Nokia gave a talk at the Web 2.0 Summit that spent a lot of time on the new N810 Internet Tablet and unfortunately very little time on Ovi, their new internet services play.
The main hardware difference from previous Nokia Internet Tablets like the N800 is a slide-out keyboard. It also has a GPS, Bluetooth, large screen, extended-able storage and a video camera. Engadget has coverage and a hands-on review.
Though the keyboard is a big improvement the pieces that have me intrigued are all software. The tablet is going to have the 2008 version of maemo, an open Linux-based OS that includes a Mozilla-based browser. I have an N800, the previous version of the internet tablet, that is upgradeable. I have found the OS of the N800 to be so unwieldy that I never use it. The images that I have seen look better already — though in many ways this is moot as I have an iPhone. [Disclosure: the N800 was given to Radar by Nokia]
Unfortunately, Nokia spent too little time on Ovi. Their splash site focuses on four different services: Photos, Maps, Games and Music. On stage Nokia mentioned that their would be services for developers to build on top of. Could this be their method of exposing the data from NAVTEQ, the soon-to-be-acquired mapping data company? (Radar post) Based on the press release for Ovi, Nokia will also be building an iTunes Store competitor that will let you “Browse for new music, buy what you like or add a song to your wishlist”. They’ll also have game portal, N-Gage.
They should have spent more time focusing on these services. What are the additional services? What is the revenue model for developers? As they said quite proudly today, they are the number one handset manufacturer — what developer wouldn’t want a crack at their services?
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