Vodafone UK promotes Apples & Kindles but not Nokias
Perhaps we are reading too much into this but Vodafone moved very quickly to announce that it will offer Apple’s two new tablets – the iPad Air with Wi-fi + Cellular in the UK on 1st November [2013] and the iPad mini with Retina display later that month [November 2013]. This follows pretty closely on the news that it had reached an exclusive partnership with Amazon over the Kindle Fire HDX 4G LTE tablet. Vodafone will provide the connectivity for the new Amazon tablets to give Kindle users ultrafast access to millions of books, movies, music tracks, apps. All via Vodafone’s 3G and 4G networks. The company also confirmed to GoMo News that the two new Apple devices are compatible with its own flavour of 4G. But what about Nokia?
Especially now that the once market leader has finally seen the light and decided to offer a notebook in the form of the Lumia 2520.
It is particularly poignant because it won’t be offered as a Wi-fi only device – just one that runs via LTE.
Many industry observers pointed to the fact that Nokia would offer no Wi-fi only version of the Lumia 2520 as an indication that Nokia was clearly aiming the product at MNOs (Mobile Network Operators). (See our previous story here).
So naturally you’d expect Vodafone ( a world leading MNO) to make some sort of noise about offering the Lumia 2520. Which it hasn’t yet.
The question is why not? Well, GoMo News would argue that Nokia has done it again.
Its first tablet is based on Windows RT – hardly surprising since Microsoft is buying the company.
As Vodafone is probably well aware – of all the flavours of tablet out there, consumers go for tablets based on iOS and Android. Not Windows RT.
They want apps and the ability to run the latest ones to boot. What does Nokia do? It only offers them Microsoft based devices with Windows phone 8 (WP8) & Windows RT – and a poor choice of apps.
In an act of political correctness gone crazy, Nokia is even re-jigging its S40 (Series 40) platform.
Why not the S60? Because S60 is effectively Symbian based and that’s a No-No. No matter, then, that there are plenty of apps for the Series 60.
If Nokia goes carries on down this blinkered path of offering consumers what it thinks they want rather than what they actually want, it is going to get nowhere.
And as for promoting a cameraphone with more pixel resolution that most professional photographers even need (the 808 Pureview). Well, we’re just flabbergasted.
Tony is currently Editor of GoMobile News. He's a veteran telecoms journalist who has previously worked for major printed and online titles. Follow him on Twitter @GoMoTweet.
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