Nokia: I love you, but..

22nd July 2010

Dear Nokia,

This is a difficult letter for me to write. Let me start by saying that I love you, and that I know that some of the things I am about to say may hurt you. I still love you nonetheless.

To be blunt - you have let yourself go recently. Your profits are sagging, your behaviour is a little too predictable and in all honesty.. you don't excite me any more.

We've had good times.. no, we've had GREAT times. Remember the N95? It seemed like nothing could touch us then. I admit, I felt a bit of excitement when you showed me the N8, but it isn't like old times.

But I am concerned about this fixation you have with Symbian. It seemed like a good idea at first, and I don't mind you playing around with it from time-to-time but isn't it time that you grew out of it? I see other manufacturers and they have snazzy things like Android or iOS, and I have to say that their offerings have caught my eye lately.

I know that you have tried to improve things with Maemo, but honestly you've been fiddling around with it in the shed for five years now since you made the 770, but despite that you have only managed one actual phone, the N900. And then what did you do? You got together with your friend Intel and said that you were going to work on something called MeeGo instead. It doesn't really make the N900 that desirable when you know it is going nowhere. And you haven't even shown us anything with MeeGo yet. Frankly, I am tired of waiting for your new direction and your false starts.

Even your friends at Symbian Guru and World of Nokia don't want anything to do with you any more. And those were good friends, they even stuck with you when you embarrassed yourself with the N97.. I mean really, that was just a half-finished effort wasn't it? Everybody was looking forward to it, but you just spoiled it for them..

Maybe you need some new friends. I hear that Microsoft is looking for someone to share an interest in Windows Phone 7. And I know you really don't like the Android crowd for some reason, but I'm pretty sure that a neatly done Android phone would win some friends back. And no, it doesn't mean that you should give up Symbian entirely or drop MeeGo, but there's nothing wrong with acting like a NORMAL MOBILE PHONE MANUFACTURER for heaven's sake.

You know that I have been faithful to you for years and years. Once you were my whole world.. yes, I could have chosen any manufacturer but it always came back to you.. you were the one that I wanted. But surely you must have noticed that I haven't been around much lately, and now I must confess that I have been having a thing with HTC. And Motorola. And BlackBerry. I even did it underwater with Samsung. Sorry. I never did it with Apple though.. what sort of bird do you think I am?

So if you want to win me back, then you have to change. Do you think you can do that for me?

The Mobile Gazette Magpie