from Hacker News

Ten years ago Microsoft bought Nokia's phone unit – then killed it

by orcul on 5/5/24, 8:01 PM with 24 comments

• by shrubble on 5/6/24, 10:15 AM

  The real issue is that Microsoft's "engineering culture" looked down on the use of co-processor chips and wanted to do everything on a big CPU.

  Even in 2012 with the Pureview 808, Nokia had a pixel processing chip that could handle 1 billion pixel a second, with low power usage. Microsoft's inept driver architecture made it difficult to use, so later Microsoft versions of the Lumia phones actually had lower specs and power usage issues.

  Elop was very likely Rick Belluzzo of SGI writ large; a mediocre thinker, a big-company bureaucrat who never cared about tech...

• by chiph on 5/5/24, 9:11 PM

  I miss Windows Phone. It was fast, did what I needed, and was easy to use one-handed. The Nokia hardware was good (especially the camera, for the time), except the plastic case & screen collected scratches like crazy.

  I would have had no problem paying more for a premium metal & glass case for it.

• by greatgib on 5/6/24, 3:04 AM

     To be fair, Kallasvuo did try to build a software environment for Nokia phones. The largely open source Maemo operating system failed to take off
  

  This is not fair to say that, Maemo failure again result from bad decision at leadership level, Maemo was never given a chance with standard consumer headsets because Nokia was afraid of hitting their Symbian cash cow at this time...

• by nailer on 5/6/24, 3:09 AM

  I currently am having a conversation with a company that I have purchased window blinds from, And I cannot find my previous conversation. It may have been Instagram or WhatsApp or email I can’t find any mention of the company beyond certain date.

  It’s probably Some other app, but I don’t know what. My understanding is that Windows phone had a universal message search which would mean I’m not in this position.

• by mydogmuppet on 5/7/24, 1:11 AM

  I had two Nokia 1020s. Yes Windows 8 was a nightmare. The 38Mpix camera sensor at 1/1.5 inches, Zeiss lens, OIS coupled with Pureview software rendered stunning images. Especially low light. 9 years on I've never quite got the same joy out of Pixel Pro or IOS images.

• by HermitX on 5/6/24, 4:05 AM

  When the times leave you behind, they won't even say goodbye.

• by pjmlp on 5/6/24, 7:22 PM

  And with that decision, they killed most of the UWP goodwill on Windows desktop as well.

• by doublerabbit on 5/5/24, 11:29 PM

  Sigh, now we've stuck in a world of Google or Apple. I recall a world where each phone had itself own OS, or firmware. Every phone was different.

  I miss my Lumia and my Sony Ericsson k700i and just the simplicity of texting.

• by hulitu on 5/7/24, 5:33 PM

  > Ten years ago Microsoft bought Nokia's phone unit – then killed it

  Embrace. Extend. Extinguish. The only things they do good. /s

  Meanwhile pressing the "X" button on a maximized window causes the window and the one below to close.