“Just months after selling its ailing handsets business to Microsoft, the Finnish company is planning to go back into the consumer market with a new tablet,” Matti Huuhtanen reports for The Associated Press. “It will launch a 7.9-inch device early next year in China, the world’s biggest market, before selling it elsewhere.”
“The device will be manufactured by Foxconn, which makes Apple’s handsets. And it will operate Android instead of the Windows software Nokia used on its cellphones when it began a partnership with Microsoft in 2011. That partnership ended unsuccessfully — in April, Nokia sold its cellphones unit to Microsoft for $7.2 billion,” Huuhtanen reports. “Sebastian Nystrom, head of at Nokia’s technologies unit, described the N1 tablet as ‘a new beginning for Nokia.'”
“The aluminum-cased tablet uses Google’s Android Lollipop operating system, and will retail for some $250,” Huuhtanen reports. “‘It’s pointing in the right direction, but there are some real challenges,’ said Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics, near London. ‘It doesn’t have the distribution channels that others like Samsung and Apple enjoy, and nobody is making any profits in Android tablets at the moment.'”
MacDailyNews Take: A textbook example of Trade Dress Infringement, if there ever was one.
“After holding the No.1 spot in cellphones for 14 years, Nokia wasn’t able to meet the challenge when Apple in 2007 introduced the iPhone, and also began to lose the competition to cheaper Asian manufacturers,” Huuhtanen reports. “‘We are pleased to bring the Nokia brand back into consumers’ hands,’ said Nystrom. He hinted Nokia was also interested in producing an Android smartphone. That can’t happen before 2016, however, as the Microsoft deal included a commitment that Nokia not enter the smartphone business before then.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We have only one question for the “leadership” of Nokia:
Exactly how high are you?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sparkles” for the heads up.]
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Nokia have their copiers humming.
Sebastian Nyström was the leader of the MeeGo platform at Nokia.
Since that failed spectacularly, he now went with MeToo.
The frenzied anticipation is palpable.
Nokia = Gluttons For Crushing Punishment
From all appearances, Nokia can’t read a cash-flow sheet.
There are going to be some very pissed off kids on Christmas day when their cheap parents give them this.
Forget Christmas. This isn’t actually coming out until February – and that’s for it’s launch market, China.
So Nokias new strategy is to “become” one of said ‘cheaper Asian manufacturers’ 😉
Yes, but at a higher price point.
Well then they’re doomed. #china
I think Nokia’s strategy is to have an Android tablet (whether it sells or not); wait until Microsoft ultimately gives up on Surface, and have no choice but to “go Android.” Then, Nokia gets bought by Microsoft AGAIN, this time for their Android tablets.
And the next around, the Nokia “left over” can do smart watches…
Joking aside, if they can steal Apple’s IP and make a slick tablet with Lollipop (which is damn nice).. good for them.
But it’s illegal. And if their plan is to never sell it in developed countries with legal systems, then fine, good for them. They can be kings of a steaming pile of turd called China.
Oh wait, that’s not right, because the iPad is actually selling in China. So they can compete for the leftovers in a country with no legal system. Have fun with that. Can’t wait until a local company takes them out with the very same strategy ;).
If I was short on money, I’d rather buy an old 1stGen iPad mini before this crap. I don’t care what the specs look like. Hell for $250 you can get a refurbished iPad mini Retina from the Apple online store. There is absolutely no reason to settle for garbage in the tablet space today; the iPad is accessible by all.
Nokia would do better to burn their cash in a barrel to keep warm through the winter.
…then they better spend the winter in St. Croix.
Perhaps Apple will get some assistance on Maps from this.
Apple may have been a sleeping giant before Jobs return but Nokia is/was a sleeping midget content with status quo and never pushing the human race forward if it rocked their boat too much. All they get is my unbridled contempt and as dated as this expression is so “NOT WORTHY!” Same with Microsoft. You snooze you lose in business. And sometimes catastrophically.
The good news for Apple is that the United States District Court, Northern District of California, doesn’t include any judges of Finnish descent.
Designed by Nokia.
Made in China.
Approved by Lucy Koh.
Hell, judge koh would probably find that Apple infringed with the iPad.
Designed by Apple in California.
Photocopied by Nokia in Finland.
Manufactured by Foxconn in China.
Apple you made a big mistake with the iPad Mini 3.
F**k me Nokia aren’t trying to cover such a blatant copy of the iPad Mini. It will run a OS designed to data mine its users as well. Nokia have no decency.
Agreement not to enter the smartphone business before 2016? Same agreement that made sure no ex-Nokia employees were going to be fired by Microsoft? Hmm.
Dream On!
Exactly how high are you?
You obviously didn’t see those 4″ heels he was wearing.
It’s very troubling that FoxConn, a huge Apple partner, agreed to manufacture this knock-off product. First it was Xiaomi duplicating Apple products and now this. The Chinese theft of intellectual property is outrageous and must be stopped with whatever means necessary.
Apple should just tell Foxconn that if they manufacture this ripoff piece of crap that they will make them pay, and dearly. Go thermonuclear on their asses.
I guess Steve Balmer was not the only mentally challenged person at Microsoft.
Microsoft saw Apple and Google gaining ground in the mobile market so they revamped their phone software, bought Nokia and then stumbled. They utterly failed to notice that one of the most important reasons Apple and Android were successful was because the mobile hardware ran the same operating systems and apps would run either on a tablet or a phone.
Now the fools are doing it again. These tablets should be running Windows for Phone and NOT Android. It’s like they’re doing everything in their power to avoid the slightest bit of success in the mobile market. This level of stupidity is shocking!!
Great job! They look exactly like the iPad that I just bought. Can’t these assholes produce their own designs? Apple should sue Nokia into oblivion.
I understand the indignation as an Apple fan and loyalist. That having been said, I wonder what is the harm in making a product that looks essentially like the iPad. It is not the look of the iPad that makes it successful where so many Android tablets have failed. It’s the software and the eco-system. People don’t buy Android products because they look like Apple products. They buy them because they have no sense of taste, no shame, and are too cheap to buy into the arguably more expensive initially, but more fiscally rewarding over the long term product suite from Apple. Nokia will stuff the channel with millions of these knockoffs down the road and Verizon and AT&T will give them away with the purchase of an iPhone and a 2-year contract, and the poor schlubs upon whom they were foisted will park them in a drawer and never use it except to keep his or her underwear pressed. It is truly amazing to me that the likes of Nokia want to head down this pathetic when it so clearly leads exactly nowhere.
Doubt they have any intent to release this product in the US. They haven’t had a real presence (or reseller/carrier relationships) in an age.
Re the knock-off aspects, though, one thing that’s struck me for years is that if camera manufacturers were as active in attacking “trade dress” rip offs as iDevice makers, given how similar many DSLRS (and before that SLRs) and other models are betrween makers on the surface, that whole industry would’ve been tied up in litigation long ago….
….just curious as to why it was never a big deal over there and such an humongous one on this side…
Because, in the U.S., we have laws that are supposed to protect industrial designs like those created by Jony Ive against trade dress infringement.