An Open Letter To Nokia
Nokia,
I know that my sole opinion doesn’t count for much amongst your 35% share of the global mobile phone market.
However, I believe I represent a growing number of consumers who can only express frustration with the way Nokia (and the rest of the mobile phone industry) has been heading over the last few years.
I believe you’ve lost your way. You used to make great phones, but now instead of being a pioneer or a leader, you’re a follower. I represent your dream market. I’m in my early thirties, male, with disposable income, and I love to evangelise good products to friends, family & anyone else who’ll listen.
I used to recommend your mobile phones, and look forward to upgrading to a newer handset each year, but now, I live in fear that my current phone (the Nokia 1100, the last good phone you made) will break and force me to “upgrade”.
The Nokia 1100 is cheap, but that’s not why I love it. I’m more than happy to spend money on technology that works, but all of the phones I’ve used in recent years (including so-called market leaders such as the Sony Ericsson K750i and the Samsung X820) have made me want to smash them up in frustration.
The Nokia 1100 isn’t without it’s faults, but it has five core things that I want from a phone.
1. Long battery life.
2. Simple UI with easy access to address book and text messages.
3. Buttons which aren’t too small to be able to use.
4. Compatibility with previous Nokia chargers and headsets.
5. A simple and traditional “ring-ring” tone.
What the mobile phone industry have failed to notice, is that there are still many of us who don’t care about having video messaging, internet, wap, cameras, java games, music players, video clips, polyphonic or mp3 ringtones, live tv or anything else that was never designed to work on a phone. You know why? Because 99 times out of 100, the user experience is just downright crappy.
The iPod is wildly successful because it gets two basic things right.
1. A hierarchical & simple to use interface which belies it’s power by keeping lesser used (and sometimes more complex) options more deeply buried than the more common ones.
2. Thoughtful, stylish, but minimalistic hardware design. Why use 10 buttons when you can use 5.
You yourselves as a company are successful because you created a phone interface that was simple enough for a technophobic grandparent to use, but yet poweful enough to meet the requirements of the everyday user.
But these days, to put it simply, your phones are bloatware.
The Nokia 3210 was one of the best looking phones you ever made. The buttons were just the right size, and well spaced apart so as not to be troublesome. The simple layout of the up, down, select & cancel buttons was just perfect.
My recommendation?
Remodel the 3210.
- Ditch the icons. I don’t mind if the screen is colour or mono, so long as it’s easy to read.
- Implement the 8310-style address book which indexes by name first, but allows other data like home, fax, mobile, business, email, notes, address, etc. to be stored
- Make the whole battery form the back of the phone, like on the 5110, allowing users to purchase more bulky batteries for longer life if desired (or thinner ones for a sleeker look).
- Make it Bluetooth so I can use headsets, car kits and backup the address book with iSync on Mac.
- Don’t bother with a camera, WAP, java, animated icons or picture messages. But give me all those great features like auto-keypad lock, T9 texting, profiles, stopwatch, calculator, alarm clock, and for those who turn to their phone when they are standing bored on a train platform, give us the original Snake game (most other games so far have been terrible), ringtone editor, operator logo editor and an FM radio.
- Make it compatible with those same Nokia chargers and headsets that I have lying about everywhere. You’ll sell less accessories, but more phones.
- Give me lots of text message storage space, and make it easy for me to back them up.
- Give me 20 ringtones, all a variation on a simple “ring ring”. Monophonic, Polyphonic, MP3, whatever. I dont care, and make it easy for me to add more from my computer.
- Here’s a wacky idea, give me an official Nokia leather case included in the package. Even wackier, put a solar panel on the back of it so we can charge our mobiles just by leaving them face down on the desk. It’s good PR. You’ll sell millions. Trust me.
Ok, so that last one was a bit way out there, but somebody needs to shake things up a bit.
Apple are taking an interesting direction at the high end of the market. There’s nothing wrong with phones that do everything, but rarely do they do it well. Apple spends a lot of time making sure the user experience is good. Feature bloat may thrill all the kids, but it continues to frustrate us core users who want a phone that “just works”.
Go back and look at the 5110, the 8310, the 1100 and even the 6310. Go back to basics. Thoughtful, intuitive design with powerful yet simple UI is what works.
C’mon Nokia, you’re better than this.
