outselling the iPhone.

Also in Brazil, everything Apple is VERY-VERY expensive, because of the taxation system.. so the market share for Androids and Nokia are bigger

why would the taxation system penalize apple more than nokia or samsung?

It's not like the latters are made in brazil. Does brazil have special punitive tax rates towards US based companies?

Or is it just that the local equivalent of VAT goes up fast with the phone price?

In Brazil taxes do not "penalize" countries, products or companies.

Right in the middle of the Amazon region there is a development zone where the majority of the electronics are made, in the country, by multinationals. It is called a Zona Franca.

When built in the country the import taxes, which represent the majority of the cost for imports such as electronics, these taxes are removed and make the good much cheaper.

It is the same with Xbox and PS4 in Brazil. An Xbox is 4 times cheaper than a PS4. If Brazil would be against USA or it's companies then it would be the reverse.

Hope I helped.

ps. Many people in country complain about the taxes but forget that when companies move their industries to Brazil, jobs, money and know-how stay there too improving the competitiveness. Sadly the vast majority of the population will look the price tag and complain without knowing the implications behind.

For your ps: on the other hand, just think what would happen if every country did the same thing.

Not everybody could do it.. only countries with big markets could have this privilege..

Small contries would get simply ignored by the industries, since its too much trouble..

So it would get reduced to: China, Russia, Brazil, US, Japan.. and if managed in block: Europa..

This policy from Brazil is not a bad one if you think that the only other possibility left for industrial growth(technology transfer) would be one of the cheap labor.. like what happened in China, South Korea and the Asian Tigers..

Tariffs definitely do penalize foreign countries/products/companies. Not to say they're a bad idea for Brazil and other emerging countries with large markets, but if everyone had such harsh tariffs, free trade and progress in general would suffer.

thanks, it was very interesting information.

> It's not like the latters are made in brazil

Actually, they are. There are Nokia, Samsung and LG factories in Brazil, as well as a tax-incentive zone in the Amazon region.

There were, once, local manufacture of Apple equipment (I have a Powermac 4400 from that time), but it didn't survive the takeover by NeXT.

I Brazil, at least, Nokias are being heavily subsidized. Not only to the carriers, but salespeople are getting commissions straight from Nokia in order to push as many as they can.

Apple, Samsung and LG are not doing this.

That's how you start in a market already dominated by competitors.

Just as a comparison, only Apple managed to sustain ~5% market share on the PC market since MS has dominated it. Entering the mobile market is very similar in difficulty to entering the desktop segment with a new OS.

The problem is that Apple still has a single digit or low double digit percentage of the PC market. And the only reason they can make it work developing their own ecosystem at that level of market penetration is by being a premium brand with high margins. Nokia's market share is currently at the opposite end of the market. Which is bad news for attracting developers, because developers won't want to target a small minority platform full of budget-conscious customers.

When I finally gave up my Wifi+Skype plan for a cell phone with data a while ago, I went with a Nokia phone. It's stylish and affordable and Nokia is known for building things that last. The phone is great. But my feelings for Microsoft haven't improved. Shortly after I purchased the phone, Microsoft announced they wouldn't provide an upgrade path for Windows Phone 7 to 8. Then they announced they would release a mini-update to Windows Phone 7.8 for us that would bring some of the features. I waited six months or so for a tiny update and then they took it away and never released it on my phone. As long as Nokia is running Windows Phone, I will never buy another. And I certainly won't ever buy another Windows Phone anything again after the way they treated their users. I feel like my phone is running a beta version of Windows Phone and will never get updated to the real thing.

Just got Nokia 520 last week as a throwaway phone (while I wait for 5s). I must say its great phone with windows phone 8 looking very polished and useful - only problem MS-Nokia has is quality and number of apps - hopefully they will be able to reach tipping point soon.

For 80$, no contract this is great deal going on now.

This is all because of the Lumia 520, which is really driving Nokia's sales. There is a good space at the low end of the smartphone market and with people moving towards prepaid or no-contract in the US, a cheap off contract smartphone like the 520 is a really winner.

This is also good because Nokia is like 80+% of Windows Phone sales, so that means Windows Phone is creeping upward against Android (for better or worse)

Based on world smartphone sales it looks like it could be just as easily taking market share from Apple:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/31/strategy-analytics-q3-201...

Anyway, I love my Lumia 928. After having 3 iPhones it's the best phone I've ever had.

"Based on world smartphone sales it looks like it could be just as easily taking market share from Apple"

Except we're talking about the US where Apple didn't lose marketshare.

Since Nokia's successful models are at a price point where Apple doesn't even have an offering Occam's razor suggests they are taking share from Android.

The 520 really is a fantastic phone for its price point. Less than $100 no contract, and for 99% of daily activities I find it to be as good as or better than my friends' iPhones and Galaxies.

then you should check out Lumia 1020. The Camera is just awesome on it.

It's too bad they didn't continue things with Meego. I would've preferred another open source OS to be the 3rd platform instead of another closed source one.

Windows Phone owes the vast majority of its success to Nokia anyway, because most of the early adopters bought Nokia phones because of the hardware and despite Windows Phone, which is why Nokia has like 90 percent market share of the WP market.

If this wasn't the case, the market would've been more decentralized. You could also test the theory another way - if Nokia would've quit WP for Android this year (if Microsoft wouldn't have bought them), Windows Phone would be dead almost immediately.

Plus, Nokia's phones actually looked nicer with Meego:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/06/nokia-...

http://cdn.theunlockr.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Android...

That looks almost exactly like Windows Phone with an iPhone or Android style apple launcher.

Well the UI is much more than a launcher. The N9 / MeeGo had the most redefined and brilliantly designed user interface on smartphones, both visually and functionally. Miles ahead of current-gen Android, for example. IMO It's the only interface that had the same 'magic' of iOS through simplicity, yet it was way more powerful. Here's couple of nice animated examples to get a glimpse of it:

http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Opening_and_... http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Backstack_an...

That looks like yet another icon based UI [1]. Not sure what I am missing, but almost all mobile OSes except WP seem to be based off [1].

[1] http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GI...

Honeslty, Windows Phone's UI is a neat concept and very modern and stylish, but I've been using a WP7 phone for over two years now and I have to say - the silhouette icon approach sucks.

Merging icons and widgets? Brillian, Google should've though of that. Simple, modern, flat styling? Fantastic. Monochrome 2-color icons? Do not want.

> It's too bad they didn't continue things with Meego. I would've preferred another open source OS to be the 3rd platform instead of another closed source one.

I really don't want to come across as a shill (I've just made two concurrent posts about this), but have you heard of Sailfish/Jolla? They're basically ex-Nokia engineers trying to reboot Meego/N9-era Nokia smartphones.

This is more about the fall of once strong companies like HTC than Nokia's rise...and the eternal dominance of Apple and Samsung.

But it took that share from Motorola, not the leaders. A better headline would be "Nokia ships more smartphones than Motorola, this quarter."

Nokia: The U.S. or the rest of the world; pick one.

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