In the same week that Nokia revealed a return to profit, the Finnish company also reports the death of their once loved Operating System, Symbian. At the beginning of 2012 Nokia's boss Stephen Elop said it had 'competitive challenges that there was no way to solve' - but its demise was only confirmed this week during Nokia's latest earnings announcement.
‘The Nokia 808 PureView, a device which showcases our imaging capabilities and which came to market in mid-2012, was the last Symbian device from Nokia’
Sob. I’m sure you’ll be grieving too. The chances are you once owned and cherished your very own Symbian device during the golden year of 2005. I mean, it was the biggest operating system in the world at one point – that was until it was overtaken by the mighty Apple OS of course.I really do hate to be the bearer of such bad news but let’s be honest, this has been on the cards for a while what with Nokia's popularity decline and the release of the Windows Lumia phone. Even the chaps and chapettes from the company admit this:
‘We won't miss it - Symbian's been looking rather dated since the arrival of the iPhone OS in 2007, never mind the latest iOS, Android and Windows Phone variants we have today - but that doesn't mean we won't wave it a fond farewell. We've gone through an awful lot of Symbian phones over the years.’
The company's marketing expenses have been declining on a yearly basis due to the decreased interest in Symbian, so you can’t really blame them. Still, it’s the end of an era.
But when one door closes, another one opens. And this time onto the upgraded Nokia music streaming service, Nokia Music+. Nokia Music and its Mix Radio feature has been one of the most liked features of the Lumia since its launch in late 2011. Up until now it’s offered customised streaming radio channels for free, with no ads. Now the service is getting a premium tier - Nokia Music+ - where customers will pay £3.40 a month for the ability to cache an unlimited number of mixes on the smartphone, as well as the ability to skip as many tracks as they want.
‘With this, our service is even more complete,’ says Jyrki Rosenberg, Nokia’s vice president of entertainment. ‘There is a funnel of free users and also a tier of people who are willing to pay for unlimited skips, higher audio quality and the other features.’ Hm, sounds promising
At least you can now find the right soundtrack to finesse your period of grief. ‘Another one bites the dust’.
