If you examine the iPhone 4 photos and videos floating around the Internet you will see that the photos and videos are fantastic. Not as fantastic as the upcoming Nokia N8 but for 99% of the folks it's more than good enough. And that includes the "I have taken 40000 cameraphone pictures since 2004" cameraphone geeks like myself.
Even the mighty, not released until the fall, Nokia N8 doesn't have the fun and funky cameraphone applications that the iPhone has. One could argue as I have in the past that these are gimmicks to make up for the lousy camera which was true. But with the iPhone 4, the camera is excellent: fast, plenty of pixels and excellent quality and the HD video on the iPhone 4 is unequalled by the N8.
So has Nokia lost the plot? I would certainly say so. Definitely lost the geeks and other "small c" and hobbyist creators to Android; the high profit, high margin trendy middle class and rich folks to the iPhone; the only thing remaining is low margin high volume phones and lingering vestiges of brand coolness in Asia and Europe.
Is Nokia doomed to "IBM-like 1980s irrelevance" where Apple and Android are like Microsoft in the 1980s - popularizing and growing the market and pushing Nokia like Microsoft pushed IBM to the margins?
Certainly seems that way. I still think all is not lost. If the N8 ships on time and Symbian^3 is actually much more usable than I think it is and more importantly, the N8, post N900 device and Symbian are marketed properly worldwide and if the Meego post N900 device is cool and compelling, there's definitely the possibility of a rebound.
My fingers are crossed for the big N. I'll continue to enjoy my N900's unabashed and unequalled openess and hackability (disclosure:I received my N900 free from Nokia at the recent Nokia adventure but was going to buy anyway) and I am pretty sure I will buy an N8.
And to participate in the fun and use its great camera and software, I'll also get an iPhone 4.
