My Nokia life…
From WAP to Windows and beyond…
Like most people of my generation (I’m 35), the first phone I owned was a Nokia. A Nokia 3310; bought by a concerned mother wanting to keep track of her son’s new university life 300 miles away.
In 1997 mobile phones were still a luxury in the UK, but growing fast. To get them in people’s pockets, operators tempted us with some truly astounding deals. Incredulously, I paid £5 per month for unlimited off-peak calls and 100 SMSs. I’d be calling home every night, my mother thought. I’d be sending ‘I’m OK’ text messages 17 times a day. My mother thought…
In reality, the Nokia 3310’s primary use was for wiling away time between lectures, guiding an ever-growing pixelated line around its monochrome screen. I never did complete Snake II. I always called home on a Sunday, though.
The Nokia 3310 was also a key product for my interest in the development of consumer technology. I was amazed at its ability to group SMS conversations together, like a chat thread. It could send text messages three-times longer than your usual mobile. It would predict what you wanted to type. And, by the end of my three years at journalism school, some of its successors (the Nokia 7110) could even connect to a primitive form of the internet, called WAP. This was the future. I was hooked.
The future arrives
Fourteen years as a technology journalist and I’ve been lucky enough to get to grips with almost every new slice of emerging consumer technology going. From TVs, tablets and digital photography to wearable tech, streaming hi-fi and apps, the pace of change has been breathtaking – in no small part, led by mobile phone advancement.
And I’ve owned almost every new device, albeit for a couple of weeks at a time, since space-year 2000. Call it a succession of short-term flings but with long-term substance.
From my very first Nokia 3310 to my current Windows-toting Lumia 925 (with the Nokia 6630 and N90 in between) it showcases how years of forward-thinking hardware design can work in unison with the latest in mobile OS evolution to create some truly innovative products.
I arrive at Nokia Conversations at a genuinely exciting time for Lumia and Nokia mobile phones. 2013 was a huge year for Lumia and Asha and I predict 2014 will be even better!
My name is Luke, and I’m a new editor here on Conversations. I look forward to bringing you the news, stories and developments as they happen.