on devotionals

I've been asked what I use and these days I just read the bible. I was using Our Daily Bread and its nice, I've used it for years. Its a great resource to get into the habit but one thing I have a problem with, because I order by mail, the old editions pile up and I have no idea what to do with them. Of course there's the online edition but I have to go to the website everyday. There's also 'my utmost for his highest' another great devotional. I have not used it before but it comes well recommended by friends.

One that I have used besides ODB is spurgeon's morning and evening. Just do a google search. I find it very encouraging. Its in old English which delights me but could be difficult to understand if English is not your first language or old English is not your thing but its really encouraging to hear the words of Charles Spurgeon as you go out and as you come back home.

-ONWARD!

Fear+faith

Fear and faith has been the theme of my week. Our God is an awesome God.
-ONWARD!

Revisiting the N9

Well Nokia has said the N9 will be the only meego os phone that they will release and that got me angry and a lot of things were said both on this blog and the conversations site. I still love this company and it does not matter whether they get bought over my Microsoft, this here is an undying love.

So I've been thinking again about the N9 and if it matters that Nokia will not be supporting this thing going forward and if it makes any sense to buy this phone, again given the right price and I have to say that I would.

My current phone has not been updated in any way or form for the last 3 years and it still runs great. I don't have any apps that I use regularly, well except foursquare which I am told will stop functioning on the 1st of August because it has not been updated with the newest APIs. I don't play mobile games because I don't like the experience and I don;t want an iPhone because it seems like everyone has one already. Android is great but the ones that I like are too expensive. So does it matter that this is a dead-end product?

The one thing that makes me optimistic is Qt. If Nokia can convince developers to use Qt that there's hope because its a write once and deploy to Symbian, Harmattan, and whatever else comes out of the future disruptions division.

I would get the N9 if its priced right. I don't care.
-ONWARD!

It wasn't you

How liberating.
-ONWARD!

What is Stephen Elop up to

I just finished reading an editorial by Paul Miller on thisismynext.com where he could not make up his mind what he thought about the N9 and Stephen Elop. It's a good read as always so do check it out. I think that the N9 is a great device. I love the hardware, I love the software, and I hope I will love the price when it actually ships.

At this point I feel it important to state a few things.

1. I am a Nokia fan. My current phone is a Nokia N82, before this I had an Nokia N73, before that a Nokia n-gage QD, before that the original n-gage and before that a 3120, my first phone. I have used a Sony Ericsson 'dumb phone' and love it too. There are aspects of the way it works that I think Symbian could have benefited from.
2. I have never bought an Apple device, an Android device, or a Blackberry.
3. This post comes out of my love for Nokia and is my opinion on changes we have seen and continue to observe in the company.

When Stephen Elop was appointed CEO of the Finnish company, he outlined a strategy for the future that comprises of three pillars as he called it.

• Smartphones
• The Next Billion
• Future Disruptions

In the burning platform letter, which I will quote from repeatedly, Elop says this about meego.

We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.

So for high end smartphones, they needed something else. Meego just was not being developed fast enough to gain any traction in the market.

In February 2011, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Mr. Elop took the stage to explain why they partnered with Microsoft. He explained that they had to make a decision to follow one of three paths

• To build their own ecosystem around meego and symbian
• To pursue android and make a significant bet on the android ecosystem
• To enter a 'strategic partnership' with Microsoft to build jointly an ecosystem around windows phone

They chose Microsoft because, meego was not producing results as fast as they wanted, meego did not have a viable ecosystem around it. Android did not let them differentiate, they did not want to become just another handset maker like say SonyEricsson or htc, and going with Android would create immense value for Google and ensure a two-horse race between Google and Apple. Going with Microsoft however provided for Redmond a partnership that has value, one that would make it a three-horse race instead of two. And of course Microsoft paid them Billions for the deal. So for the high end market, it will be windows phones.

But what is an ecosystem?

An ecosystem consists of devices, services, third-party providers, a strong app market and delighted customers.

Was meego killed?

Meego was never killed. Meego was to become part of the 'future distruptions' strategy of Nokia. 

Innovation in the field of mobile devices is far from over and Nokia is determined to play a key role in the future of this field. MeeGo will play a key part in this, and continued support for revolutionary research and development work across Nokia’s worldwide research labs, the Qt development framework and independent providers will help to fuel this further.

Here's Nokia's CTO Rich Green talking in February about meego and what it means for their future disruptions strategy.

There. Meego is not dead. At least not entirely. Noticed he says they want feedback on the device they ship 'later this year?' N9 anyone?

N9


The N9 that Nokia has announced runs on meego 1.2 Harmattan. The name Harmattan comes from the maemo line of the family. Meego being maemo + moblin so lets not get confused.

But the real star of the show here is the cross-platform application and UI framework, Qt which Nokia acquired from trolltech. With Qt, developers have a unified development platform for those lingering Symbian^3 devices, the N900 running maemo, meego device(s) and future devices. This is the way forward.

This is what really matters, not necessarily meego. Whatever Operating system Nokia decides use in the future for its 'future disruptions' strategy and whatever it decides to call it. You can be sure that Qt with QML and HTML 5 will be at the heart of it. Here's Rich Green again



In a blog post, Nokia also announced that Qt will be a major component in their 'Next Billion' strategy. Qt is used not only used to develop mobile software but also desktop software and is licensed by many firms. So what is Stephen Elop up to? Search me. I don't what how this all will end.

Paul in his editorial said this;

What I’d be even more worried about, if I were Nokia, is if some uninformed consumer accidentally buys this phone, thinking they’ll be getting a truly competitive product from a respectable company, instead of a beautifully designed dead end.

From my experience, people who buy Nokia phones, well especially in Asia, know what they are buying. They are very well informed. I don't know about the U.S. I certainly am well informed, and would buy this phone. Again given that it is priced right because I love it. I don't care about having a zillion apps on my phone, I don't care about having an always connected experience. I care about the responsiveness and the performance of the device. The main reason why I didn't get the N8 was because it was too expensive for a Symbian device. I don't think Nokia priced it competitively enough. Plus there were report of overheating issues with the earlier models that shipped and well until this thing actually ships we won't know what issues it has but from all I've seen its best looking phone in the market. And I don't think its a dead end device its just that we don't know what Nokia will do.
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Resources
Nokia Strategy 2011
Stephen Elop talks to the press at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
Qt
Qt (wikipedia)
Warning: This is not MeeGo
Nokia Conversations (Youtube)

Differences between Fremantle Update7 and Harmattan Beta SDK releases
Harmattan is the name of the software program that comes after Fremantle / Maemo 5

MeeGo scales, because Linux scales
Meego 1.2 Harmattan Platform guide
Meego Devices
Nokia’s burning platform might have been a phoenix

-ONWARD!