Nokia Lumia 920. Dubai - The Final Frontier...

Life rushing by... (Photo credit: .craig)

So I had this rather public meltdown the other day. My HTC Desire once again went into a negative feedback loop and started cluster-crashing because of some accretive Android/HTC bug that constantly pumps memory full like a narcoleptic bouncy castle pump operator.

It crashed, then rebooted (every time twinkling "Quietly Brilliant", which when a device is being bumptiously retarded is not, believe me, helpful), crashed and rebooted. I had to send a potential client a land-line number to call over LinkedIn for a scheduled call. The shame. It was as bad as asking someone to send a fax. I couldn't tweet a photo I had taken. I was cut off, in The Land That Time Forgot.

Now, to be fair, the HTC is getting long in the tooth now. It's running Frozen Mastodon or whatever early version of Android was around back then. I bought it from an authorised UAE reseller which meant, of course, that I got a Jordanian mobile with a 'Muezin' app built into the firmware. For two years, I have been finding whatever it is I want to do interrupted five times a day. It took me three days to work out how to turn the audible alarm off. A morning person, even I found 4.30am alarms wearing after a while.

The crashes made me realise I had been putting up with a subtly degrading 'user experience' for some time now. The camera's not all that - and frequently crashes. I use SIM based contacts because the only way to clear memory every time it fills is delete the phone contacts. TweetDeck and Instagram are pretty much the phone's saving graces. Meanwhile, it's sat on the desk, quietly and brilliantly crashing and re-crashing.

The decision to throw the mobile at the wall was an easy one and highly cathartic. However, I now had a perma-crashing mobile with a cracked screen. What happened next was something of a surprise.

Nokia's PR agency popped up and gave me a Lumia 920 on loan. Which is about as neat a piece of timing as you'd want to find. And pretty brave given that I had not only forsworn Nokia by hurling my N-86 at the self-same wall two years back but have been quite a vocal critic of the company as it proceeded to screw everything up over the past 18 months and more.

So far I can tell you the Lumia is a very impressive piece of hardware indeed. The first thing I've noticed is the onscreen keyboard is a quantum leap from the HTC one and usable to the point of provoking child-like gurgles of pleasure. Windows Phone is very slick and so utterly unlike Windows you wonder why they kept the name. I have reservations about sucking up the Microsoft ecosystem Kool-Aid, but I'm going along with things for now. The Lumia is heavy, in the substantial way that Nissan Patrol doors go 'thunk' when you close them. I'm not entirely sure a canary yellow phone is 'me', but beggars and all that.

I'll let you know how I get on with it. Meanwhile, I've got a book to launch...

Where Did Nokia Go Wrong?

Steve Jobs shows off the white iPhone 4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ratings agency Fitch has just this minute cut Nokia's stock to junk bond status, reports Reuters. Five years ago Nokia was the undisputed world market leader in mobile handsets. Today it's routinely referred to as a 'struggling Finnish handset maker'.

Where did it all go wrong? How on earth can you take global market dominance, a near-faultless track record of innovation and product excellence and a loyal base of customers around the world and simply blow it?

The answer is Steve Jobs and a small issue of perspective.

Jobs saw the mobile as a computer. Nokia saw it as a telephone. Nokia was working on making your phone smarter, Jobs was putting a content access device in your hands. Even Nokia's early N series phones tacked a keyboard onto a phone, a bit like a mobile One Per Desk rather than using the powerful combination of smart access device, applications and content wrapped up into a flawless user experience.

For me, the rot truly set in when Nokia first started shipping 'smart phones' that could link to its Ovi store and download apps and stuff. The store was pretty much empty for a very long time indeed. Nokia seemed to miss the whole idea that the mobile was to a handset manufacturer what a SIM is to a mobile operator - a cash cow. Ovi could have been an open platform for application developers and content owners. It should have been.

On June 29th 2007, Jobs took to the stage in his turtleneck sweater and launched the iPhone. Nokia's executives must still have been laughing when, in September, Apple sold its millionth iPhone. They must still have been laughing when Time named it Invention of the Year in 2007.

Apple's iTunes and Jobs' app-centric approach created a revolution. Nokia, in common with mobile operators around the world, persisted in a circuit-switched mentality. When Google joined in with Android, the writing was on the wall. They started fitting the brass handles when Elop announced Nokia was ditching Symbian a year before it was ready to replace the operating system with the Great White Hope - Microsoft's Windows, the operating system that never 'got' mobile. Remember Windows CE anyone?

Today, Apple and Samsung between them account for something like 50% of the global smartphone market. And Nokia is a junk bond. Its first Windows based 'phone, the Lumia, has a name that means prostitute in Spanish.

Am I writing Nokia's obituary too early?

Playing with Evi

So you've got an Android phone and you're jealous of those iPhone wielding pin-heads who are rattling around saying stupid things to Siri and getting wildly amusing responses, right?

Be green no more. For now we have Evi, the AI-driven personal assistant for Android phones that not only says funny stuff when you ask her to open the pod bay doors, but is also more Euro-centric (well, UK-centric, let's admit it) than Siri and also answers questions directly from her own databases rather than constantly pointing you to search engines as an answer.

Apple has already threatened to remove the iPhone version of Evi from its AppStore as it is "Confusingly similar to Siri" (or possibly just too good). This is obviously no problem for Android users, as their very own mobile operating system was considered so strongly to be 'confusingly similar' to Apple's own operating system.

Best of all, Evi works, although she sounds a lot more robotic than Siri:

What is the square root of 69?
The square root of 69 is 8-some - more accurately 8.30662386292.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
The chicken was on her way to the rail station. I told her there was a train to London leaving in 10 minutes.


What time is it in Beirut?
The time in Beirut is 10:16:58 Eastern European Time.

Where's the nearest McDonald's?
I couldn't find anywhere suitable, so here's Yelp results for McDonald's in your nearest town, Dubai.

Open the pod bay doors, Evi. (Well, I had to, didn't I?)
I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

What do you think of Siri?
Siri is a great product in the iPhone4S. it controls the phone and retrieves information from Wolfram Alpha and Yelp in the US. But my technology differs. While Siri uses technology Apple got from Siri Inc, I use technology developed by True Knowledge. These technologies work in completely different ways. I'm also available on most Android phones and most iPhones and soon will be available on other channels. You can talk to me with voice or keyboard. Siri is only on the iPhone 4S and you must use voice.

How many calories are there in a Snickers bar?
There are 467 calories in 100 grams (3.53 ounces) of Snickers bar.

Evi is available on the Android market and is a free download. You can thank me for the time you wasted playing about with Evi later...