dailylicious!

On the same day that LG officially launches Nexus 4 in Indonesia in Jakarta at Grand Indonesia shopping center, Nokia holds a Lumia Experience Day across town at Central Park Mall. Unfortunately not enough people took photos at the Nexus 4 launch. People at the Nokia event look much more enthusiastic.

Stephen Elop gave an interview to El Pais about his views on the industry and where Nokia is heading. Being a Spanish publication, the interview was translated to Spanish and from there out came a statement saying that it’s possible that Nokia will release an Android phone, which was later corrected by Nokia. We said that it still doesn’t pour cold water on the idea because Nokia’s version of the interview did not close the door outright to such possibility.

After some time, out came the actual transcript of the interview. While the original version may not have been verbatim, this transcript, supposedly is. The rest of the interview showed that Nokia is open to possibilities in the future and the company will make decisions accordingly, but for now, the commitment is to Windows Phone, so don’t be waiting on that Android phone from Nokia any time soon.

Nokia released its version of Stephen Elop’s interview with El Pais which it said mistranslated the interview. El Pais had asked Elop whether Nokia will release an Android phone in 2013. The transcript indicated that the possibility is there. Once picked up by Gizmodo, this immediately spread all over the internet and became part of Tomi Ahonen’s latest in his famously long blog posts.

The original version had said,

“Today we are committed and satisfied with Microsoft, but anything is possible.”

Nokia’s version,

“We’re looking further into the future, but it terms of what we’re bringing to market, and what we’re immediately focused on, we’re focused on Windows Phone.”

They’re obviously very different statements and Nokia’s version didn’t exactly pour cold water on the possibility but it needed to minimize the effect that the statement might have. The company had just released the flagship Lumia range powered Windows Phone 8 and is on the verge of releasing a more mass market model this month. A non committal answer from the top regarding the future of the company’s products might jeopardize its current plans and send it into an even worse downward spiral. 

Nokia Maps is a legendary piece of software that provides precise and detailed street maps of the cities of the world, included in all Nokia phones and available as Here Maps for Android and iOS, although for some reason Here Maps isn’t as responsive or updated as Nokia Maps is.

In any case, Nokia announced that it will be bringing laser-based 3D representation of cities and other places around the world to deliver an even better experience in using its maps. It also wants to push ahead voice guidance to be more natural and descriptive in its instructions. In other words, rather than say, “turn left in 50 meters”, it would say, “turn left at the park”, which would make it easier for drivers to understand than having to approximate distances.

A leaked slide from Nokia shows that after Windows Phone 7.8 is released, which is expected to be later this year or early in 2013, Microsoft may well be planning further updates to version 7. This led to some speculations as to what Microsoft’s mobile strategy really is. This piece from TNW adds fuel to the expectation that Microsoft will maintain two different ecosystems for Windows Phone, retargeting version 7 for the low end market.

While all apps made for Windows Phone 7.5 and 7.8 will work for devices running Windows Phone 8, it doesn’t work the other way. This could pose problems down the road with regards to application development and distribution. On top of that, consumers buying Windows Phone 7 devices might feel cheated out of better apps when they discover that their devices won’t be able to run many of the newer apps.

On the other hand, consumers with low end Android and iOS devices also face similar incompatibility issues, so perhaps it won’t matter too much after all as long as the more popular apps are available across both versions of Windows Phone systems.

Vertu, formerly Nokia’s luxury phone subsidiary, now 90% owned by a venture fund company, has appointed Anssi Vanjoki as its chairman. Vanjoki, a 20-year Nokia veteran once thought to be the next CEO of Nokia before being sidelined in favor of Stephen Elop in 2010, was chosen simply due to his expertise, experience, and knowledge about the mobile phone industry. 

“The irony here is that Vanjoki, who refused to produce models ‘unless they sell tens of millions of units,’ will now be selling ruby-covered phone ranges that sell in dozens of units,” said analyst Tero Kuittinen from Finnish mobile firm Alekstra.

Not for the mobile phone business obviously since the two companies produce very different phones and have different design cultures but Nokia owns one of the largest mapping data in the world and receives updates from delivery companies such as FedEx and UPS to keep its map data current.

These companies drive far more miles than Google does with its Street View cars. Apple is in serious need for a relatively quick fix of its mapping data and for some reason it doesn’t seem to be getting the necessary details from TomTom, OpenStreetMap, and its other partners. Nokia is in such a dire need for some serious cash injection that it is even considering to sell the building that it uses for its headquarters in Espoo and lease it from the new owners. It’s in the interest of both companies to consider this option which they surely must have behind closed doors.

While licensing map data might be an alternative, the baggage that comes with licensing is the exact reason why Apple pursued a mapping solution of its own. Another possibility, remote as it may be, is to acquire the mapping division and license the content back to Nokia and Microsoft.