Nokia putting foot down on Maemo, won't allow carrier customizations
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 9th 2009 4:09PM
posted Sep 9th 2009 4:09PM
[Via Phone Scoop]
posted Sep 9th 2009 4:09PM
Number of applications downloaded from the iPhone App Store
After hitting a historic 1 billion downloads, Apple says the store cleared another half a billion apps in the following three months.
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Thats a good move by Nokia!! Thumbs up!!
AMEN!!!
i was afraid tmobile wuld take off the video conferencing abilities and the extra camera on the front..... guess not :)
Yeah, but there's still no guarantee they'll subsidize it either.
Well if anyone is planning on going to AT&T there is an easy way around the disadvantages of their increased plan cost due to subsidizing the phone. I considered doing this recently when my wife was pissed off at Sprint(and her Pre) and was threatening to leave them. I said "We can leave them, but we have to go to AT&T" She said "I HATED AT&T, we'll just be staying with Sprint then." Either way here was my plan.
There were two of us, me and my wife. Both of us get iphone 3GS 32gb models. Right now the auction on a 32gb iphone 3gs black is going for $770 after 18 bids. So lets run with that price. So two of those purchased at $299 is $598 total investment, and a potential sales price of $1,540. Which makes for a profit of $942, or $471 per phone. You're still bound into the 2 year contract per line, but that makes for a pretty good budget for buying an unlocked phone. I was thinking of going out and picking up a Nokia E63 Blue off Newegg for $199 free shipping, no tax. Which means after having a new unlocked uncrappified E63 I'd be up $272. Or I was considering running with a Nokia 5800 at $279 free shipping no tax. Which would have made for a profit of $192. Either way, I'm making money. The only problem would be to find a phone my wife would like unlocked. N900! :) Besides the fact that we then could have sold her Pre on ebay too...
I will have to hold off the pre-order a bit longer until this is confirmed. My biggest concern was/is that T-Mobile will botch this whole N900 business. My contract is up in 2 weeks and I plan on getting this phone whether or not T-Mobile subsidizes it, only difference is, T-Mobile holds on to me for 2 more years if they do subsidize it and stay away from watering it down.
So is this coming to TMO or not?
It's about damn time! Good for you Nokia. Next up S60... All we have to do is hope that someone is willing to play along and pick it up.
I don't know if T-Mobile will pick this up (although I cannot imagine why it wouldn't) but one thing we should recognize is that T-Mo doesn't have the same history that AT&T does of crippling Nokia devices.
I would care about this, but it doesn't have standard North American 3G, just that random ass T-Mo band. Low-rank me if you want, but I would rather use a carrier that doesn't roam on AT&T's GSM network and charge for it.
And I'm not going with a network where I have to pay extra just for a phone that will roam on a GSM network. I'd rather have native GSM/3G UMTS/HSPA.
What are you talking about? T-mobile roams on ATT's 2G network for free.
@jim: Fair enough. I've had friends on T-Mo who have had different experiences, but ok. Fair enough.
it's good that it won't have any carrier's branding
I hate branding anyway
it also means the phone will come as unlocked for sure
All phones should be this way.
T-Mob's one of the largest carriers overseas, so they are not Random, just not as well known as AT&T and Verizon in the states.
Chris Ziegler, this article seems to prove that you have no knowledge whatsoever of what the world of mobile is outside of North America. Because if you did, you'd know Nokia's not trying to "catch up" to what "the iPhone and Android are doing" - Nokia's already been doing it way, way before the iPhone was even born. Sure, Symbian's been customized for a few operators to strike deals with them, but then again the iPhone is exclusive to only one carrier. Apple isn't any kind of a pioneer of openness - they're the exact opposite.
Chris, know this, for example: in Asia about 80 percent of phones are sold unlocked, independently of a carrier, and in Europe 70 percent. In the US of A, only 5 percent of phones are sold unlocked. Nokia's policy throughout their history has been to generally not conform to operators' demands to customize and alter their devices. That policy has cost them a few deals with the operators in North America, but for a long time they didn't really need to give a shit because they could rule in all the rest of the world instead and North America was trailing behind everybody else anyways. That is now changing, yes, and Nokia's changed over the years, too, but to say that Nokia is only now somehow becoming this way, saying no to operators only now, is like saying "I know nothing about this and that's why I write about it."
Engadget must love Palm ($$) because Apple was the first and main hardware maker to 'stick it to the man', not Palm...