I highly doubt Apple will pass Nokia in 2012, what do you think?

[...] to find itself with WebOS I doubt Apple will pass up Nokia. … See the original post: I highly doubt Apple will pass Nokia in 2012, what do you think … var addthispub = ”; var addthislanguage = ‘en’;var addthis_options = ‘email, favorites, digg, [...]

I think is the second time you mention the Symbian Foundation being a linux based OS… That doesn’t make sense?!? Symbian Foundation is Symbian based not linux. Nokia’s Maemo tablet platform is linux based, but it is not part of the Symbian Foundation’s upcoming Symbian OS. Please correct me or yourself if I’m/You’re wrong.

Nokia is in DEEP **** after N97, Get a new improved OS or die in smartphone market.

Sorry Rafael, I kept saying Linux-based when my intent was to say open source. I updated my post to reflect the correct nomenclature and won’t make the error again

Miller ur living in your fantasy world. Nokia is dying. You say palm will not survive due to cash, stfu palm will eats nokia lunch. The only 3 major players is apple rim and palm.

[...] Miller by at our sibling site, NokiaExperts, takes issue with a prediction that Nokia will drop to 20% while Apple and the iPhone soar to 35% [...]

Sorry I don’t think its half as crazy as you seem to think it is. As far as Smartphones go, Nokia has lost a serious amount of ground to Apple and just about everyone else.

The problem for Nokia is once people switch to the competition and are happy with the service they’re getting its really hard to get them back and the fact is Apple’s ecosystem is top notch. The combination of iTunes Store and the App Store and a smooth system to understand OS is what makes people go to the iPhone, even if they’re the type of people that don’t like the slab form factor that the iPhone offers.

From what I can see, RIM, Apple and HTC will continue to eat away at Nokia’s smartphone market share and even if Apple doesn’t pass Nokia by the year this writer predicts it does seem likely that it wont be more than a year or two off.

Remember one thing, even Palm was on top at one point.

The consultancy is ignoring one trend that has come to light with the iPhone 3Gs. Apple is starting to exagerate the incompatibility between the different variants of iPhones. The software that takes advantage of the new graphics architecture in the 3Gs is not backwards compatible with past iPhones. In North America, where we have a huge “spend and dispose” mentality this helps Apple churn product. The rest of the world is more “value” oriented and this slitting of compatibility, the phone OS, the app store, will not sit well with consumers who will be felt left behind with the only upgrade path being ” buy a new one”.

The one thing that allowed Apple take a leadership position is that they were a greenfield competitor, that advantage is starting to errode. Sorry Apple Fan Boys but the 3Gs is more the end of Apples dominance, then the begining.

[...] Miller by at our sibling site, NokiaExperts, takes issue with a prediction that Nokia will drop to 20% while Apple and the iPhone soar to 35% [...]

Or Nokia join to Android or it’s die, soon!

Problem is Nokia should have been way out in front with an App store, with an easy, cheap, end-to-end, development/deployment/distribution/payment platform, with an ecosystem of peripherals that work with every model and music and movies and TV shows and podcasts but now they are WAY, WAY behind.

Yes there are differences between the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, but they are not as difficult to manage as the differences between some 200 models of cell phones Nokia currently has listed as available on the Cnet website for sale in the US. And now they are going to support yet another OS with Intel Atom chips?

And BTW, Apple has allowed it’s original iPhone owners to easily (and freely) upgrade to OS 3.0 and most of the 50,000 apps still work on the original iPhone. How many Symbian upgrades have there been in the last two years, how easy was it to upgrade, did your telco actually allow you to upgrade and how many people have actually done it? The 3GS doesn’t do anything any other company would do. Use the latest tech at a reasonable price point. What is Apple supposed to do? Use the same chips for the next ten years? Not add GPS or a digital compass? Not add dedicated graphics chip? Leave out video capability for a few more years? Duh?

The more fundamental problem is that in less than 2 years, Apple has created an $5 billion dollar revenue juggernaut with HUGE profit margins. Meanwhile, Nokia’s market share has dropped like a rock, for the first quarter, 2009, Nokia’s profits dropped 90% and the OVI store launch was considered not just a disaster but a complete disaster. And remember the N-Gage? Me neither.

I used to work as a market research analyst in the mobile field. While it is virtually impossible to predict the smartphone market, I feel relatively certain that Apple will not pass up Nokia within the next few years (barring some huge changes).

While I agree with those saying that Symbian has been passed up by newer operating systems, one thing that cannot be ignored is that it is still the most popular mobile OS on the planet and that is in large part due to its versatility. Apple has something innovative going but the iPhone has not yet done well in China and India, which I think would be necessary for this prediction to have any chance of happening.

I love the premise of the article: Nokia is moving forward with Symbian, but Apple is standing still with a single iPhone form factor. Are you really that deluded?

Apple has shown every sign of innovating at a faster pace than Nokia. Other form factors are coming, just like they did with the iPod. The only question is how quickly the iPhone manages to penetrate some markets (like China) where Nokia has a big presence. But ultimately the only question is when, not if Apple overtakes Nokia in the smartphone market.

@Ted

I don’t think you know what you are talking about, Apple will innovate further and further away from the crowd.

It is their innovation that turn the smartphone market on its head and every maker is following their lead even Palm.

BTW it is their ease of use software that makes the difference in the iPhone and older phone can be upgraded with the its latest software. Can you say this for the other makes.

The assumption that to upgrade is to buy the latest also holds true for the rest of the field because of the latest features. And Apple is also controlling the whole widget – hardware and software.

I’ll say this, Apple for the most part made some in roads, but I would not say the dominate the market, maybe here in the US they do, but that’s not because of features the phone offers. We know that nokia already excels in hardware features (i.e. camera, wifi, battery length, etc.) if it’s a matter of OS, then I would rather take a wait and see perspective, symbian becoming open source can lead to phenomena’s like firefox, which develop strong followings and better innovation. Apple is very closed off from the world, unless it is in their lab, it does exist. User input is limited (I own a macbook, OSX is nice, but the more I think about it the more I want a linux OS cause it is more open and customizable). If Apple succeeds it won’t be because of the IPhone 3Gs or whatever, it will be because they open up development (however I do not see that ever happening). My thought is Nokia is ahead of other companies, they have developed more ways for users to participate, no matter their technical level, apple fails that.

I agree with the author, it is ridiculous and impossible to predict the smartphone market in 2012. The only interesting thing from that consultancy’s report is that Nokia makes most of its money on commodity phones, not smartphones. Where did they get that info?

Having said that, can you tell me how the new Open Symbian OS will differ from the current Symbian OS?

As for Ted’s comment, it’s nonsensical. So what, Apple has a 3GS phone with greater graphic capabilities that might fragment their software market between having better graphics and not. The only apps affected are likely to be games. You either can run your games with better shading and whatnot, or not. It won’t disable your gameplay, it’ll just give you better framerates and shades, etc. And think about it, if poor Apple has fragmentation with just two types of handset specs, then what about Nokia, with its hundreds of handsets. Which is always going to be more fragmented? Seriously nonsensical rubbish.

@Stephen, nothing stops you from putting Linux on your Macbook. And, while customization appeals to you, it does not appeal to the vast majority of the marketplace which only wants a computer to work. If open development is so popular then why is Linux struggling on the desktop.

@AdamC Gimme a feature that is on the iphone that has not been on a nokia

@Ted “Gimme a feature that is on the iphone that has not been on a nokia”

A usable operating system? An entire user-friendly eco system including iTunes store/software? If you have to ask, you clearly have never touched an iPhone. Compared to OS X, Symbian is a joke.

If you want feature check lists, I am sure that even Windows Mobile has a longer one than the iPhone. Too bad few of them are usable, which is why WinMo has already been left in the dust, and Nokia/Symbian will be as well. Going open source doesn’t help if you don’t have developer mind share or a working app. market. As someone posted above, Nokia’s best hope is to ditch Symbian for Android.

I think the thing most people are forgetting about is Nokia’s move to Maemo for their high end (n & e series phones) and moving symbian to the mid and low end. The maemo platform should address their touch-screen deficiencies that they have had with s60 and will give them an easier platform to create apps with for developers.

secondly, everybody doesn’t want TS only and this is where nokia is strong with their diverse product portfolio. Some people prefer qwerty candybars like the e71, or just candybars in general like the n82, n79.

also, while apple has had strong success in the US and UK, it hasn’t done as well everywhere else, mainly eastern europe, russia, china and india.

to think that nokia is “dying” is way off base considering their brand loyalty, distribution channel, and hardware.

hopefully people will be singing a different tune one the n900 rolls out in sept/oct.

The clear trend is from featurephone to smartphone. In 2010, the projection is for about 250M smartphone sales out of 1.2B phones. By 2013, it’ll be over 400M smartphones.

Nokia has dominated both in the past, and will likely continue to dominate in featurephones. But Nokia is rapidly falling behind in smartphones because of its software (including OS/UI, app development system, and software-driven ecosystem like iTunes/App Store), and its slowness in remedying its deficiency.

Thus, in terms of revenue and profit from phone sales, Apple will likely pass Nokia. In terms of phones sold, likely not for a long time, if ever.

The one thing I will say as a loyal Nokia user is this. After an n95, an n95 8gb, an e71 and now the n97 – I am starting to appreciate my ipod touch. I still think the keyboard and AT&T will prevent me from even thinking about the current iteration of iphone, but the gap is closing fast. When Apple figures out that multitasking, flash websites and NOT being on AT&T are important to some people, I may start listening.

My biggest problem with nokia now is that I just bought a $700 n97 (from Amazon -thanks for the 30 day retuen policy) and the damn thing has a crapload of issues, some of which are so basic I want to scream. Ringtones not working everytime, speed dial not working, backlighting issues, voice recognition, pathetic email program – the list grows by the day. The issue of the email program really irks me becuase the defense that most Nokia-ites give is that it’s not an E-series device. SO WHAT! You put a slick-*** QWERTY on a $700 cellphone and don’t give me a proper email program. And before anybody tells me about the Nokia Messaging – I know about it. I use it daily and it is still full of holes on the n97 even though on the e71 it rocked plenty well. No HTML support or an email icon on email in the year 2009??!!!

I want so much to love it, I love the keyboard and build. But the experience of it makes you have to be a loyal Nokia freak becuase you can’t really have to justify so much work to use a damn cellphone in the first month. I mean really, a firmware update a weak (pun intended) after release?

The Ovi store is another debacle. New Coke all over again. It is as if nobody at Nokia owns an ipod. Did they really think that this would be acceptable to the legions of s60 followers who I believe are far from the standard iphone neophyte? It couldn’t be more of an embarrasment.

I am so frustrated with this situation that I haven’t decided yet about the fate of my n97.

Thanks for letting me vent.

@Bill

Do your firmware upgrade, and support application developers get profimail…you will never look back.(pls don’t moan “$700 bucks I should get it for free” that is what keeps the S60 “ecosystem” [puke...] small, the majority of the world expects it to come free with the hardware – not to buy another app!

@Milan

Get your facts straight S60 is the OS and not the UI. Nokia controls their own version of the UI that sits on Symbian … Symbian is super robust, it even has demonstrated SMP support in future versions of Symbian OS that will use multiple CPU cores. I guess OSX is waiting for advances like this to be able to cut & paste, type a text message and listen to music -at the same time.

This will absolutely not happen anytime soon. Why? Because within a couple of years all but the very cheapest Nokia phones will be considered smartphones.

However, I don’t think Nokia will ever again dominate the high end category like they did in 2007. Nokia will play their part in the future of computing, but it won’t be the driving force, more an also-ran. Pace setters for the next 3 years will be Apple, Google and Microsoft. Palm will be lucky to make it till the end of 2010 and RIM may not survive much past 2013, they simply do not have what it takes.

So, in terms of smartphone sales figures, I think Nokia will rule for another 5 years or more. But when it comes to pocket computers… Hmm, we’ll see.

[...] I highly doubt Apple will pass Nokia in 2012, what do you think? [...]

I don’t understand many of the comments here.. Apple outside the US is nothing. Please, the US is not the center of the world and it is not who tells the trends in the global market. The iPhone is a trend, a US trend only. In Europe, Asia or South America the stores only have 1 or 2 iPhone in stock and lots of Nokia, LG and Samsung…Wonder why… If Nokia is going to be overtaken i’m sure that is going to be by LG or Samsung….Apple, Rim, Android are not to mass market…

What should scare nokia: Apple’s aware of iPhone weaknesses and has plans to overcome them. Nokia should hire some ex-apple person to lead them out of the wilderness, that worked for Palm. They took the big dare and scraped their PalmOS. nokia makes fine hardware-but that is half the game, maybe less. Your hardware can be mediocre but with a hot OS. iPhone is really a mini-mini netbook.

@Ted,

I appreciate the whole developer issue as I have bought many apps that I use frequently (worldmate, xplore etc.) My problem is that I did the firmware update and I STILL have problems. Not gamechanging problems, but problems that are so inexcusable that it borders on arrogance by Nokia. Problems like firmware updates are undermining the credibility and usability of these phones for the mainstream. My e71 has had an update available for a week or so but the installer is failing everytime I try and update it! I have seen on other forums that this is a common issue. What is going on with them?

As for moaning about $700, what the hell are you talking about? It’s a boatload of cash to have gaping holes in the native apps on board the phone. I use profimail, but I am not that fond of it aesthetically. It is very functional I grant you and it has been the solution to the problem, but we shouldn’t have to take the phone out of the box and replace applications as basic as email,calendar etc. I don’t think many iphone users (or Android, or Palm users) have to immediately replace their email apps with 3rd party software. That’s all I’m saying. It seems like Nokia is OK with taking us, the loyal users, for granted. You may want to stay with it all , as I probably will, but you don’t have to be so damned happy about it.I think in the end that I will be keeping my n97 as I love having the functionality of big screen and multitasking, but I am missing some things from my e71. I hope that some upcoming firmware updates fix my remaining issues as happened with n95.

I don’t mean to sound antagonsitic towards you, I am just a bit frustrated right now

Now, maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think that Nokia 40% share is due to its 600$or more phones. I don’t know about the US market, but here in Europe the majority of people DON’T want to spend the money necessary to have an iphone, they just want a mobile phone to make, you know what?, phone calls and sms (even mms are something almost never used). And if you want to do that Nokia phones are still the best, and I’m talking about sub 300$ phones.

A few months ago my mother needed a new simple phone which costed less than 150€ (approximately 200$). We went to a shop and I made her try a few different phones from samsumg, lg and Nokia. Guess what? She just chose a Nokia because “this one is the easier to use and the voice during a call is the most clear”.

So, is Nokia going to loose market share? probably yes. Is nokia going to die? Absolutely not, because there are still A LOT of people who just want to use a phone as a phone and nothing else, and in this category Nokia is still simply the best.

I love Nokia. Nokia makes great devices but it lets AT&T RUIN them. We get a Nokia from ATT and spend days, sometimes weeks to clean up ATT bloatware or try to debrand it. People like freedom and options. They don’t want ATT telling them which options of the phone they can use which they can’t.

As long as Nokia is submissive to the U.S. carrier, they won’t get anywhere near Iphone in U.S. market.

People talk about iphone apps like it is something newly invented. I used to use all sorts of s60 apps even 5 years ago on my old Nokia 6600. What happened?? What happened is Nokia couldn’t turn these apps into profit. They couldn’t create an interface where it is easy to download these apps. You have to be a Phone Geek(almost everybody reading this forum.)to downlod and install these apps. Look at Iphone, it is so easy your grandma can download and install an app.Plus the genius Apple marketing…

Go on Nokia, continue letting U.S. carriers RUIN your great phones. Your only customers will be us, PHONE GEEKS. A few people would pay the full price and order an unbranded phone from Nokia. that is not where your big money is.

Apple and Android will be leaders, Rim or WebOS will be third – those are the mobile platforms that will matter. Nokia should immediately switch to Android

[...] Miller over at our sibling site, NokiaExperts, takes issue with a prediction that Nokia will drop to 20% while Apple and the iPhone soar to 35% [...]

@Bill

No worries…I feel your pain. I have a N-85, E-71, N810, 5800xm… and I did the foolish thing of loading ALL my favorite S60 software on the N97 when I first got it- EVEN if the installer told me that the software was incompatible with my phone. Guess what I was miserable. The N97 is the first Nokia that I have used that is very sensitive to non 5th edition software. Consider going back to a clean slate and only installing apps that are compatible, and if they are not a native 5th ed load then 1 at a time and check that it does not cause problems. Update profimail the new bubble on hover is brilliant (5th ed features). Ted

Ted,

just wanted to tell you that By the way the rest of the world change phones much faster than the US does, as much as a new phone every year. They are not bound by contracts and therefore by the phone at full value. In fact people easily pay more than US$600 for a new phone every year. It is more a fashion accessory than a communications device and owning the latest and greatest is a status symbol.

[...] Miller over at our sibling site, NokiaExperts, takes issue with a prediction that Nokia will drop to 20% while Apple and the iPhone soar to 35% [...]

Apple doesn’t have enough models to compete with other handset companies. One design fits all doesn’t seem a way to pull a large number of users. Although I’m against it, the iPhone should have at least one physical keyboard model which would most likely be a horizontal slider type. Apple also needs more than one U.S. carrier which I’m sure will happen in the next year or so. Right now Apple isn’t really set to surpass either company that’s ahead of it, especially RIM which will do anything to keep it’s sales higher than the iPhone and it should be relatively easy with so many models of BlackBerrys, so many carriers and combined consumer and corporate sales.

Apple only builds products their way and consumers are just bent to the Apple way. I just don’t think Apple can continue to bend consumers past a certain point and that would be about the 40% market share mark. I think Apple has done remarkably well with the iPhone in such a short time, but I just don’t think Apple is flexible enough to please the majority of handset users.

I think Nokia will continue to slide in smartphone market share because even though their handset have fine hardware, they probably need to revamp the OS and change their stodgy image like they did for the XpressMusic handset. RIM is definitely going to be above Nokia in market share in a couple of years.

[...] Miller over at our sibling site, NokiaExperts, takes issue with a prediction that Nokia will drop to 20% while Apple and the iPhone soar to 35% [...]

@Muthir Yes Look at my post to Bill… 5 brand new nokia’s in the last 7 months. Living in the USA I have not owned a locked “carrier” phone since 2001.

Here the N97 is a status symbol. I work at the global HQ of a major Pharma company and everytime the white N97 comes out the crackberry addicts turn green with envy.

I second Ted’s notion here. I am getting a new phone every year (if I’m lucky to last that long). It’s an addiction, no question. I have the white n97 and peoples jaws drop when you flip it open (as they did when I had my Treo 650, 680, n95 and then the e71).

I don’t really think contracts deter people from getting new phones. From my experience, when people want a new phone they just go get it and then extend the contract out from the time they start the new phone ownership. Look at the iphone. All those people are on conracts and they can’t wait in lines long enough to upgrade to the next iteration. Let’s not pretend European tastes are so above the rest of the world. USA has people who appreciate these fine shiny new toys as well and want the next greatest, prettiest one too.

apple will pass nokia in 2012, nokia really needs a better UI than what they have now, im no apple fan but i do like nokias, but a lot of people prefer the iphone over the nokia anyday, does nokia even have an app store?

Don’t forget that to some people, its not about the hardware. its about the experience that we get from the total package. And when we are talking about experience, its only as good as its weakest link. That’s why, I’m not a fan of the symbian nokia phones, although I own one (e90), I just leave it at home, (coz honestly, I’m not sure what the designers were thinkin when they were designing the keyboard- its too wide to be used by my thumbs, but puttin it on a table and try to type it with my index fingers is not comfortable nor fast either). I go thru my daily life with a RIM phone, just for the fact that (IMO) it gives me a better experience. I don’t care if the e90 has better processing power (or potential?) than my BB, coz in my experience , the BB helps me to do what I need to do faster and in a more comfortable way.

What’s my post got to do with this thread is to help us to see the whole thing from the perspective of the average user/potential customer.

I asked my sister if she wants to use my e90, but, she opted to stay with her I phone 2G. Her reason? The experience she gets from her I phone.

I offered my 58 year old mum to use my E90, she used it for a couple of days, and then she chose to get back to her moto Q. For my mum a phone is only for calling and sms. According to dear mum, the slim Q with its small qwerty serves that purpose better than the E90.

We are living in Indonesia guys, and that’s how we see our phones. Now Imagine how much people in the rest of the world thinks as we do, and the prediction quoted in the beginning of this thread doesn’t seem too far strecthed anymore. At least not if nokia doesn’t change the way they design their smart phones.

[...] I highly &#100&#111ub&#116 Appl&#101 w&#105ll pass N&#111k&#105a &#105n 2012 [...]

i think nokia they are doing good after relasing n900 not the n97 but the phone still need lot of improvment but when you comprate to nokia phone for me it’s the best phone made by nokia till today. Nokia they have one big problem OVI STORE they need to make a new store it least 50% of i phone