The dramatic techno music and cool blue lighting scheme certainly help, but Nokia does a solid job of showing off its Maemo 5 operating system in a new advertisement.
Nokia created Maemo, a Linux-based operating system, specifically to compete with high-end handsets like the iPhone. Maemo will be featured in the upcoming N900 "tablet" -- so-named because it's on the hefty side for a smartphone -- but not much was revealed about the OS last week except that it's more flexible than the Symbian operating system Nokia traditionally uses.
In the video, a user's hands are shown flipping through several tasks, from looking at contacts to browsing the Web to viewing photos on Flickr. By clicking on a button on the top left corner, the user is able to select from several open windows. After choosing "Camera," the phone's photo lens opens, and the user is shown scanning the crowd at a concert. The user then takes a picture and tags it from a menu of favorites.
Towards the end of the ad, the user selects a contact, flips down to an ongoing chat and flips open the phone's QWERTY keyboard to send a message. After a brief shot of the actual calling interface, the commercial concludes with a bit of flashy graphics.
As Ubergizmo points out, the important takeaway here is not so much the functionality as the overall user experience. That's a smart move, because the user experience sells smartphones. We all know the iPhone has its share of problems -- you can hardly customize it, you can't multitask and it took ages to add copy and paste, a basic function -- but in the end all is forgiven because the device is fun and relatively easy to use. That's what Nokia is going for with this advertisement.
If the N900 is anything like what the ad portrays, Nokia may have a winner on its hands.
