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How Would You Feel If Apple Shared Nokia’s Fate?
- Thread starter Sami13496
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Paul1964
macrumors 6502
Nope - they perished because they teamed up with Microsoft and backed the wrong horse. They should have gone to Android instead and might have had a bigger market share than Samsung.
I'd probably argue that during its first couple of years on the market Windows Phone 7 and 8 were light years ahead of the competition, helped by the Lumia devices. Apple and Google were, for the first time caught on the back foot by Metro and answered in kind with iOS7 (and the iPhone 5c...) and Android Lolllipop. The flat design trend started at Redmond. Nokia did the right thing. Its just Microsoft cant help themselves and ended up shooting WP in both feet by chasing corporate instead of consumer. Its a shame because we really could do with a 3rd pillar in the industry about now. The Lumia 1020 was and still is an absolute marvel of a phone.
thejadedmonkey
macrumors G3
Because that was the only place they could win.
Google was straight up blocking google maps on windows phone, and the youtube experience was sub-par until Microsoft changed up IE on WP to pretend to be a different browser, IIRC.
Then you had tech leaders and indy app developers still hating Microsoft for their behavior in the 90's with embrace/extend/extinguish behavior. They refused to release apps for Windows Phone - even when their apps were web wrappers on iOS and Android. Taken together, there was no app market on the consumer side at all.
Of course Microsoft didn't help by releasing Windows Phone 10 that couldn't run Windows Phone 7 apps, but by that point I think they had largely given up and were just sort of hoping for a hail mary, or maybe even just contractual obligations, more than anything else.
BUDGETApple
macrumors newbie
Ok, look.
When Nokia was in its glory days, it wasn't a trillion dollar company like Apple nowadays. This means that Apple has a little bit of "immunity" if a crisis happens, and the "crisis" we're talking about probably won't happen anytime soon, so the earliest worst case scenario for Apple to end up like Nokia would happen somewhere in the 2110s at least.
Also, I'm expecting John Ternus to pack a little bit more of the good old Steve Jobs-styled innovation back into the core of Apple, making Apple able to catch up in the AI race it needs to have a edge in.
Rest assured, no matter AI or no AI, it's not gonna happen.
When Nokia was in its glory days, it wasn't a trillion dollar company like Apple nowadays. This means that Apple has a little bit of "immunity" if a crisis happens, and the "crisis" we're talking about probably won't happen anytime soon, so the earliest worst case scenario for Apple to end up like Nokia would happen somewhere in the 2110s at least.
Also, I'm expecting John Ternus to pack a little bit more of the good old Steve Jobs-styled innovation back into the core of Apple, making Apple able to catch up in the AI race it needs to have a edge in.
Rest assured, no matter AI or no AI, it's not gonna happen.
“Nokia’s Fate” was not in a vacuum… it was that a company released a product better than Nokia that I wanted to buy. So, if a company released a product better than the iPhone such that I wanted to buy it instead of the iPhone, then I’d buy it and enjoy it. It becomes less likely every day with deep pocketed interests requiring their governments to lock in the market positions of the leaders. Nokia’s Fate also depended on there being a financial incentive for taking the risk and governments working on reducing that as much as possible.
Why you are I should not want any phone format to fail one word competition because it is what makes them no forces them to make something better .
Contact_Feanor
macrumors 6502a
I remember all those things but they do not matter. If someone asks "how would you feel if world war 2 was lost by the allies" you don't go into the reasons why the allies couldn't have lost because that's not the intent of the question it seems to me...
If I watch "for all mankind", the premise is "what if russia beat the Americans to the moon and the space race kept going". Episode two isn't a documentary on why that couldn't happen because that's not the intent of the series. The OP is asking about something that clearly hasn't happened (yet) but is asking What if.
Also, history is very long. I'm sure people could explain to you back in the day why IBM would rule consumer pc's forever yet here we are. I'm sure somewhere ages and ages hence someone will rightfully ask the question how people feel now apple is gone.
Le_Chiffre
Suspended
JSDK
macrumors regular
I have no imagination to see how Apple could suffer the same fate as Nokia. Apple has already been "number 1" for more years than Nokia. Nokia's heyday was from around 98 with their Nokia 5110, 1999 with their 3210 - the year after 3310, etc., until the iPhone was launched in 2007. So around 9 - 10 years. Apple has had the most popular smartphone for almost 19 years, and that doesn't seem to be changing -
- It goes without saying. But it's like Nokia came out in 2016 with their 5110, and was forgotten and overtaken by another brand this year. Crazy to think about when you don't think 2016 is that long ago.... anyway 😅
Compared to Nokia, Apple also has popular tablets, laptops and headphones. Nokia only had their phones, and somewhat neglected accessories throughout the ages. If they don't sell one, they make money on the other.
Last but certainly not least, there is also the Apple ecosystem. Nokia had nothing to hold their users, you could really just put your SIM card in a SonyEricsson and that was it.
Apple's ecosystem extends across all their devices, and that makes it relatively difficult - not impossible, but difficult to leave. Ordinary users don't mind that hassle, so they continue to put their money with Apple, and so we should probably expect Apple to not disappear anytime soon. If they stopped making phones, one could well imagine that iOS and its ecosystem would still be present, on other brands. But, I doubt it will ever get there.
Fortunately.
- It goes without saying. But it's like Nokia came out in 2016 with their 5110, and was forgotten and overtaken by another brand this year. Crazy to think about when you don't think 2016 is that long ago.... anyway 😅
Compared to Nokia, Apple also has popular tablets, laptops and headphones. Nokia only had their phones, and somewhat neglected accessories throughout the ages. If they don't sell one, they make money on the other.
Last but certainly not least, there is also the Apple ecosystem. Nokia had nothing to hold their users, you could really just put your SIM card in a SonyEricsson and that was it.
Apple's ecosystem extends across all their devices, and that makes it relatively difficult - not impossible, but difficult to leave. Ordinary users don't mind that hassle, so they continue to put their money with Apple, and so we should probably expect Apple to not disappear anytime soon. If they stopped making phones, one could well imagine that iOS and its ecosystem would still be present, on other brands. But, I doubt it will ever get there.
Fortunately.
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Happy_John
Suspended
Yep. Nokia made the perfect phone for the time they were on top, but there was little reason to upgrade to another Nokia phone, and that killed them, along with not gaining significant market share with smartph9nes.
I was actually working on a project in my work at the time on WAP on Nokia phones - basically text only website content optimised for Nokia phones. It was a dead end.
capamac
macrumors 6502a
Apple usually isn't the innovator. Someone else innovates, then Apple comes in with a polished version of what the competition made.
Look at the personal computer; Apple wasn't first. There was the Altair 8800 and whatnot. But the Apple II, for it's time, was a polished and ready-to-use computer that didn't require any soldering.
Apple wasn't the first with MP3 players. iPod was a comparatively later entrant to the market.
Certainly not the first smartphone maker. Not the first in VR goggles.
So whenever the next big idea comes out, Apple doesn't need to be first. It just has to make a polished version of it.
Apple seems to be losing its artistic and design sensibilities, however. Example. Liquid Glass on ios/macos. Design had been Apple strength.
Thus is Apple falls, it may well be due to the Apple board and leadership being overly focused on profit and insufficiently focused on good design principles. Being flashy for no reason is not good design.
Look at the personal computer; Apple wasn't first. There was the Altair 8800 and whatnot. But the Apple II, for it's time, was a polished and ready-to-use computer that didn't require any soldering.
Apple wasn't the first with MP3 players. iPod was a comparatively later entrant to the market.
Certainly not the first smartphone maker. Not the first in VR goggles.
So whenever the next big idea comes out, Apple doesn't need to be first. It just has to make a polished version of it.
Apple seems to be losing its artistic and design sensibilities, however. Example. Liquid Glass on ios/macos. Design had been Apple strength.
Thus is Apple falls, it may well be due to the Apple board and leadership being overly focused on profit and insufficiently focused on good design principles. Being flashy for no reason is not good design.
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I would say Apple was very much an innovator we had nothing like an iPhone before it was introduced in 2007 and it did a lot more than a Blackberry at the time which was the smartphone everyone was using.
Le_Chiffre
Suspended
But Apple does innovate, mp3 players were a mess before the iPod. I had several Sony and creative labs mp3 players before the getting the first iPod and the iPod was an innovative game changer. I won’t bore you with the minute details as to why or how Apple innovated with the iPod and iTunes. But I will say before the iPod and iTunes you had to use crappy software to encrypt MP3’s files to play on those devices. Don’t get me started on actually using those devices they were absolutly terrible to navigate and use. They were clunky and battery life were horrendous. The iPod was truly revolutionary and innovation of its time.
Same with the iPhone, first device with a capacitive multitouch display. I should know I had the first iPhone. Before the iPhone all touch screens were resistive touch displays, plastic screens that required a stylus. They were terrible and you always lost the stylus. I had all the palms treos, Nokia mini tablet that never worked, again with a resistant touch display and stylus. The iPhone was innovative with its multitouch capacitive display that mirrored the PowerBooks/macbook glass track pads before it and the iTunes integration. Compared to the competition the iPhone was flawless, even before the AppStore was released a year later. Anybody innovation in it self. Before the centralized App Store if you want an app, you had to pay and download it straight from the developers site. It was a hassle and unintuitive.
Please don’t bring up the lg Prada phone I had it as well. It was capacitive but not multitouch. It wasn’t a smartphone but a dumb phone with a tiny display compared to the iPhone. No web browser or any apps to speak of. It was a tiny phone nothing more nothing less. Oh and it had terrible battery life.
Anybody that claims Apple does not innovate wasn’t around at the time and experienced how truly innovative apples products were and still are. 😉
I won’t even mention the iMac, iBook, or the first ufo style airport Apple shipped at the end of the 90s. Wireless internet was another innovative game changer. Not only the hardware but also the software and ui to set it up was like being in the future.
I would put the Apple Vision Pro in that same category. This is from someone that purchased and used a Sony glasstron in the 90s.
If you're going to make a claim that Apple will share the fate of Nokia, the burden is on you to explain why. Comparing it to RIM vs the iPhone is lazy.
ClaraStahlbaum
macrumors 6502a
I am only using Apple Products because of Imessage, and the fact that Windows is far worse than Mac in my opinion. Provided that I had a good chance to learn Linux, I would ditch Apple completely but so far that hasn't been a priority. I don't have much brand loyalty. I will never understand people who will die on a hill when we are talking about billion dollar companies who couldn't care less about the consumer.
WebHead
macrumors 6502a
Yes, you could argue the iPhone was a first, even though we had BlackBerrys and PDAs and even the Newton before it.
Category killer at least?
capamac
macrumors 6502a
Easiest way to try Linux if you have a Mac is to download UTM here https://mac.getutm.app/ then download the iso for distro you want. In UTM, create a virtual machine and in one of the menus set that ISO as the install image. Then "boot" the installer. Install. When finished installing clear that the ISO from UTM. Do a normal boot into your new linux install. UTM also has a gallery of various distributions that makes this process quite easy; try ubuntu to start mebbe.
Contact_Feanor
macrumors 6502a
No? He's asking about feelings. There's nothing rhetorical about that. He's asking what if. If your partner asked you how you would feel if your parents died; and you reply how healthy your parents are and that they thus couldn't have died, you're doing what you're doing here. Not engaging with the question. There's nothing rhetorical about that question because they expected an answer. And you're dodging the question.
Paul1964
macrumors 6502
A lot more than a BlackBerry? 🤣🤣🤣
That was PalmOS, Windows Mobile and Symbian. They could be a bit finnicky though. The iPhone won out because it was actally simpler to use, as it was a lot less functional than the alternatives, and much Kool-Aid was drunk.
There was a big market for a simplified SmartPhone as the masses didn't want functional but complicated alternatives. iPhone functionality caught up over the years as Apple figured out how to do the complicated things in an easier to understand way.
If Nokia's fate was that Steve Jobs came along, then it might be exciting to see the leap another individual brings
Interestingly, iPhone loyalty is significantly higher than 87%. (Edit: the SellCell 2026 U.S. Market Survey has iPhone loyalty at 96.4%)
Somebody on the MacRumors staff weirdly misunderstands a data survey they linked by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) which "surveys iPhone buyers each quarter" to track "the rate of switching from Android to iPhone."
You can't get iPhone loyalty by surveying only iPhone purchases and ignoring those who bought Android. It's simply not possible, yet MacRumors has made this error more than once.
In the survey the percenatge of folks switching from Android to iPhone is "Not quite as robust as in the past couple of years" so by MacRumors logic that's a as good thing. 🤣
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