The N97 has been on sale in Amman for the past few days (apparently for JD 450, US$ 633). There is a lot of Nokia and activity and buzz these days. I’ve been invited to attend its launch in Beirut but couldn’t go. Instead, I caught up with Bruce Howe, the marketing head for Nokia in Levant (which means he’s the guy responsible for making people in Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq lust over the latest and greatest Nokia devices!).
The N97 in Bruce’s hand looked great. But it was our bad luck that it was totally out of battery. But no worries, Nokia have promised me that they will provide the 360east Lab staff (i.e. your truly) with a “test unit”, so wait for the N97 review on 360east soon. I hope.
Loyal 360east readers (hello Nina, btw, nice meeting you today), have noticed that my blogging activity has dropped to almost zero. That’s not because I am out of blogging ideas or that there aren’t enough thing that piss me off in town. Actually I have at least 10 blog post drafts sitting there on my Mac, waiting for me to finish them. I’ve been busy with a huge personal project that has sucked the last bit of energy out of me. I hope that within a few week I will be back (with a vengeance).
The reason I am telling you this is that I will not write a super long post transcribing Bruce’s interview here. No time! Instead I will post it as a podcasts (gasp!). Remember those? You might even remember MixUp Arabia, the first podcast from Arabia, which I kept doing for a few months back in 2005 (aka the good old days).
I recoded my talk with Bruce on my 5800. As I was listening to the sound file I noticed that it skipped a bit at certain points (which is totally weird). But I am posting it anyway..
I asked Bruce about why OVI wasn’t working properly with Zain. I asked him about when the heck we’re going to get the long promised Amman map on our phones. I asked him about navigation and how it works in the Levant with its pretty chaotic cities. I learned that there is a ban on GPS in Syria (surprise surprise) and that despite the fact that we Levantines are poorer than our Gulf brethren, we still are willing to dish out top dollar to get our hands on Nokia’s latest high end devices (never call them phones in front of a Nokia executive).
Nokia are really trying hard to be locally relevant. That seems to be their weapon in the face of the iPhone onslaught. They recently announced a competition, called Bil3arabi, for Arab app developers, offering US$ 100,000 for the best application submitted, and US$ 25,000 for the second prize. Let’s see what the region is capable of.
Speaking of the Ovi Store, it hasn’t been very well received so far. Apple’s 50,000 + App store is making a mockery of OVI and similar mobile app stores. I installed the OVI store on my 5800 a couple of days ago and wasn’t impressed. Neither the apps nor the interface of the service are too exciting. I particularly missed the abundance of free or or 99 cent games and little apps i’ve seen on the iPhone’s App store.
Anyway.. If you are a mobile geek, you’ll have to listen to the podcast 
Listen here in MP3 (23 min 29 sec/ 10.8 MB).
What Bruce doesn’t talk about (but sort of alludes to) is that there seems to be an exciting upcoming announcement coinciding with the official launch of the N97 in Jordan. This device lives on data. And I think Nokia wants to make it easier for us users to really enjoy data on the go.
It is a pity that Jordan is now seriously lagging behind when it comes to 3G. Now with the iPhone, the N97 and other smartphones coming to town, internet access through mobile should be really taking off, and with it all sorts of cool content and applications. For now we’re stuck with GPRS/EDGE. Hmm.
Another Nokia piece of news: I recently attended the launch of their recycling program in Jordan, which is the 2nd country in the Middle East to get that.
Now you can send your old phones (even non-Nokia ones) to a number of recycling spots around Amman. Nokia did a global study and discovered that over 40% of people just keep their old phones tucked away in their drawers at home. Almost no one send them to recycling. Nokia want you to get over your attachment to your old phone and help save the planet by sending it back to them. So much raw materials could be saved if people started doing that.
However, it would be cooler if device manufacturers paid consumer some amount of money for the phones they give back. No chance for that I guess!
And I leave you with this this interesting fact for your next dinner conversation: If every Nokia user in the world (there are 1 billion of them) removed their chargers from the wall socket after charging their phones, the energy saved could power 100,000 homes. Damn!
Comments
2 responses to “For mobile geeks only: talking to Nokia’s Levant marketing head about the N97, Amman’s missing map and Ovi”
it might be a bit off topic, but i just had to comment on something:
> Nokia want you to get over your attachment to your old phone and > help save the planet by sending it back to them. So much raw
> materials could be saved if people started doing that.
they surely want to save their profits and not the planet. Otherwise they wouldn’t try to impose new phonies to people every three or so months.
If they were really trying to be locally relevant they would allow us to buy music from Jordan. The nokia music stores (both UAE and UK) refuse Jordanian credit cards. Plus ovi store is a total bust until they start allowing users to get both the software installation file (sis) and the license so they can reinstall if they need to reset their device. Professional mobile software stores have been doing that for ages.