windows phone 7

(in response to Damian's comment)

Nokia is behind Apple in overall cameraphone user experience and that's what matters! Sure Nokia is still king when it comes to technology as Damian pointed out (f2.2 on N9, 12 megapixels on N8, Xenon flash on N8, the size of the sensor and microphone technology) but in terms of overall cameraphone experience, I believe with the iPhone4S, Apple has passed Nokia.

It doesn't matter how great the cameraphone technology is if the overall cameraphone user experience isn't great!

Overall cameraphone user experience = great image quality + great cameraphone apps that take advantage of that image quality like Slow Shutter, Camera+, Pro Camera and a dozens of other great  iPhone-only cameraphone apps that don't exist on Nokia cameraphones at the moment; Nokia is now severely lacking in great cameraphone apps and falling behind in video cameraphone technology. That's the lesson of Steve Jobs and Apple I think, great user experience trumps the technology no matter how great the technology underneath.

And nothing lasts forever; I believe Apple could be dethroned in overall cameraphone leadership and I believe you, Damian :-) and your team's great cameraphone technology combined with Windows Phone 7 Metro UI  or a post Meego user experience and developers that develop great cameraphone apps on top of this great user experience could dethrone Apple. I'm rooting for you and for an ecosystem of great cameraphone apps to develop in the future for Nokia; after all Apple cameraphone users can't have all the awesome cameraphone app experience forever to themselves :-) ! Competition will re-assert itself :-)

I have Nokia Cameraphone Stockholm syndrome :-) which means I neglect the (un)usability of Symbian in order to get fantastic photos like the ones above! I can't stop taking photos with the Nokia N8, and I can't repeat it enough, the photo quality is amazing, thanks again to the Nokia team responsible for the N8!

My question, who will top the Nokia N8 in cameraphones? Will it be somebody on Android, Windows Phone 7, WebOS, or will Canon and Nikon or some camera upstart like Panasonic do the right thing and incorporate 3G connectivity with software programmability (I love Eye-Fi but unless it's built in it's a kludge! And the built-in WiFi in various Nikons and other cameras from traditional camera manufacturers is unusable since it's not programmable and not flexible) so that an ecosystem of cameraphone apps can spawn around a fantastic cameraphone (the iPhone4 has an excellent ecosystem of cameraphone apps but without a dedicated camera button, I can't use it as my goto cameraphone).

My guess it will be be an Android cameraphone with a dedicated camera button that will top the N8 but I'd love to be proven wrong by HP, or Panasonic or other upstart. (And feel free to think that my obsession with cameras with built in connectivity that is programmable is crazy but I think there are many 1000s of people like me!)

Geeky, hard to use, but continually updated and getting better and tied to compelling services like Google Maps and gmail. That's my summary of Android after playing with my Nexus S. This could have been Symbian or Meego or Maemo in an alternate Nokia universe. Oh well. Hopefully Nokia survives Windows Phone 7 long enough to launch something that's a truly useful and compelling total mobile experience and that allows them once again to be master of their own destiny.

We will never know for sure. But that's my theory and if you look at the failures of Nokia Software [Symbian, Meego, Qt (sure Qt has made compelling apps like Skype and VLC but nothing mobile and when has anything cross-platform beside HTML, CSS and JS produced compelling experiences? and QML had potential but was beta), etc. ; only Ovi Maps is great, IMHO all other Ovi services and software were failures] it makes sense to believe that.

I choose to believe that there were and are Nokia folks who can do 21st century mobile experiences but they were let down by upper management and leaders (all leaders who were involved in the total Nokia mobile experience prior to February 11  should go in my armchair CEO opinion).

Perhaps Nokia with this WP7 aliance can pull it off. But just like Nortel whose leadership never really moved from their circuit switched and transmission mentality to the Internet mentality, I don't think the Nokia leaders can pull this one off. Love to be proven wrong by a resurgent "non RF, non embedded software" mindset Nokia that somehow manages (after a dark "interregnum" of WP7) to surge forward with something that is truly a compelling and unique mobile experience that I would pay my own money for.

Until then my money will go to other platforms like iPhone, Android and in the future hopefully WebOS.

My Blink Reactions to the Nokia Microsoft Windows Phone 7 announcement today:

•  Nokia committed #Symbian suicide "Unexpected error occurred. Power off the device & restart" #UXUnimprovedSince2006 http://flic.kr/p/sCFgT
• No disrespect to fine Microsoft folks but I will never buy a WP7 powered phone with my own money. 
• February 11, 2011 shall henceforth be known as #Nokia #Microsoft Co-Dependence Day :-)