Nokia N9 owners are approaching a thousand signatures on a petition asking Nokia to uphold their commitments related to the Nokia N9.
The Finnish phone manufacturer originally promised to maintain, develop, and support the N9’s MeeGo-compatible operating system through 2015. However, the device has not received a software update in nearly a year, and there are glaring software bugs and issues that the company refuses to comment on. The last update was offered in July, 2012, and boasted over 1,000 improvements and fixes.
After committing contractually to launch one MeeGo-compatible device, the carrier signed a deal with Microsoft, widely valued at one billion dollars, to move smartphone development exclusively to the Windows Phone platform. Nokia promised, at the time, to continue supporting N9 owners during this transition, and after sales had halted.
For awhile, Nokia did just that. Nokia ported and released Nokia Maps, complete with new features such as public transit guides and City View. And, the manufacturer released updates that included upstream improvements from the MeeGo standard platform. However, since Nokia’s commitment to a 2015 timeline, changes have taken place. First, Nokia lost its MeeGo development team, which left to form Jolla and continue MeeGo development under the Sailfish banner.
Nokia’s 2015 timeline probably was rooted in keeping a minimalistic internal MeeGo team, as well as backporting future MeeGo developments from the mainline MeeGo branch. That fell apart when Intel disbanded MeeGo (effectively), to form Tizen. Intel and the Linux Foundation have only issued one bugfix release to MeeGo since moving to Tizen, likely to satisfy contracts with netbook manufacturers, which actually did release some MeeGo netbooks in emerging markets.
With no internal development team for the Nokia N9, and no upstream improvements coming to MeeGo, Nokia is understandably challenged to keep its commitment. To do so, would mean hiring an entirely new staff of Linux engineers, and paving a new path for a stillborn platform. Even if they did that, improvements would not be dramatic. Bugs would get fixed, possibly new WebKit performance enhancements included, but nothing dramatic.
There are alternatives that may make N9 owners happy, but would probably anger investors. One option would be to pay Intel to do a Tizen port for the Nokia N9. Intel has the engineers, and the resources to offer a Tizen build.
In a similar vein, Nokia could contract with Jolla to align its Sailfish platform with the N9. Jolla has demonstrated its MeeGo-derived Sailfish on the N9, and clearly has used it as a reference device for development. Nokia and Jolla have a patent sharing arrangement, and there clearly are some communication lines open between the two companies. Many have rumored that a re-acquisition of Jolla by Nokia is the company’s fallback position, should Windows Phone stumble further.
Another option, would be a goodwill buyout for N9 owners. Nokia could offer N9 owners a trade-in program for a Lumia 920, and throw in a wireless charger in exchange for being boxed into Windows Phone’s walled garden.
It wouldn’t be unprecedented. Apple spent many millions of dollars buying back every PowerBook 5300 that they could. Under Steve Jobs’ personal direction, the company offered Wallstreet-era PowerBook G3 models nearly at-cost for handing over PowerBook 5300 units. The trade-in offer was so lucrative, it actually increased the aftermarket value of the PowerBook 5300, by hundreds of dollars.
The fact remains, many, including us here at PhoneNews.com, haven’t forgiven Nokia for what they did to MeeGo. It’s the main reason we haven’t reviewed a single Nokia device since. MeeGo was the shining city on the hill for open source software. It was a native, real time operating system, rooted in Linux, and open; it had no gatekeepers, and it had the walled garden on the run. Microsoft knew this, and bought off accordingly.
It may be wise for Nokia to consider buying back each and every N9 out there. It’s the cheapest way to appease customers who have a darn good reason to feel angry at Steven Elop’s gamble.
The author of this article invested, and lost, tens of thousands of dollars in the construction of a MeeGo connected TV device. He’s currently working, for some reason, on a new one.
I think that Nokia has given more support to these customers than the vast majority of android phones have ever had, also the N9 is not exploding like apples 5300 was. That said, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give the customers a windows phone to replace it, the Windows Mobile OS is the most well balanced in my opinion.
While the PowerBook 5300 did have some “explosive” toxicity, that was before Steve Jobs’ return to Apple. Apple (pre-Jobs) recalled and replaced the Li-ion batteries for the 5300 with NiMH batteries.
Keep in mind, Li-ion at the time was cutting edge tech. Apple did the right thing and replace it with NiMH.
The big problem for Nokia is, the N9 is their 5300. It has left a tainted image for the entire company, long after sales stopped. So what if it got a few updates? Doesn’t matter that it got more than many Android phones. Nokia promised more.
They promised a steady, progressive level of support through 2015. Bugs aren’t fixed. Services are starting to crud out since WebKit isn’t being maintained.
Nokia should either cut a deal with Jolla to get the N9 running Sailfish, or buy the phones back one by one. Anything less will show Steven Elop is no Steven P. Jobs.
I have an N9. It’s the best smartphone Nokia has ever produced. The UX with MeeGo is great. I’m happy with it. Yes, it want Nokia to update the software.
I have zero interest in Windows Phone and would not accept a Lumia 920 trade-in.
Please don’t post stuff that has little to no basis in knowledge/fact, you’ve done this a few times in the past too.
The MeeGo initiative falling apart had zero to do with weakening support from Nokia, the only similarity Harmattan shared with MeeGoCE, was that there was an ABI binary compatibility layer, that’s it. Support dropped-off simply because Nokia reneged on it’s promise to maintain strong & consistent support (which it alluded to several times, at all levels of management).
It had originally planned a large long-term contract to continue with at least one more major release beyond 1.3, but that was dropped at the last minute last year, instead & much smaller contract was inserted + a tiny team was maintained within Nokia, instead of being disbanded completely.
Also, the vast majority of the Harmattan team didn’t just spontaneously leave to form Sailfish/Jolla. The only reason they weren’t there for future releases, is because Nokia decided not to keep them, you make it sound like Nokia had no choice because everyone decided to leave, that’s not the case, most were given redundancies.
“as well as backporting future MeeGo developments from the mainline MeeGo branch.”
No that would never have occurred, once Nokia was out in Feb. the project was a dead man walking, work for MeeGo handsets had barely even started by that point, as the idea was to evolve from Harmattan to MeeGo proper by approx Q3 2012. Intel pulling out had little appreciable effect, as it was never doing much towards handsets anyway. If Nokia had continued strong support, it would’ve been support based solely on Harmattan, “even if” real MeeGo had continued (which was always extremely unlikely after Feb 11). If Nokia hadn’t killed-off future meego devices, then sure, a port (community or otherwise) of real meego to harmattan devices would most likely have occurred, but that was not to be.
Your own comments conflict with one another.
Nokia’s statements for continued support for the N9 obviously hinged on Intel sojourning on with MeeGo. Whether or not that was a realistic assumption is irrelevant, it was the assumption Nokia clearly made in committing to a long-term support timeline… especially if they were canning most of their MeeGo team. Having a MeeGo-compatible platform would have allowed them to pull apps and services from upstream, adapt them, and integrate them with Harmattan.
I’d poke more holes, but you were quite crass in claiming I’m not aware of the situation, and I have better things to do right now.
P.S. Obviously Nokia canned the MeeGo team, something we’ve reported on extensively in the past. Nothing in the article conflicted with that. References to Sailfish were referring to the core/instrumental team members, who Nokia obviously appreciates as a backup plan, considering they were willing to license patents and allow for Sailfish to develop in a sheltered environment.
nokia n9 sucks big time,it does not consists of whatsapp unlike nokia lumia and the ashas,so i wasted my money thought i will get better software,i used to be a reliable customer for nokia,but with this so called smartphone!i am not getting what i have paid for,PLEASE NOKIA PEOPLE FIX THE PROBLEM
If you’re srsly basing how good a entire OS is on one popular (but highly questionable) app, then there’s not much going on upstairs. Aside from that, it’s well-known that the community developed app Wazapp is in-fact better than the official version on most platforms. “However” in the last few mths dev has slowed, & Whatsapp on the other major platforms (iOS/Android) is “finally” (only recently) reaching feature parity.
“Nokia’s statements for continued support for the N9 obviously hinged on Intel sojourning on with MeeGo.:
It had zero to do with that, Nokia was driving the handset side of things, when it pulled out of meego, meego for handsets was dead. The plan was always to use harmattan for at least one more generation. Pulling out of meego proper had zero impact on them being able to provide support for harmattan longer-term, zero. But continue to just invent stuff, by all means…
“who Nokia obviously appreciates as a backup plan, considering they were willing to license patents and allow for Sailfish to develop in a sheltered environment.”
This is more pure conjecture, they’ve already clarified this in countless interviews now…
They are not in any way some kind of secret backup plan, nor are they in some kind of unofficial alliance with Nokia.
[whatsapp for N9] http://www.openwhatsapp.org/download/N9
noki we n9 users need ur help
Nice (pointless) necro…
Read the comments here by Saul, they’re “on the money”.
The article here has “veins of accuracy/truth”.
Saul is incorrect that Nokia was not in a relationship with Jolla. They are. You may disagree with the extent, but they have acknowledged the fact. In any event, most of the points here are idle bickering that has been hashed out.
So here’s the follow-up: Nokia is selling their devices and services division to Microsoft. Should that deal close, I’m sure Microsoft will use their coffers to honor Nokia’s commitment for N9 updates through 2015.
And, with that, our latest threaded comments testing patch appears to have been successful.
The “relationship” was nothing more then a fancy redundancy scheme, which is common for that type of industry, esp. in that country/region. Some journos were claiming that it was a longer-term strategic relationship, Saul has so far proven to be 100% right that it was not.
“, I’m sure Microsoft will use their coffers to honor Nokia’s commitment for N9 updates through 2015. ”
Heh, that’s a good one, hilarious…
“And, with that, our latest threaded comments testing patch appears to have been successful.”
Huh?
We just implemented threaded comments, I only bothered to reply to test it out. We stand by what we reported, and Jolla certainly hasn’t refuted any of our reporting. Nokia declined to comment.
We have always forecasted that Steven Elop’s Plan A was an acquisition by Microsoft – in fact, if you go back, you’ll see we were one of the first (if not the first) to say that.
Elop has a duty to the shareholders to have a Plan B, and Android/Jolla strategies clearly are those Plan B’s – primarily in case regulators reject the Microsoft acquisition of Nokia Devices. Nowhere did we say Jolla was a “Plan A” for Nokia, in fact, we stated the exact opposite.
P.S. It’s journalist, not “journo”.
Oh THAT’s the only reason you bothered to reply, I see…
Jolla HAS refuted suggestions in the media that they were in some sort of alliance, they’ve done that a number of times now, ages ago. They’ve stated pleasantries & happiness to work with Nokia, of course they would, but that’s where things concrete begin/end (aside from the redundancy system in place).
Oh wow, amazing crystal ball there… jk ;-P
Android has turned out to be pretty solidly their “plan B”, but it was prolly never really executed with “absolute conviction”, it was more of a stick/carrot to ensure M$ was more motivated to move ahead with an acquisition.
Cheers
P.S.
I prefer journo 😉
“Jolla HAS refuted suggestions in the media that they were in some sort of alliance, they’ve done that a number of times now, ages ago.”
Tried to find where they have before, not having any luck, I’ve gotten in touch with Stefano (CTO/founder), I’m sure they have publicly confirmed they’re not on “at least” one occasion.
Of course, things can & do change, they’d be silly to rule-out being in a close alliance “ever”, but the suggestions that they’ve been one more-or-less since the outset, are just plain wrong.
correction:
…but the suggestions that they’ve been one more-or-less since the outset, are just plain wrong.
==>
…but the suggestions that they’ve been in one more-or-less since the outset, are just plain wrong.
Jolla accepted Nokia’s patent offer. That is not in dispute. Jolla did not state what they needed to offer in return. They have made publicity statements that they are not in some sort of standing relationship with Nokia – which may be a fair assessment.
But, Nokia didn’t just willingly offer up patent sharing agreements with nothing in return. To say they gave that away out of charity, is ridiculous.
And, while certainly Android has curried more favor in Nokia today as the final Plan B candidate over Sailfish, doesn’t refute our reporting. It simply shows how quickly Android has become the world’s dominant operating system over the past eighteen months alone… as well as the uphill struggle anyone has in trying to compete with Android today. Ask BlackBerry.
Nope, the gifting thing at the time was a complete furfy, Nokia/Jolla later came out & publicly denied gifting of patents, the bridge program was conflated/confused with the giving of patents, the latter did not happen:
http://www.techradar.com/au/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/nokia-refutes-meego-patents-gift-to-jolla-1088426
http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-gifts-meego-patents-to-jolla-startup-10237812/
http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/10/3148663/nokia-jolla-sharing-meego-patents
Nokia’s statements are splitting hairs a bit. Nokia won’t answer if their Bridge program provided patent shielding, a common form of patent licensing.
Essentially, Jolla doesn’t own the patent (nor did we infer or mean to infer that), but if Jolla were to be sued, Jolla would have access to Nokia’s patents as a defensive measure, or leverage it in counter-litigation against whomever sued Jolla.
Nokia obviously declined to comment when we got that close to the deal.
To be clear, you’re completely entitled to speculate, but make it abundantly clear that that’s all you’re doing, & that you don’t have any hard facts at hand.
The only “fact” relating to this subject we have, is that both parties have said publicly several times quite clearly, that there was/is no IP gifting.
To settle this once & for all, I’m quite happy to approach Jolla’s leadership & ask them to once again confirm that there was no gifting of any of Nokia’s formidable IP portfolio.
They’re surprisingly frank/open/transparent compared much larger org’s, but that’s backfired on them in several ways, so they’ve tempered that approach somewhat lately.
Oh c’mon now, just admit you’re wrong & Saul was right, people aren’t always right…
No need to concoct a load of baloney to cover your statements, they made it very clear that no IP was provided. It did come out MUCH later that Jolla has “licensed” (no gifting!) the Nokia HERE platform, but even that was only a subset of HERE.
If they had all that wonderful IP protection, why haven’t they been more aggressive about going into NA sooner? They’ve stated in numerous occasions that the IP regime is one of the primary reasons they’re taking it very carefully/slowly before entering that region, & hence are focussing more on others 1st.
“they made it very clear that no IP was provided” = both parties
i am very satisfied from my N9 and i will never replace it with any wp device, maybe i replace it with a jolla device. so i think the only way nokia have to fix this problem is to make adeal with jolla company to port sailfish completly to N9. or maybe there will be legal war between nokia and N9 users.