Nokia Blogged, Nokia news, reviews information and more

A couple of weeks ago, Nokia announced that it is planning on releasing an Android smart phone. The concept just sits there, and Nokia’s fans seem to be thinking of a move in a different direction than the mobile phone manufacturer.

In a recent community event in the Nokia Conversations Blog site, the Finnish mobile phone maker announced that it will be launching a new smart phone and that the initial decisions will be determined by the public. The specifications have already been voted upon and now, there are three concept designs that people can choose from for the upcoming mobile phone.

There is no doubt that all of the three designs from Nokia are far from just concept sketches, these three carry most of the major hallmarks of a standard Nokia handset. While this is not surprising, it would have been interesting to see a semblance of variety when it comes to mobile phone design. At this point, regardless of which of the handset designs get chosen, the look will still have that ever familiar Nokia atmosphere.

Looking at the preliminary hardware specifications, there is plenty of emphasis on the need for an open source mobile platform that packs unlimited multitasking capabilities. It may seem like a big stretch, but that actually sounds a lot like the Android operating system. Despite the fact that both the Symbian and the Moblin operating systems are open source mobile platforms, the fact that the public seems to be leaning heavily towards Android phones should be a major red flag for Nokia.

Anyway, while it is very unlikely that Nokia will be producing an Android device, we can expect the company to keep pressing the Symbian^3 and the Moblin operating systems further and beyond what people would expect from most of the OS available today.

Nokia Google-Android, Moblin, Nokia, operating-systems, Symbian, Symbian-3

Ever wanted to design your very own mobile phone? Well, Nokia has you covered with their community building poll focused solely on giving users the power to choose which elements they want in a theoretical concept phone.

How does it work? Well, the Finnish company uploads three different designs or attributes and lets community members cast a vote on which particular element they would like to see on a Nokia mobile phone unit. Sounds simple, right? It is. And it does seem to get a lot of consumers buzzing about whatever popular part gets voted in.

This is a way to get consumer feedback on which designs are appealing as compared to others. In recent years, Nokia has not been able to garner bas much attention and support as the Cupertino based Apple and devices carrying the open source operating system, the little green Google Android. Fortunately for them, they have survived by tapping into the smart dumb phone market, releasing nice budget phones that will not make the headlines but will surely give the masses a practical option.

Of course, this does not mean that the Finnish company, which was once at the top of the game, is already happy with their success. According to July’s YouGov Poll, the interest in their brand of handsets has taken a nose dive. To be specific, the interest has gone down a whopping 12 percent.

The concept phone project will hopefully lift this number in the following months. Started in March, the number of design submissions has reached the 72,000 mark already, with winning designs sporting an 8 megapixel snapper (4x optical zoom), unlimited multitasking and a 4-inch capacitive display. The final sketch will be made into a 3D rendered model and will be showcased for all to see in Nokia’s Conversations blog.

Nokia 8-mega-pixel, Apple, Google-Android, mobile-phones, multitasking, Nokia

While it is pretty much expected that mobile phone users would be more interested in the Apple iPhone 4 than any other handset (since smart phone just came out a couple of weeks ago), it is surprising how much Nokia’s public ratings has gone down.

According to an independent study by YouGov, the number of people interested in getting a Nokia handset has gone down by at least 12%. Only 34% of phone buyers are considering getting a Nokia.

While the drop is mostly attributed to Apple’s new iPhone launch, but many also believe that Nokia has failed to keep public interest in their devices by failing to come up with truly innovative handsets in the past few months. With most of Nokia’s mobile phones still concentrating on the low end users, many high end smart phone users pass up Nokia devices in favor of phones from LG, Samsung, HTC and other big name phone manufacturers.

The Espoo based company needs to ramp up its game. Not only is Nokia currently the largest phone manufacturer in the world, they are also the most eco-friendly (with Sony Ericsson ranking in second place) as reported by Greenpeace.

Nokia has previously led the industry by setting new standards for mobile phone makers. Also, the close ties between the Finnish phone maker and the Symbian foundation has led to the creation of several iconic devices as well. Unless they are able to come up with a phone that is truly able to compete with the Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7, Nokia stands to lose plenty of ground in the next generation of smart phones.

This means that the upcoming Nokia N8 which uses the new launched Symbian^3 OS and the Nokia N9 which uses MeeGo which was developed by both Intel and Nokia are going to determine what happens to the company in the next few months.

Nokia Apple, Apple-iPhone-4, eco-friendly, Google-Android, MeeGo, Nokia, Nokia-N8, Nokia-N9, Symbian, YouGov

In what is probably a tech industry faux-pass, Nokia has indirectly placed the Symbian^3 OS on the side and is putting more focus on the upcoming MeeGo OS as well as the possibility of the eventual launch of the Symbian^4.

With that said, Nokia has already confirmed that the N8 smart phone will be the only Symbian^3 handset to be used in their N-series lineup. In the meanwhile, their new MeeGo OS will be the main focus of their high end N-series lineup. With two strong operating systems already available (the Symbian Foundation’s S-series and the Intel-Nokia MeeGo) Nokia is not looking at other operating systems.

This means that die-hard Nokia users will not be seeing any Android smart phones from the Finnish phone manufacturer any time soon –or even in the distant future. Nokia’s support for the Symbian Foundation is a pre-established given in the industry, and even with the development of a proprietary Nokia OS, the Symbian still remains as a primary OS for Nokia’s other phone lineups (such as the X, C and E series of handsets).

As for the Symbian^4 operating system, there is still no news as to when the OS will finally be made. With the Symbian^3 still not yet out, it is unlikely that version 4 will be released this year, though it is rumored that development on the new OS is already underway.

The Symbian OS has been suffering from performance issues –particularly with the major bugs that plagued the Nokia N97. Even established Symbian supporters such as the Guru have acknowledged the situation and are starting to slowly withdraw their support from the OS. The Symbian^3 OS needs to bring back the confidence and trust of users in the platform, and according to Anssi Vanjoki there is plenty to look forward to with the upcoming N8 –for Symbian’s sake, he better be right.

Nokia Google-Android, Intel, MeeGo, Nokia, Nokia-N8, Nokia-N97, Symbian-3, Symbian-4