Yesterday Nokia announced their first two smartphones running Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system, the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800. They’re gorgeous, and they’re both fairly affordable, but unless you like Windows Phone … none of that really matters. While Mango, the current release of Windows Phone, fixes a lot of the issues that bothered us with the first version of Windows Phone, it’s Apollo, which will likely be called Windows Phone 8, that we’re really waiting for. “Third time’s the charm” is a saying that sadly defines the technology industry. Remember Android 1.5 and 1.6? They sucked, but then 2.0 hit the scene and it really made us take the OS seriously. Same thing with the first iPhone and second iPhone, both were interesting, but it was the 3GS that came with a faster processor that really made the Jesus Phone shine. Something tells us the Windows Phone story will be the same, and we’re not alone with that opinion. Niklas Savander, Executive Vice President of Markets for Nokia, said the following in an interview with TechRadar:
“When you look within the Windows Phone ecosystem and compare how the Lumia performs, there we have a contractual agreement with Microsoft for a certain amount of engineering which we can use for differentiation. However, we have to be very careful on how we use that one because we cannot fragment the developer ecosystem. If that starts forking, that’s not useful at all. We made the decision to go to Windows Phone when Mango was pretty much done, so we were able to impact some elements of it but you’ll really see the fruits of what we can do with Microsoft when the Apollo version of Windows Phone comes out.”
He goes on to say how Nokia’s working with Microsoft to enable low cost Windows Phones and that having 2 devices is “absolutely not enough” in today’s market, but the 710 and 800 are a good start. Bring on Mobile World Congress 2012!