Nokia launches a trio of Android platform phones | Hacker News Reader

Nokia launches a trio of Android platform phones

arstechnica.com

28 pointsghosh17 comments

I wondered how long it would take for Microsoft to basically make their own Android phone with MS only services on it. This is the beauty of open source. This is actually I think a good thing and it sort of reminds me of Apple having the X86 OS X build in the background and finally releasing it. It's not quite the same deal as Android is not replacing Windows Phone anytime soon, but it's an interesting way for Nokia to keep pace in key markets they need to be in.

Poor Peter Bright, he must be so confused.

And poor Google, for the most exciting Android handsets don't have their services on them.

I really don't get why they have done this.

Anyone care to explain how this works/will work with the whole MS purchase?

> The Nokia X range will run the Andrcusoid Open Source Project (AOSP) operating system, but without Google's stack on top of it. Instead, it'll have a Nokia store, Microsoft services, and a custom front-end.

Classic microsoft embrace and extend. Also : they look horrible.

Without the Android app ecosystem via the Play Store it isn't really Android anymore. Same way I don't really see the Kindle Fire series as Android devices either.

I honestly don't get why they are still going ahead with these devices either with the Microsoft deal pretty much done and dusted. Nokia should have got into the Android game (and I mean real Android) a long time ago.

Or ported these phones to Sailfish OS. People are going to buy these then wonder why they can't install any apps. They won't know to install CWM or TWR recovery and install Gapps and Nokia probably can't legally suggest it either.

> I honestly don't get why they are still going ahead with these devices either with the Microsoft deal pretty much done and dusted.

Why do almost everybody that announces a migration to Linux announce it? (A hint: entities that migrate do not announce beforehand.)

They certainly are talking about the details of the deal, and don't want to look completely subservient.

To most people a phone is a phone. Yes they know iPhones are made with apples. Everything else is largely noise. Downloading apps is a form of entertainment - which store is not critical to enjoyment.

App stores are not the future. The future of mobile is that I can show you an app. If you like it, I 'send' you a copy and you complete the transaction via the app developer's mechanism which might be facilitated by some processing infrastructure. The future resolves to PayPal and Visa and Amazon not iTunes.

These are the early days when IBM's business was selling punchards on leased equipment.

> Andrcusoid

How such a beautiful typo manage to go unnoticed on a website like Ars is beyond me.

Microsoft may had started that, but embrace-extend-extinguish is now primarily associated with Google.

Either way, the party at loss are the consumers.

Nokia offers high-end smartphones based on Windows Phone, and low-end ones based on the Asha platform. With this, they fill the gap in the middle.

So the 520 was not "middle"?

Rather this Nokia X is (will / should be) replacing touchscreen Asha entirely on Nokia's low-end smartphones.

I have one of the new Asha touchscreen phones, the Asha 501. It's a quite pretty little device with some excellent UI ideas... But the whole is marred by the limitations and poor performance of the Series 40 + Java ME software platform.

MS doesn't yet own Nokia. Someone may correct me if I'm wrong but I believe neither MS nor Nokia can legally operate, or cooperate, as if the merger were to go through. Therefore this just Nokia operating independently, I guess for it's own self-interest.

Also, these phones have been in development for a while. If anything they took what they had and slapped the MSFT services on top.

It's very difficult to understand, especially considering that Windows Phone 8 runs pretty well on comparable low-end hardware (e.g. Lumia 520)

Unless these models persist under Microsoft, I can only assume that it's some last rogue action of the independent Nokia.

It's still a shame that they didn't put something with the quality of the 920 or 925 out with Android :/.

Lumia 520 isn't low-end hardware, it's just being sold at a low-end hardware price (and only in some countries). Big difference.

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