My Nokia Blog

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• @NokiaUS’s care packages for Influencers #ZoomReinvented (US only) shaped like Nokia DSLR lenses
• Microsoft Compensating Delayed Lumia 1020 With $150 Gift Cards
• My Dream Nokia #93: Nokia Lumia 1025 with 6″, 8mm thin, Metal and lotsa power inside!
• Nokia RX-114 Quad Core Tablet, Running Adreno 330/Snapdragon 800 Appears in Benchmarks
• Skydrive Photo Sharing Services Updated, Supports Higher Resolution Images and Gifs
• Rumours: Nokia Lumia 1020 headed to China by mid-August?
• See the guts inside the World’s best cameraphone – Nokia Lumia 1020 teardown
• Nokia Videos: Lumia 925 films Nokia House, Espoo, Finland (OIS steadycam-esque rig running test 1)
• Windows Phone users can still upload to Instagram with likes of Hipstamatic Oggl and Instagraph…for now
• Nokia Philippines: Purchase a Nokia 501 by August 11 and get a free coloured casing

@NokiaUS’s care packages for Influencers #ZoomReinvented (US only) shaped like Nokia DSLR lenses Posted: 30 Jul 2013 03:45 PM PDT Something I’ve noticed particularly on the US sites/blogs/social peeps is how the big brands love sending things to their ‘influencers’, be it a tech blogger, mommy blogger or fashion blogger and what have you. Nokia US have just tweeted that they’re sending out these Nokia lens looking devices. Getting some care packages ready to go out to our influencers! Get ready, ladies and gentlemen! #ZoomReinvented pic.twitter.com/IGEzIuhytU Check out the shape of the devices – they’re like DSLR lenses. Pretty cute! Note, they’re US only. Heavens only knows when I’ll actually see a UK Nokia Lumia 1020. We’ve asked around for units of the 1020 (no we didn’t actually get any whilst in Finland. We got to play with one for 20 minutes but unfortunately we weren’t allowed to get any of the sample pictures. :/). We’ll let you know how that pans out.  It kinda concerns me that they weren’t even able to produce enough 1020s to lend to 5 bloggers to use in the ‘photo walks’ in Finland, let alone get it out to customers around the world. Perhaps it is true that Damian Dinning forged PureView lenses out of rare unicorn tears and they’re really running low.

Microsoft Compensating Delayed Lumia 1020 With $150 Gift Cards Posted: 30 Jul 2013 03:44 PM PDT As if Microsoft’s deal on the Lumia 1020 wasn’t good enough, where anyone purchasing through the Microsoft store got a free camera grip. Well now it seems that anyone’s Lumia 1020 that was delayed for any reason will be getting a complimentary $150 gift card. Pretty sweet eh? Source

My Dream Nokia #93: Nokia Lumia 1025 with 6″, 8mm thin, Metal and lotsa power inside! Posted: 30 Jul 2013 02:19 PM PDT Mmmmmm, sweet, sweet phablet cravings. Check out this beastly design by PhoneDesigner! https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.542884685760061.1073741829.413801792001685&type=3 It’s based off some early leaks of the metal phablet Lumia. This has a 12MP LED PureView camera (how on earth are we going to make do with this now we’ve experienced the best cameraphone ever in the Nokia Lumia 1020? :p). The design is classically still Fabula. The sleeker, slim build makes it look quite a bit better than the 920, imo. Could this be codename: Nokia Mars?

Nokia RX-114 Quad Core Tablet, Running Adreno 330/Snapdragon 800 Appears in Benchmarks Posted: 30 Jul 2013 01:49 PM PDT There have been plenty of rumors pointing at a Nokia tablet launch later this year (most probably Nokia world); well those rumors might need a little less salt as of today. A Nokia RX-114 appeared on the benchmark site “GFXBench” wielding a might Adreno 330 GPU/ Snapdragon 800 alongside a quad core processor running Windows of course (I can’t seem to find anything proving it’s RT but the source claims it is; but I hope to god it’s not  Edit: I totally missed the fact that an ARM processor means it’s running RT, I guess my fears are confirmed. ). The device will probably have the same resolution as the Surface (920×1080) which should slate it as 10″? So what do you guys think? Would you want a Nokia tablet even if it ran RT? The sad truth is that I probably would. Via

Skydrive Photo Sharing Services Updated, Supports Higher Resolution Images and Gifs Posted: 30 Jul 2013 01:07 PM PDT Skydrive is an essential part of Windows Phone, as it carries out all the photo backups and social sharings. The Skydrive site itself (not the app) has just received a pretty hefty and cool update, bringing support for higher resolution images (Lumia 1020 users  rejoice) that automatically scale up to the largest resolution your screen and device can support.  The screens for viewing photos are getting better too – especially high DPI screens like the ClearType Full HD and Retina displays. So now, SkyDrive.com supports these high DPI displays by measuring the DPI scale of your device. When your screen supports it, we show higher resolution photos and thumbnails. So you see more of your real photo instead of a thumbnail that gets up-scaled (note: not all browsers support high DPI yet). *At least we know Microsoft knows Full HD displays exist, now bring them to Windows Phone faster! The public sharing folders are now much nicer and improved, plus albums now support gif sharing! Yay! Check out the rest of the changes at the official blog post below: http://blogs.windows.com/skydrive/b/skydrive/archive/2013/07/30/creating-the-most-beautiful-and-powerful-way-to-view-share-and-search-your-photos-with-html5.aspx

Rumours: Nokia Lumia 1020 headed to China by mid-August? Posted: 30 Jul 2013 07:20 AM PDT Nokia Lumia 1020 is said to be a camera “beast” with some saying the Lumia 1020 is Nokia’s best phone of all time. Chinese site WPDang claims that the Nokia Lumia 1020 will head to Chinese markets by mid-August i.e A few weeks. No word on whether it will be available through carriers or only as an unlocked and off-contract handset, if it does come. Rumor is that the Lumia 1020 will be priced in the 4XXX Yuan range, which is roughly in line with AT&T’s price of $659 (off-contract and excluding local taxes), but like we said, that is only a rumor and no official comment on the Lumia 1020′s pricing in China (or when it will even arrive there) has been made. According to Kantar world panel’s stats Windows Phone has grown, rising from 2.9% market share to 4.9% this month.   Source: WPDang

See the guts inside the World’s best cameraphone – Nokia Lumia 1020 teardown Posted: 30 Jul 2013 07:15 AM PDT Check it out, it’s the innards of the Nokia Lumia 1020! This is how Nokia managed to jiggle things around to make it lighter, slimmer yet still pack that beastly 41MP camera. http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2497020173 Cheers Aikon for the tip!

Nokia Videos: Lumia 925 films Nokia House, Espoo, Finland (OIS steadycam-esque rig running test 1) Posted: 30 Jul 2013 07:12 AM PDT Clearly dressed up as Russell from the Disney movie, “Up”. We are Wilderness Explorers going on an Adventure to Nokia House! We are armed with cameras, the main one in use for me was the 925. Ideally it would have been the new 1020 but the 1020 still does an awesome job. Reflection of Nokia House from the ‘tour bus’ As you may have been aware, last week, we were in Finland! I’m going through the photos and videos at the moment. Here’s a few that were recorded from the Nokia Lumia 925 whilst visiting Nokia House on Day 2. I really wanted to edit them together but I find iMovie too annoying to use. Perhaps when I’m back in Uni and can get to Sony Vegas. That way it would look even better just splicing together the exceptionally nice parts of the clips with some ethereal/inspirational/catchy soundtrack, haha :p. Landing in Helsinki. At Nokia House, we were given a tour by Tiina Jaatinen (Editor in Chief of Nokia Conversations) and John Pope (Director of Communications). John was awesome and Tiina is so much fun (let’s see if we can find some clips from Karaoke, eh? :p) Here’s the three of us in New York (link). From Nokia Connects came Sophie Rivet and Joel Diamond. Joel Williams from NokConv was also there. The attendees of course were MsJen (Jennifer Hanen), Mark Guim, CJ, Smashpop and us . In some videos, I used a steadicam like rig in others they were hand held (the first landing one and the marching band one – to be posted later or tomorrow, my upload speed is so bad..). The same one used here. The Nokia Lumia 925 of course has its own optical image stabilisation. This meant that on some occasions, it was a lot better to just use the Nokia Lumia 925 on its own vs on the rig. http://mynokiablog.com/2012/09/11/video-hardware-stabilisation-samples-on-nokia-808-pureview-with-stabiliser-accessory-vs-softwareno-stabilisation-simulation-of-pureview-12-mix/ The pro version of the stabilisation accessory I used is often seen with those filming with DSLRs on the move. Even though the lenses or the DSLR itself may have excellent OIS, this accessory makes everything super smooth, so that you can run, slowly spin, walk backwards, track people and it all looks very professional. It focuses on the quality of the video capture vs the movement. It limits the quick jerky movements from the arms. Sometimes that means less versatility to look around.  Here we had a long corridor to run across at Nokia House. Going to the roof garden This is one of the dining areas at Nokia House. There’s two main ones. Inside Nokia Lounge This is the room where the Nokia Leadership Team make important decisions. We have successfully left our bugs and flies on the wall to listen in and watch, haha :p. Thank you Nokia and Nokia Connects for this experience

Windows Phone users can still upload to Instagram with likes of Hipstamatic Oggl and Instagraph…for now Posted: 30 Jul 2013 05:31 AM PDT This morning I read reports on Reddit that WP users were having problems with their Instagram uploads. As soon as they uploaded anything, the folks at Instagram deleted it. Third party apps sometimes means that updates to the service might cause some problems requiring the developer of that third party app to make additional workaround to continue using said service. But developer of Instance, Daniel Gary has tried all he can so far to fix it but it looks like the folks of Instagram want to be the biggest d-bags on the block. Could it be a mistake? I remember a couple of weeks before some WP users reported a problem with instagram but it wasn’t that widespread. As you can see, the photo above doesn’t exist at all.  http://instagram.com/jaymontanoz Facebook owns Instagram. MS owns 1.6% of Facebook. When Facebook bought instagram we thought, oh yay, we can get Instagram on WP. That wasn’t the case. For months Nokia tried to raise awareness with #2instawithlove. That campaign was forgotten with the arrival of itsdagram (now Instance). TheVerge has picked up on the story saying Instagram is blocking/deleting photos from Third Party Instagram apps. Boy, many were fuming. Fortunately, it’s not the end. You can still destroy your lovely Lumia photos with potato square tile filters :p. Haha. As I said before, I don’t use it for filters. I use it to share pics/moments. You can still post photos to your Windows Phone using Hipstamatic Oggl. I don’t quite know how to use existing pictures in the gallery versus just snapping one and uploading it from Hipstamatic. This photo is still up there for the moment. Since Hipstamatic was mentioned at the Nokia Lumia 1020 launch by Nokia, we don’t expect this to be blocked by Instagram for WP unless they block Hipstamatic posting from all platforms. Some users are reporting some other third party Instagram uploading apps are still working . This includes Instagraph. Unlike Instance and Hipstamatic, Instagraph doesn’t publish straight away. It kinda publishes your photo through instagram somehow by queuing it along some way that Instagram accepts uploads. Notice that Instagraph uses the official filters, which later appear on Instagram. Here’s the photo on Instagram. Here’s the actual photo, for now, on Instagram, uploaded from my 920. Instagraph like Instance is a paid app (£1.29) although Instance does have a free version. For a better experience with Instagraph, you should download Metrogram. They work as a pair. I believe WPGram is also useful (is that mainly for viewing though?) We often speak about the various different Instagram apps for WP but don’t really go into specifics. Once we find one and we’re normally OK with that, we tend to not look for alternatives. Possibly the same way people choose their phones. Unless there’s a major reason to switch, they stick. For me, because I rarely use filters (and if I do need editing, it would be from Creative Studio/Fantasia Painter) I’ve been fine using Instance to do basic uploads. If I can’t be bothered with Instagram I might just tweet that photo (and WP’s twitter app is really nice for that, it’s just that the audience is different). Speaking to Smashpop/Jason Goh on the Finland trip, the main reason he seems to use the official client is for the upload too. Otherwise, he uses other apps to add his ‘filters’. What other Instagram related apps for WP should we be aware of, folks?

Nokia Philippines: Purchase a Nokia 501 by August 11 and get a free coloured casing Posted: 30 Jul 2013 03:06 AM PDT Nokia Philippines tweeted the following offer: If you buy an #Asha501 before Aug 11, you can get a free colored casing. Join here: http://on.fb.me/18ZwAZ4  Check out them hipster looking Asha 501 users below. The promo videos attached just remind me so much of the N9. See swipe in action .

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My Nokia Blog

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• Why we LOVE Nokia…explained in a 2:05 minute video.
• Pocketnow share their favorite shots taken with the Lumia1020.
• Lumia 1020 ads on a roll second decent TV commercial from WindowsPhone
• Stunning Nokia Lumia 1020 pictures from Topolino70 and Belfiore
• Nokia ‘Treasure Tag’ Lumia accessory could stop you ever losing your keys
• Nokia Amber PR2.0 Lumia Update Changelog
• Microsoft fights old mistakes, slows down Nokia? #rant + Important news

Why we LOVE Nokia…explained in a 2:05 minute video. Posted: 29 Jul 2013 05:23 PM PDT Dear MNB Readers, Some of us LOVE Nokia…some of us LIKE Nokia…some of us may even be secretly loving them from AFAR (aka, using another OS or non Nokia phone) while there are others that simply HATE Nokia. I LOVE Nokia products. Just for a moment, let us put aside the current situations and happenings in the Smartphone world. Think back…to that moment that made you feel, in your heart or in your mind, that you love Nokia, their devices, their services (N-Gage 2.0 had so much potential), the Nokia experience. Just for a moment, think back on the experience that you had that made you say “WOW, this Nokia is amazing!!!” Think back to the moment that made you firmly believe that regardless of what Nokia device you bought, you had the assurance that it would be better than any other phone. I want to focus on those of us that LOVE Nokia. WHY do you love Nokia? I could say a lot of reasons why I LOVE Nokia (not a Biased love because I will call Nokia out when they are not delivering and I will give respect to the competition when they ARE delivering) but I will let this 2:05 minute video tell why I and presumably a LOT of you have loved Nokia at some point in your life. YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXXsfP1mpig See, for a lot of us, our personal experience with Nokia devices planted an emotion in our heart and a thought in our mind that any other phone/smartphone, all of the competition would be battling for 2nd place: 2nd place in Audio, 2nd place in Video, 2nd place in Gaming, 2nd place in Screen Technology (Nokia was using 16 Million colors before the competition), 2nd place in Build Quality, 2nd place in Connectivity, 2nd place in Web Browsing, 2nd place in Mapping, 2nd place in Customer Service, 2nd place in Design and, 2nd place in Call Quality/Reception, 2nd place in delivering on their promises. I dare to say, that for many of us who have been using cell phones and smartphones for the last decade,  Nokia brought us our first experiences with certain technologies (even if they were not the first to make feature X), many experiences and MANY 1st place finishes that were better than what was comparatively available at the time. In no specific order and in any given generation, at ONE POINT IN CELLPHONE HISTORY, the BEST mobile experiences could only be found on a Nokia device (usually an expensive Nseries), even if it wasn’t all in the same device or generation. I have also noticed that almost ALL of the internet trolls that bash Nokia at every opportunity, never experienced Nokia when they were #1 in almost everything. Most trolls have started using smartphones in the last few years, most even well after the iPhone, HTC G1 and Nokia N97 and they simply don’t have an OUNCE of love in their heart for Nokia. They also cannot relate, remember or have any experience with the iPhone when it didn’t have an App Store at all, when it couldn’t do Copy and Paste, could NOT send a MMS and when Android phones had screens with only 65k colors, could NOT record Video AT ALL and the best games on Android Market were games such as Tic-Tac-Toe…..made by an unknown developer..usually by 1 guy or girl…..with crude 2D graphics and 8-bit mono sound. They never experienced any of the great things that WERE (not just could be) done at the remarkable high level of quality that Nokia provided in the SAME POINT IN HISTORY. By the time many of the current smartphone users got into the Smartphone arena, it was Nokia that was battling for 2nd in many, most and sometimes ALL areas. So, they have no love for Nokia. I understand that. Nokia never earned their Love nor their respect (especially with the media’s blasting around the same time they began using smartphones) I started out by saying that I wanted to focus on those of us that LOVE Nokia. Let’s be clear, ALL comments are welcome but I would really like to hear from anyone that would take the time to share what is it that captivated you about Nokia? What caused you to make up your mind and say, “Not only do I own a Nokia device now, my next phone will be a Nokia and then I am going to tell my friends about Nokia so they can buy a Nokia device!”. Those of us who troll, hate, dislike Nokia, feel free to comment too…….who knows, Nokia may have broken your heart, maybe you LOVED Nokia at some point and it just didn’t work out. At MNB, we welcome all respectful comments and who knows…..one day, you may just see an article titled “Why some of us HATE Nokia!” Yes, at MyNokiaBlog, we are fair like that. For those of us that Love Nokia, that 2:05 minute video was great and brought back a lot of fond memories. Because of those memories…here it is again…saving you time from having to scroll back up just to see it again. YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXXsfP1mpig I can’t be the only person with a fond memory of Nokia…etched in my mind and as the song said…in my heart. What is your story? Let us know in the comments section below. Have a great day everyone and as always, thank you for choosing MyNokiaBlog, Deaconclgi

Pocketnow share their favorite shots taken with the Lumia1020. Posted: 29 Jul 2013 11:26 AM PDT PocketNow’s Michael Fisher doesn’t hide his love for the Lumia 920′s camera skills in his articles, in fact he carries it as his daily driver sometimes and he preferred it over the Galaxy S4 active for his vacation on the beach, he loved the pictures he took with it that he bragged about them last month Much like all Nokia camera phones, after a while you’ll get an idea of how to capture great pictures, and it seems Michael Fisher has adapted to the new Lumia 1020 as PocketNow just published an article about their favorite shots using the Lumia 1020. (spoiler: they look terrific)  I’m very glad that the Lumia 1020 pictures impressed Michael so much that he had to do a post about them, though don’t take my word for it check out the rest of them on Pocketnow.com

Lumia 1020 ads on a roll second decent TV commercial from WindowsPhone Posted: 29 Jul 2013 09:19 AM PDT The Lumia 1020 seems to be on a roll with decent tv ads. It speaks clearly about the Lumia 1020 features. The video states it’s the first smartphone that puts the camera first, then goes on to show it through two amazing zooms. Nokia has always been horrible with ads focusing on UNKNOWN people with almost no screen time for their actual phones. This ad takes a different path than one of Nokia’s more recent adverts, the “Don’t flash Amaze” campaign showing off the Lumia 925′s low light performance; although it was bashing the iPhone 5′s low light capabilities, it’s never a nice idea to show too much of your competitors phones in your own products right? Anyways I’m glad At&t & Microsoft are doing a better job at it, their last ad was good too.

Stunning Nokia Lumia 1020 pictures from Topolino70 and Belfiore Posted: 29 Jul 2013 08:36 AM PDT We’ve showcased Topolino70 (Tommi Vainionpää)’s work for many years, marvelling at how he pushed the likes of the N8 and then 808. Here he is again along with ‘Green Button‘ (JoeBelfiore and family?) to show us some beautiful photos. With cameraphones like the N8/808/1020, they take great pictures in Auto, and you don’t have to be a pro photographer to take good shots. But those with a good eye can really push them to the limit. http://www.flickr.com/photos/topolino70/with/9370172806/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/belfiore/sets/72157634793218731/   cheers AlOnE89 for the tip!

Nokia ‘Treasure Tag’ Lumia accessory could stop you ever losing your keys Posted: 29 Jul 2013 05:29 AM PDT   This reminds me somewhat of that indoor location tag Nokia had at one of their last Nokia Worlds. The Verge reports that Nokia will be officially releasing this accessory which combines bluetooth and NFC to track items from a phone (except this doesn’t seem to require additional sensors placed in the room itself). The app can display the location of the item on a map which even includes Nokia’s augmented reality viewer, LiveSight. If the phone is missing, you can hold down a key of a tagged sensor (or use the ‘Find my Windows Phone web service) which will make the phone alert when in range. The battery of these Treasure Tag units is said to last 6 months when left constantly on over that low powered BT 4.0. The amber update activates BT4.0 in Lumias. Source: TheVerge Via: Reddit

Nokia Amber PR2.0 Lumia Update Changelog Posted: 29 Jul 2013 03:27 AM PDT This is apparently the full changelog for the Nokia Amber update (v3047.0000.1328.xxxx for the Nokia Lumia 920). ETA? Unknown really. I thought it was July but apparently next month. NEW FEATURES Glance Screen Clock Charging indicator / low battery Indicator for silent / vibra mode, night mode (change color for night time). OFF by default. Smart camera capture the best moment. Accidental remove unwanted objects from the scene. Select the best shot and precise moment. Sequense take a group of images with advanced face, smile and blink detection. The, best ‘face for each person is automatically selected into a single, best’ shot. FM Radio Be ready to tune your favorite station – FM Radio is BACK! Store your favorite stations for the next time. HERE branding Location & Commerce Here Maps v3.4 Your compass is a discovery What’s New: Increased venue map coverage Favorites saved in HERE Maps now sync across all HERE experiences Personalized Live Tile options: Pin and Pin destination to start a place to start as favorite Pin Pin to start a place category to start Here Drive + v2.2 The open road made ​​easy What’s New: Sync favorite places with other apps HERE and here.com Customize your map to display relevant points of interest, dry as restaurants, gas stations, and more one-tap access to speed limit Alert options right from the dashboard Personalized Live Tile options: Pin to Start a destination (one tap gives driving directions to That destination) Here Transit v3.5 Now arriving: the best way across town What’s New: Access your favorites through your searches Display nearby stations directly on a map opens Transit Maps to display more route options Transit Maps opens to display the battles navigation options Personalized Live Tile: Pin a destination like Home, Work, or School to start (one tap shows public transit routes and times to get there from wherever you are) Flip to silence Flip the phone to turn it silence. Date of sense Managing your data flow monitor and control data usage Optimally compressing web traffic. Find your closest hotspot Enriched web services (for operators). Software Amber is the addition of Nokia, which is referenced GDR2 software from Microsoft.Below is a list of amendments in GDR2. Xbox Music facilitated selection, procurement and pinning music. Also for fans of music are provided to display more detailed metadata (eg information about the songs and albums), and made ​​other improvements. FM Radio You can listen to FM radio directly in the heart of Music + Video. (This is not available in some phones). Data Sense Sense With the service date have complete control over the amount of data sent over the phone. You can impose a limit corresponding to your subscription or simply keep track of which applications send much data. (Not all mobile operators offer the service offering Sense). Application Skype applications to support VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), for example, Lync and Skype now gained greater stability and efficiency of operations. Internet Explorer browsing Comfort will improve significantly through greater compliance with HTML 5 Other improvements includes many other improvements of Windows Phone. Source:  nokiawindowsphone.pl/ Cheers Michal for the tip!

Microsoft fights old mistakes, slows down Nokia? #rant + Important news Posted: 28 Jul 2013 11:57 PM PDT Windows Phone is a Microsoft product that has an amazing vision of what a smartphone should be, not restricted by the common features that other smartphones have, it goes for a different target audience and experience so it operates differently. And so to understand why this vision is slightly misguided and needs to change. I’ll discuss why Windows is a completely different product than Windows Phone. I’ll discuss how Nokia fits in Windows Phone and Why Microsoft is slowing Nokia down instead of give it a boost up. This article is not backed by facts, it’s a personal observation of facts . Microsoft Windows the versatile OS. Microsoft Windows is an OS that is hardware independent; It relies on drivers to run pretty much any hardware. Today  people might marvel at the versatility of Android. Windows users take that versatility for granted; they don’t even think of it as a feature. That versatility of Windows helped it build an unrivaled base of applications and hardware and lots of peripherals . Anyone could have built a windows machine from scratch, or upgrade certain hardware for cheap, which made Windows very attractive for geeks and more so for the rest of the world.   Your experience may differ.  This was basically the end result of being hardware independent, your experience will always be different and not in a good way. It’s funny how Androids have this problem now. Android is Windows 10 years ago in terms of maturity. Advanced users would suffer to create a fluid experience and the rest will try their luck perhaps getting stuck with a bundled software or an annoying resources consuming IE toolbar. The fact that the hardware was different Microsoft couldn’t offer a common experience as some hardware couldn’t take it, MS even tried to force people into upgrading their machines but everybody hates Vista enough to know that this didn’t work out. BUT this is about Windows Phone and Nokia so that’ll be enough about Windows for now…   Windows Phone is the ANTI Windows. You see Windows Phone was Microsoft’s first stab at controlling the end experience; it’s the Nexus of Androids if you may. MS wanted to finally focus on the UI/UX without worrying about drivers , it didn’t want bloatware that slows the OS down, and restricted apps development to avoid security threats (I’m all for restricted access BTW) Even in the way it operates Windows  is unpolished but full of features; WP is extremely polished but scarce on features.(I’m  scared to think that the lack of features is the reason WP is so fluid). Windows is the mother of all multitasking; WP doesn’t care for multitasking (letting users do multiple things at once not background processes) Windows loves high specs but mediocre on low end;  WP works great even using 2 years old specs. and finally Windows was open to OEMs whims, it made for the worst experiences sometimes with crappy bundled antiviruses that nagged constantly. Windows Phone instead lets you delete all OEM apps in the easiest/fastest way possible. It lets you delete all 3rd party apps actually. and none of them will hide in some menu , you can do it all from your apps homescreen. Nokia wants to play with WP. At the time WP7 was born,  Nokia was shopping for a new OS or an “ECOSYSTEM” When Nokia got on the MS train the first thing it asked was to play around with the code! Right off the bat Nokia destroyed the very first thing Microsoft was aiming for, they wanted a perfect code where no one missed around so they’d have a fluid experience. Nokia had to push WP in the other direction. Nokia pushed the WP team to implement many things that they weren’t even considering (not yet anyways) they did so because of how fully featured Symbian is compared to WP, Nokia stood to lose its user base completely. So WP had to change for Nokia’s sake. Nokia had every right to demand basic features in WP. But  WP wanted to be different from your average smart phone. It doesn’t care about geeky features OR the emerging markets with little to no internet connections. It cares about a tidy code and a social/grown up experience that is constantly connected to the internet and the cloud. Nokia demands lower price points.  There’s just no denying how well the Lumia 710 sold in comparison to all the other WP7 Lumias that came along with it. Hardware differences were non-existent. It was way cheaper than the 800/900 with the later offering a bigger screen in the same resolution which meant the PPI on the 710 was actually better than the flagship ! With low sales, Nokia pushed for an even lower price point, so it had to use 256 of RAM in a series of ironically successful phones:  the Lumia 610 and the Lumia 510. both phones had major compatibility issues with apps (due to their low memory) And Microsoft yet again had to adapt to different hardware and still make sure the end experience wasn’t totally horrible. You can say that WP8 was successful of creating a great experience on low end hardware. But the fragmentation caused by WP8 upgrade was too drastic.  Nokia is running on all gears in WP8. Nokia not worried about the OS for once began focusing on hardware:  Advanced camera technologies like OIS and special audio capturing mics (will record in mono until the Amber update), huge sensors like the Lumia 1020, wireless charging without a case for 920/928 & snap on covers for almost all the other Lumias except the 520/521, and the super sensitive touch for almost all lumias except the 620. Nokia also used a strange 15:9 aspect ratio , it gives a better browsing experience and your fingers will reach the top corners a little bit easier , but it also meant MS had to work a little harder to satisfy the new 15:9 ratio.   as Peter L pointed out in the comments this is plain wrong. Even on the software front, Nokia is troubling Microsoft as their imaging apps are so amazing, other OEMs running WP has nothing to compete with  it in return: An always on clock and double tap to wake,   a host of incredibly cool mapping services and a music service that is completely free without any form of subscription.  those two competed directly with Bing maps and Xbox Music which wasn’t good news for MS. The Nokia collection has 60+ apps most of them are still exclusive to Lumias. Microsoft in return didn’t deliver any software update on time, it actually destroyed the Lumia 920 launch. ( any user of the Lumia 920 would tell that its software was RUSHED, even my Lumia 720 operates better than my Lumia 920 !!!) Microsoft is slowing Nokia down because Nokia isn’t interested in WP’s advancement for all OEMs. It’s creating a skinless skin if you will. Nokia’s profit margins comes from a diverse profile. Ever wondered why Nokia created so many phones back in the day ? Why 20+ phones a year at some point?. It’s all about supply and demand , not yours but Nokia’s. Instead of being forced in a demand for certain parts, it smartly created many phones that had different components so it wouldn’t be in a week position to negotiate prices. To clarify this further, I’ll take displays as a THEORETICAL example:  See the Lumia 620 has a strange 3.8″ screen size, but it was launched at times where 4″ screens were a low end standard = high in demand = possibly higher prices.  This meant that a manufacturer that created a 3.8″ screen would  either sell it for dirt to a Chinese OEM or sell it for cheap for Nokia . The Lumia 720 launched at times where OEMs jumped to 4.7″ thus lots of 4.3 were up for grabs again for cheap . The new Lumia 625 uses a 4.7″ screen just when every other OEM started pumping low end phones with  5″ displays. Nokia can’t risk being over demanded on supplies , the only time this has happened actually is with the Lumia 92X series launch where manufacturing delays were brutal and the word out of stock became a negative thing.  *important note: the above is a personal conclusion and is not backed by hard facts , its just an observation.  Microsoft however wanted to focus on each phone. Microsoft wanted to control every phone , it wanted to dictate the experience as I stated before and while it successfully managed to create amazing low end phones experience it just can’t keep up with Nokia’s pace and the fact that they started outsourcing some of the update process to OEMs shows that.   A new updates nightmare. You see, Microsoft is currently writing 3 updates !!!   Its debugging GDR2 and perfecting it which seems to have a nasty phone bricking bug. It’s writing GDR3 that supports high end hardware like 1080p screens, and finally it’s writing Blue, a major WP redesign. And while this might sound like a good thing … Its not !!! By the time GDR2 reaches all Nokia WP phones it’ll be at least 2 months from now (due to branding & localization).  which is the scheduled time frame for GDR3 !!! Developers will have to deal with 3 system updates! GDR1 phones, GDR2 phones and the new GDR3 phones! People will be pissed that their phone is one or two versions behind new phones or other regions of the world that were lucky to get the update faster. Some people would defend Microsoft by saying they didn’t give shipping dates for updates, the rule of thumb for updates is:  if users were too eager to get it, you’re already late on your update.     Windows Phone is not playing with Windows. Windows Phone doesn’t have the synergy that you’d expect from a shared kernel with Windows. It doesn’t even do so with the ARM based Windows RT. I would think that once I had a shared Microsoft account, a Windows 8 will add my Windows Phone to the devices charm or to the share charm and I could interact with it in a meaningfully connected way. This didn’t happen. Not beyond the calendar and contacts. Microsoft is missing an amazing opportunity to create unique experiences. Instead they’re focusing on Xbox more than they’re doing on their OSes. The fact that they released Smart Glass to Android, is really sad and weird. Google have all but limited WP in every service it offers. Why Microsoft is not doing the same, I have no idea. Note: rumors has it that the next gen WP will run Metro apps in some form. Some say its the Blue update – I’m a little skeptical. Success of Windows Phone can create the now unrealistic experience later. This article has set off to say one thing. Windows Phone will have to stray away from its roots to be successful. It’s sad but it seems the world isn’t ready yet to accept the sacrifices WP demands in order to give you a first world specific fluid experience. And the more Microsoft delays that change, Nokia and Microsoft will have a horrible times in the future ahead. I don’t know what Blue will bring. What I do know that iOS has evolved and will continue to do so. Android will drop the old kernel that was slowing it down and break out of his bottleneck situation in Android 5.0 and with the amazing hardware it allocated it might outrun WP for ever. Microsoft should DROP THE WEIGHT either stop worrying about creating the perfect OS and focus on adding demanded features and perfect them later much like 8.1 was to 8. or by admitting that Nokia is their only horse in this game and dump the extra resources allocated to OEMS that are not even trying anymore. “This post is open to any form of correction and improvement.”  this not an article to bash on Microsoft’s or Nokia’s decision, its an explanatory piece based on PERSONAL observations. I also urge commenters not to feed any trolls by replying to them. however annoying their comments may be. they don’t care and have a god-complex. leave them be.    UPDATE : Nokia’s VP of App development, Bryan Biniak, says the Finnish smartphone maker is “trying to evolve the cultural thinking [at Microsoft] to say ‘time is of the essence.’” Nokia has been releasing devices consistently since Windows Phone 8 shipped in November, but the lack of apps and software updates has always been the weak point. “We are releasing new devices frequently and for every new device, if there is an app that somebody cares about that’s not there that’s a missed opportunity of a sale,” says Biniak. Describing Microsoft’s focus on its budget and end of year targets, Biniak says “waiting until the end of your fiscal year when you need to close your targets, doesn’t do us any good when I have phones to sell today.” source: theverge.com

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