Apple vs. Nokia

Since Apple introduced the iPhone, Nokia continue to lose share of the smartphone market. So, how are they different in making and marketing cell phones?

Apple create public anticipation and excitment on their product launch because they keep their product secret very well (until the iPhone 4 shows up in a bar in the Bay area). That creates public interest and people do line up to get an iPhone because it is cool. Nokia on the other hand announced the N8 in April and said it would be available in the third quarter of 2010. The N8 is supposed to be Nokia's answer to the iPhone but what good is it if you cannot buy it and let Apple take the market with the iPhone 4?

Cell phone has become a commodity where hardware becomes less of a differentiating factor. Apple understand this and created the App Store. With the App Store, there is a platform on which third party developers can create applications and let the marketplace decide which applications are good. Consumers can 'customize' their phones however they like by loading different applications. Apple shift the software application development cost to others while taking a cut in every application sold at the AppStore, like collecting tax!

While Apple have basically one phone model, Nokia segment the market by selling different models, the N-series high end multimedia phone, the E-series business optimized phones, other series for music focused and other low end phones - and they don't run the same operating system. Apple again have the advantage here because they can focus on one platform development and the application developers can make one application that runs on the iPhone (and iPod Touch too). On the other hand, Nokia have to spend multiple R&D budgets on developing and marketing many more phone platforms. In addition, software developers have to port their applications to different platforms.

I think the N8 has better hardware than the iPhone but the software and user interface may let them down. However, I am still interested to see how the N8 performs in the smartphone market, especially outside North America where people are generally more savvy with cell phones selection.