Mobile for the Masses

Last week, in an unguarded moment, a Nokia middle-management marketeer let slip that by  2012 the Symbian S60 OS is to be phased out and replaced by the all-singing, all-dancing, all-  Linux Maemo. As the news spread, a legion of mobile bloggers gathered to gloat over the still-  twitching corpse of S60 like distant relatives flocking to the funeral of a renowned patriarch.

Carlo Longino of MobHappy weighed in with a none too touching eulogy that, atypically, quoted  from Mike Rowehel’s infamously pro-iPhone anti-Nokia rant. Carlo states that the argument of  scale is a nonsense, that the company shipping the most devices does not demand the greatest attention of the Developer Community. In his view (and Mike’s) we should all be working with the ‘best’ platform available.

Well, Carlo, you’re right and you’re wrong. One hundred thousand plus iPhone apps in iTunes and over a billion downloads does indeed make a strong case for some quick bucks and PR puff. I don’t deny that the Morodo team sees the iPhone app as an essential piece of the jigsaw (as I write our own MO-Call app for the Apple wunderphone is In Review) but it is just a piece.

However we view the iPhone, if we truly want to reach the world, what we don’t do is write off an OS simply because the key manufacturer’s online distribution portal isn’t what we want it to be, or the mobile doesn’t support gosh-awesome graphics. Why? Because that’s not what the whole world wants from a phone.

In the back street phone markets of New Delhi Nokia phones, sold wholesale, are known as ‘dollar.’ It’s a trusted and aspirational brand. We might all aspire to the iPhone but the reality is we’ll use a refurbished 5110 if it’s what we can afford. I don’t want to come over all evangelical but Nokia Ovi Life Services really is bringing email and the web to the Third World and S40 sure ain’t dead yet.

Ask yourself: do Apple employ anyone to do the work of Jan Chipchase’s unit at Nokia? No, they don’t. Nor will they. Ever. Apple is First World only. To everyone out there making awesome apps for the iPhone, please, go ahead, blaze a trail, coin it in on your games, but don’t write-off those of us bringing useful devices and services to the next four billion souls who can’t afford a smartphone.