This article got me all nostalgic for the mid-2000s. Back then, I was at Nokia, deep into the Nokia smartphone world, fusing mobile and the internet. And by 2005, looking for a new gig. I was just off of Nokia Lifeblog, having spent a few years immersed in the emerging Web 2.0 and Social Media world (we we only starting to call them that).
Before the iPhone, before Android, before webOS, a revolutionary soap bar of a phone made it incredibly easy to get shit done. The Danger Hiptop, better known as the T-Mobile Sidekick, made the internet portable and affordable like no phone before.
Source: The T-Mobile Sidekick’s Jump button made mobile multitasking easy – The Verge
Nokia Cloud v1.0
At the time, I was ruminating on an idea, partly inspired by the Danger, of not just the promise of the Web in your pocket, but the idea that the phone didn’t matter, of all your connections, streams, and stuff living in the cloud. The classic story was if your Danger fell into the drink, you’d get a new one and whoosh its previous soul would fill up the new phone – all your stuff was safe in the cloud. [Yeah, that was a big deal back then.]
I went around Nokia trying to pitch the idea of Nokia providing a place in the cloud for all your Nokia phone data and activity. We called the project Nokia Cloud, and, when launched, the service started as Ovi (‘door’ in Finnish, because I kept describing it as a door to your digital life).
I will admit I left the project just after launch, for various personal and professional reasons. While the project was an immensely intense learning experience for me, I was disappointed I wasn’t able to deliver a fuller vision.
Android
As is mentioned in the Sidekick article, many of the Danger folks went on to found Android. And my closest brush with Android was during a visit to Google a few months after Android were secretly acquired. Secretly, as Android didn’t exactly make clear what they were working on, nor did Google make a fanfare of the acquisition.
During my visit to Google, I met Andy Rubin, the top guy from Android. We had an interesting chat and then I said it was obvious they were working on a phone with Android. As far as I recall, nothing was really in the news what Android was (yes!) but I knew their pedigree and that always informed me how folks behaved.
The funny thing is that Andy got all defensive saying I was wrong. 🤷🏽 Could be he was thinking I was thinking a physical phone. Where perhaps he was thinking what I was also thinking was Danger 2.0, just the software. Keep in mind, I was also part of the launch and early days of Series 60, which was Nokia’s smartphone platform OS, sold to licensees, just like Android eventually was. So yeah, I wasn’t a phone-head but a software-head.
Alas
Android went on to own the smartphone world, only held off by Apple’s iOS. And Andy left Google with a platinum (way more than gold, y’see) parachute. Yet another one of my brushes with millionaires during that time. 🙄
And me? Well, no one is fondly remembering Ovi these days. Nokia Mobile Phones is no more. And I’m still writing this blog in anonymity. Haha.
Image from the Verge
I don’t know if I *fondly* remember Ovi, but I do remember it (and was honored to be invited to it’s unveil in London).
Well, at least that’s two of us who remember, haha.
Those were the days, weren’t they? 😀