Products & Services
Sorting through 1100 rumors a day
By Charlie on 24 April 2009
ESPOO, Finland – Rumors are a normal part of life. Someone hears something or thinks they heard something and, next thing you know, it’s repeated everywhere as fact.
For the most part, here at Nokia, we follow those rumors, but let most of them be. Of the ones that have any staying power, or that have the potential to snowball into something more serious, we look at these more closely and weigh action. In the end, there are a few we feel can be clarified and put to rest with a simple statement.
Below, I have listed four rumors we have read or heard in the past few weeks that could use a sentence of two to shoo them away. Read on the learn more.
The little guy that could
Long time readers know my repsect for the Nokia 1100. Nokia sold over 200 million of these, so they are pretty popular, too. With these number in mind, a set of miscreants allegedly purchased a Nokia 1100 for €25,000. The intent was to use a rumored security exploit to, of course, steal oodles of money off of unsuspecting victims.
OK, so, we’re not sure which part of the story is true, if any. But, we’re pretty certain the security issue is false (I asked, to check). We have not identified anything in the Nokia 1110 phone software that would enable this exploit.
Having the capacity to touch
Last week there was a rumor out of Taiwan that Nokia had placed a whopping order of capacitive touch displays to put into the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. I don’t know if the order was real or not, but I do know that we’re not changing the hardware of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Say what you say about capacitive touch, the 5800 is doing fine without it.
There are 97 reasons this is not so
Everyone is excited about the Nokia N97. I get asked every day when it will hit the stores or come to a particular country. One particular rumor stated that Vodafone is not going to sell it until December (despite the Vodafone store page saying July)
I checked yesterday with whose who know and the N97 is on track to be released into the wild in June. That was June. In case you didn’t read that, I said the N97 will be available in June (and if it isn’t, I’m going to kick someone’s butt).
As a quick disclaimer, I don’t know if this date means June 1 or June 30 (well, most likely not the last week in June, when all the Finns will be on holiday). Also, I don’t know if it means pallets of devices in each store; a few units at the flagship stores; or one on a shelf in some small phone shop in Lapland, put there by Anssi Vanjoki on June 30, just before the store closes. Furthermore, operators and distributors in each country have a strong influence on when the N97 will be available to their customers.
So, when we say June, we mean we’re setting it free in June. But it may take some time to trickle down into your eager hands.
Listening to the tune of the cash register
One last rumor I want to touch on is one that says Comes With Music, Nokia’s all-you-can-eat-in-a-year music-phone combo, might not be selling well, particularly in the UK.
I wasn’t able to chase down any numbers, but was told that folks here are quite pleased with the launches and how sales have been progressing, particularly in Australia and Singapore. Nonetheless, we managed to get our hands on a few interesting trends seen in Comes With Music users.
- Customers download on average 200 to 300 tracks in the first few weeks.
- There are regular visits to check new music as well as explore the back catalogue and recommendations.
- The majority of downloading is via PC, but Over The Air is also important for convenience downloads (approximately 20%).
- A strong local content catalogue has been important, approximately 35% of downloads.
- The typical Nokia Music Store customer downloads tracks from across 3 genres. However, typical Comes With Music customers download tracks from across 7 genres.
- Comes With Music customers are downloading 20 times more backcatalog than Music Store customers.
These trends suggest that Comes With Music is changing the way people get and listen to music, and that Comes With Music is expanding the music industry for everyone, including labels, artists and publishers.
Parting shot
That’s it for rumors for now. If you have more of them or want to make up a few (be civil!), feel free to add them below and we might be able to answer (remember we don’t react to all of them). But, keep in mind: one class of rumor we definitely don’t comment on are the ones related to future products or services that we have not already announced (that includes leaks and speculations, as well). Don’t ask about these. There’s no point. We won’t answer. Sorry.
Image from Cane Ludico Rosso
Related posts:
- Nokia 5800. Orange UK. Comes with Music.
- Nokia 5800 Comes with Music sim free in the UK
- Nokia 5800 Comes With Music launches in Brazil
Tags | capacitive touch, Comes with music, N97, Nokia 1100, nokia 5800 xpressmusic, nokia n97, rumors, touch
April 24th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Hows about clearing up what processor the N97 will be packing then?
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April 24th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Yeah, this is a good question! Will there be a graphic acc?
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April 24th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Loved the post!
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April 24th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Are you going to release Nokia Superman and Nokia Nautilus before the end of the year?
Same question with PhoneNerd, what was the processor speed of N97?
Most of all, how much will the N97 cost? Rumors has it that it was lowered due to Omnia HD’s price tag that is lower than N97?
c”,
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April 24th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
im dying to get the nokia n97 in white..not black (as im bored of black). vodafone are showing the black version on their website
do you know whether they will do the white n97 or any other UK carrier will do white on release date?
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April 25th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Yeah, I know you won’t request for that one because it’s probably embarrassing but: What’s n97 processor speed?
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April 25th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
About the 1100 rumor;
Here in the Netherlands we have a court rapport from a police investigation where is written that a network of criminals were using 1100’s with Vodafone prepaid SIM cards. The criminals were using SMS for communication. In the loglist the police got from Vodafone, the destination number was not recorded!
This is only the case with a specific model 1100, made in Germany in the beginning of 2003.
Source (in Dutch): http://zoeken.rechtspraak.nl/resultpage.aspx?snelzoeken=true&searchtype=kenmerken&vrije_tekst=nokia+1100 (second result)
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April 27th, 2009 at 6:27 am
I want a converter like I found from allmyhealth.com, but it doesn’t work, so would you publish one?
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April 27th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Great post Charlie, Keep up the good work!
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May 6th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Note the non-denial. Comes With Music has 23,000 active users in the UK:
http://musically.com/blog/2009/04/21/comes-with-music-has-23000-active-uk-users/
This is not a rumor, but a well sourced story from a respectable and reliable music site. One source is real-time sales information from an independent audited performance society.
… but bad blogging form not to link to the original, so we can make our own judgement, and for mixing up a true story with three false ones.
Is this Pravda?
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charlie Reply:
May 13th, 2009 at 7:28 am
@Everyman, In my book, it’s bad commenting form not to give your real name.
Fortunately, we are not Pravda, so you can openly put your name on a comment here and no one will go after you for generously putting up a link.
(but yes, I should have linked to the original, my bad, so thanks for fixing that)
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June 22nd, 2009 at 9:10 am
sir, i wish to buy a nokia touchscreen real soon. the option was 5800 xm, but last week you guys have announced 5530 xm, and frankly i am confused. the things are, if the 5530xm is released, the price of 5800xm may come down, and also if i can see that 5530 is a better handset, i can go with it. so can you please comment on the release date and please dont say q3, its long 3 months, and i’ve been saving my money for such a long time. if its in september, i have no choice but to go with 5800xm. please help me>>
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