Did you already know: The first Nokia Android telephone was launched method again in 2014

On the performance side, the less said the better. The Snapdragon S4 Play chipsets weren’t a powerhouse to begin with, but the 512 MB and 768 MB of RAM on the Nokia X and Nokia XL further included insult to injury. Competing inventions like the Samsung Galaxy Core boasted a faster chipset and more RAM at a same rate point.

Suffice it to say that performance was not the strong suite now and the phones stuttered along even in regular operation.

A forward-looking used experience

Credit: Dhruv Bhutani/ Android Authority

However , not all was bad. Led by Peter Skillman, the onetime head of design for WebOS at Palm, Nokia generated a surprisingly forward-looking customer experience.

Dubbed the Nokia X Platform, it declined the icons and widgets-based interface of stock Android and replaced it with a Windows Phone-like tile-based appear that started the phone accessible to first-time users. In actuality, there was no app drawer at all.

A quick swipe to the left or right brought you to Nokia’s “Fastlane” hub. A unified regional centres for all notifications and multi-tasking, it was a fantastic addition that — once again — focused on calmnes of use.

Since there was just a single capacitive button at the figurehead, Nokia uttered the phone easy to use in one hand and succeeded at it for the most part. Like the often forgotten Meego-based Nokia N9, the phone even integrated social sharing right into the interface.

Read more: The rise and fall of Android’s biggest opponents over the past few decades

However, Nokia compiled the tomb mistake of ship the phone without support for the Google Play Store and works. Unlike Samsung’s TouchWiz or other smartphone barks of the time, the Nokia X programme wasn’t merely a scalp. Instead, it was constructed as a forked edition of open-source Android and was a fully customized take over Google’s operating system.

The phone had deep tie-ins with the Microsoft ecosystem of services like OneDrive. While the world moved forward to an app-centered smartphone experience, the Nokia Store was a rehashed take on the Ovi Store on Symbian phones.

A curated list of apps vs the millions of apps on the Play Store, you can imagine how that played out.

The lack of Google Play services and re-inventing the app accumulation was a foolhardy move even in 2014.

The company tried to woo makes onto the platform, but the part act was shortlived. By July 2014, a inadequate six months since open, the Nokia X sequence was canned for good. By then, Microsoft had completed its takeover of Nokia and departed all-in on Windows Phone.

The beginning of the end

The death of the Nokia X-series too signaled the end of Nokia’s Android intentions. By April 2014, the take over by Microsoft had been completed. A pre-MWC 2014 paraphrase by Joe Belfiore rang true. Microsoft wasn’t enthused by Nokia’s usage of Android and quickly wrapped up the program. Microsoft continued to use Nokia branding on Lumia hardware till October 2014 and then switched it out to Microsoft Lumia. The change was now complete.

Under Microsoft, the company carried a range of Windows Phone-based economical telephones with limited success. While there was nothing particularly wrong with the hardware and the Windows Phone interface still comes across as a wheeze of fresh air, Nokia’s problems across generations of hardware remained the same — a terrible lack of app support.

There were limited takers for Windows Phone designs because of poor app support, which in turn presented little incentive for makes to jump on board.

At a go when smartphone developers were going their hands dirty in the successful iOS and Android app ecosystems, there simply wasn’t room for a third mare in the scoot. Microsoft tried to throw money at the problem by funding the development of major apps like Facebook and promoting alternatives for major apps.

However, you really can’t force an ecosystem. Without the apps, purchasers simply didn’t show up and sales started drying up. With limited users, there was no incentive for major developers to spend time and resources reaching popular apps for Windows Phone devices.

The writing was on the wall and the Lumia 650 in 2016 became the last phone to be launched under Microsoft Mobile.

Microsoft wrote-off 900 billion dollars from its investment in Nokia and announced its plans to departure the mobile equipment business the following year.

Credit: Dhruv Bhutani/ Android Authority

The Nokia brand name built its magnificent return to the smartphone space under the watch of HMD Global. The busines innovated its first Nokia Android-based smartphone, the Nokia 6, in 2017. Nokia has been trying to carve out a niche for itself on the back of a furnish Android build and a clean-living design.

Looking at its lackluster recent exhausts like the Nokia 5.3, perhaps the company would be well served at determine a niche and going back to where it all started. A telephone that extradites an excellent build, a focus on usability, and a forward-looking take on software.

Hey HMD, how about a reboot of the Nokia X succession?

This is the eighth post in our “Did you know” series, in which we dive into the history books of Android and buyer engineering to disclose significant and interesting facts or happens that have been forgotten over occasion. What do you want to see us cover next? Let us know in the comments.

Did you know: This was the first water-resistant Android phone Did you know: The Surface Duo wasn’t Microsoft’s firstly dual-screen foldable Did you know: HTC owned Beats before Apple Did you know: The LG V4 0 opened the era of modern triple camera phones Did you know: Samsung formerly thoughts Android was a joke Did you know: Android was originally designed for digital cameras Did you know: The Samsung Galaxy Note was satirized and predicted to flop at opening

Read more: androidauthority.com

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