In case you missed anything, here’s a quick weekend roundup of the news that powered AllThingsD this week:

1. Sources say that Apple is pulling engineers from the next version of OS X and assigning them to its mobile OS in order to get a preview ready in time for next month’s Worldwide Developers Conference.
2. By 2017, more than half of companies will require their employees to supply their own devices on the job, according to a new Gartner report.
3. A California court has ruled in Facebook’s favor versus “typosquatters” who benefited from registering domain names with misspellings like “gacebook” and “dacebook.”
4. Speaking of Facebook, it’s growing — but that growth rate has seen a slow decline over the past year.
5. As it tries to convince consumers that the iPhone and Android aren’t the only options, Microsoft released a hard-edged, humorous ad for Windows Phone.
6. Buying a laptop is all about timing; if you can, you might want to wait.
7. “This is just like another language, just a different set of life skills than if you learned French or Spanish.” That’s Krishna Vedati, CEO of Tynker, a platform aimed at teaching children to code.
8. Consumer electronics warranty provider SquareTrade says Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 is more breakable than both the S3 and the iPhone 5.
9. In AllThingsD Must-Reads, Bizo CEO Russell Glass writes, “There is a revolution brewing in the enterprise and it’s starting right at the desk of the chief marketing officer.”
10. To show off its ability to precisely move and manipulate individual atoms, IBM released the smallest movie ever made: An animated short called “A Boy And His Atom.”

To stay on top of the latest, follow AllThingsD on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to our daily email newsletter.

That’s especially tough in a country like the U.S., where big phone subsidies mean that one has to compete against free iPhone 4 and Android devices. Even the top-end devices generally sell for under $200 with a contract.

However, with T-Mobile’s recent move away from phone subsidies, Nokia and Microsoft are pouncing on an opportunity to offer a new smartphone at a noticeably lower price.

The Lumia 521, which runs on T-Mobile’s network, sells for around $150 unsubsidized. That’s hundreds less than many other smartphones. It goes on sale at Walmart and Microsoft stores next week, after selling out during a run on HSN.

Speaking at our D: Dive Into Mobile conference earlier this month, Windows Phone boss Terry Myerson noted the difficulty that Microsoft and its partners have had in subsidized markets such as the U.S.

“If every phone is $200, we are the challenger at the same price,” Myerson said. “That’s a playing field that is a little harder.”

T-Mobile’s move away from subsidies could create more room for Microsoft — and for others targeting the low end of the market.

The Lumia 521 is a T-Mobile customized version of a low-end model that Nokia introduced back in February.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that Windows Phone needs to continue to come in less-expensive phones in order to effectively compete against Android.

“There’s definitely an opportunity to push to even lower price points,” he said.

Microsoft is also taking a harder line in its advertising, debuting an ad that goes directly after Android and the iPhone.

Just you wait, BlackBerry is going to sell a ton of its new Qwerty-keyboard-equipped Q10 smartphone.

This according to Thorsten Heins, the struggling smartphone maker’s CEO, and early sales of the device seem to so far support that assertion. Speaking at the Milken Institute conference on Monday, Heins said the company has high hopes for the Q10. “We have very, very good first signs already after the launch in the U.K.,” Heins said. “This is going into the installed base of more than 70 million BlackBerry users, so we have quite some expectations. We expect several tens of million of units.”

Is that a reasonable expectation, or an unreasonable one?

Though it only began shipping in the U.K. a few days ago, the Q10 already seems to be in very high demand. Selfridges & Co., a British department store that had an early exclusive on the Q10, blew through its initial stock within two hours last Friday. And on Monday the store issued a press release declaring the handset its fastest-selling consumer electronics product ever. Said Selfridges exec Julian Slim, “The BlackBerry Q10 has been, without a doubt, the most highly anticipated smartphone we have ever sold and is already our most successful.”

Now, granted, we’re talking about one department store chain with four locations in a single country. Still, Selfridges & Co.’s experience suggests that are plenty of BlackBerry loyalists out there who have been waiting patiently for the company’s next Qwerty phone. And the Q10 has been garnering some great reviews that may push consumers looking for a serious smartphone with a physical keyboard to consider it.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly characterized Selfridges & Co.’s smartphone selection as limited. That is not the case. Carphone Warehouse maintains a store-within-a-store at Selfridges & Co., offering a full selection of smartphones — though the department store’s website does not reflect that inventory.

With a new TV ad, Microsoft is trying a little humor to make that point.

The ad depicts a wedding filled with smartphone fanboys and fangirls who break into a fight over whose phone is best. Two staff members look on with their colorful Lumia 920s and wonder if the wedding guests might feel differently if they had tried their phone.

“We have our own fans, of course,” Microsoft’s Michael Stroh said in a blog post. “And while they may be outnumbered (for now), they’re no less proud and routinely urge us to do more to get the word out about Windows Phone … There are choices. iPhone and Android smartphones aren’t the only — or even best — options out there for all smartphone buyers.”

The ad, posted below, debuted during the “Today” show on Monday, and is due for a national TV run.

An invitation to journalists on Thursday offered few details.

The words “See What’s Next” are barely visible against the invitation’s blue background, alongside a promise that “The Nokia Lumia story continues.”

Nokia has bet its smartphone future on Windows Phone and the Lumia line. It has won critical praise, but Microsoft’s operating system as a whole has been growing slower than Nokia or Microsoft would like.

The Finnish phone maker chose a busy time to make its announcements as it comes at roughly the same time as both Google’s I/O conference and BlackBerry World.

In its first quarter, Nokia shipped 5.6 million Lumia smartphones, 27 percent more than it shipped the quarter prior. The company expects to sell some seven million in its second quarter. That’s respectable sales acceleration in a market that’s 90 percent controlled by the Apple-Google duopoly. So, good news.

Sadly for Nokia, there’s some bad news to go along with it. The company suffered a decline in feature phone sales during the first quarter — a contraction so nasty that there was no way rising Lumia sales could offset it. Nokia sold 55.8 million feature phones in the quarter, down from 70.8 million a year earlier, putting them at their lowest level in at least a decade.

A brutal drop, and one that presents quite a conundrum for the struggling Nokia. The company’s turnaround hinges not just on the success of its high-end Lumia smartphone line, but on the continued success of an old cash cow — its feature phone business.

That business is essential to competing in the emerging markets that will be key to its future growth. As Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said during the company’s Thursday earnings call, “Our mobile phones business faces a difficult competitive environment, and we are taking tactical actions and bringing new innovation to market to address our challenges.”

Better sooner than later. If this erosion of feature phone sales continues, it will threaten the progress Nokia’s making with its smartphone business.

Nokia / Flickr: NokiaOfficial

Two years later, the scenario is quite different, and Nokia’s once-bleak outlook is no longer quite so disheartening. Sales of Nokia’s new smartphone line, Lumia, powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS, while not spectacular, have been rising, carrying the company’s fortunes with them. When it last reported earnings, Nokia posted a profit for the first time in seven quarters. So what can we expect when the company reports first-quarter financials later today?

Decent news, considering this quarter is a seasonally weak one for Nokia. Consensus calls for a loss of about five cents — an improvement over the 10 cent per share loss it posted in the same quarter a year ago. Meanwhile, quarterly shipments of the company’s Lumia phones are expected to hit 5.6 million units, up from 4.4 million in the fourth quarter.

If Nokia hits those numbers, it will offer further proof that a comeback isn’t entirely out of the question. With rising smartphone sales and improving finances, the company can buy more time to execute the turnaround strategy that CEO Stephen Elop has mapped out for it.

“Nokia has been largely headed in the right direction,” RBC analyst Mark Sue said. “Smartphone units may grow 26 percent year-over-year in calendar 2013 with growth driven by emerging markets, where Nokia is well positioned and Nokia is tailoring Lumia/Asha smartphones for features vs. affordability just as smartphone demand shifts to the mid-tier/low-end. … Nokia needs to continue to innovate in order to compete more effectively with other players in the smartphone market as Samsung, Apple, Sony, HTC, BlackBerry and others have revamped or are in the process of updating their flagship models.”

According to a Finnish newspaper report, a Lumia 920 phone was recently run over by a 24-ton earth mover.

Although its screen was battered — and the phone’s frame bent a little out of shape — the device was still able to make and receive calls.

“Before any Nokia device is released to the world, they undergo a series of quality tests to ensure they stand up to the wear and tear of everyday usage. Tests for extreme weather, humidity, and repeated drops onto a hard surface are the norm,” a Nokia representative told AllThingsD. “I guess you can add being run over by a 24-ton tractor to that list.”

As we pointed out in January, Nokia has reached the point at which it owes Microsoft more in guaranteed minimum royalty payments than it is due in future “platform support payments” from Microsoft. Nokia has been getting $250 million per quarter from Microsoft since the deal took effect.

In a regulatory filing on Thursday, Nokia went into more detail on just where things stand.

Nokia noted that it now owes Microsoft more than 500 million more euros ($650.5 million) than it is due from Redmond. However, for the balance of 2013 it still expects to be getting a net payment from Microsoft.

Here’s the full text of what Nokia had to say on the matter:

Our agreement with Microsoft includes platform support payments from Microsoft to us as well as software royalty payments from us to Microsoft. Under the terms of the agreement governing the platform support payments, the amount of each quarterly platform support payment is USD 250 million.

We have a competitive software royalty structure, which includes annual minimum software royalty commitments that vary over the life of the agreement. Software royalty payments, with minimum commitments are paid quarterly. Over the life of the agreement, both the platform support payments and the minimum software royalty commitments are expected to measure in the billions of US dollars. Over the life of the agreement the total amount of the platform support payments is expected to slightly exceed the total amount of the minimum software royalty commitment payments.

As of the end of 2012, the amount of platform support payments received by Nokia has exceeded the amount of minimum software royalty commitment payments made to Microsoft, thus the net cash flows have been in our favor. As a result, the remaining minimum software royalty commitment payments are expected to exceed the remaining platform support payments by a total of approximately EUR 0.5 billion over the remaining life of the agreement.

However, in 2013 the amount of the platform support payments is expected to slightly exceed the total amount of the minimum software royalty commitment payments, thus the net cash flows are still expected to be slightly in our favor.

When you talk to LG’s chief designer, for instance, today’s styling is about the little things. As a giant screen dominates the modern smartphone, companies like his need to find a way to add their own touch at the edges.

Chul Bae Lee

“I am trying to say this is an LG phone, even if it is (with) a small voice,” LG vice president Chul Bae Lee said in an interview in Barcelona last week.

For Lee, that often means things as small as the chrome around a speaker, or the LED light that glows in different colors to indicate an incoming message.

At Nokia, by contrast, it is about being bold — separating itself from the Android pack. The company’s product line — from feature phones to the high-end Lumia 920 — center around bright colors and bold curves.

“It’s a point of view,” Nokia design head Marko Ahtisaari said in an interview. “These are very expressive objects.”

Beyond making a statement, Ahtisaari said, color helps create an emotional connection between Nokia’s devices and its customers. Plus, he said, its research shows that people with the brightly colored phones are more likely to recommend their device.

As a testament to just how big a role design is playing at the new Nokia, it was Ahtisaari, rather than CEO Stephen Elop, who presided over the bulk of the company’s Mobile World Congress press conference.

But while Nokia goes for yellow and cyan, LG and others are experimenting with more subtle shades of black and white. Lee points to the speckled backs on several recent models, such as the Optimus G, which looks black indoors, but has an indigo cast to it when viewed in the sunlight.

Marko Ahtisaari

While clearly more subtle, Lee says, LG’s recent phones are designed to help LG do something it has had a tough time doing of late — standing out from the pack.

“LG has had somewhat of a hard time in the smartphone business, but as a designer I have always been proud of our design heritage,” he said.

Lee added that he wants to bring more of that original design heritage back to LG’s devices. But the problem facing Lee and others is that the screen takes up more and more of a phone’s area, leaving less room for designs of any kind. One of the primary goals these days is reducing the borders — or bezels — on the phone to as close to zero as possible.

“When we came out with the LG Chocolate, we did something big and different,” Lee said. “Now it’s a matter of the smaller details. I wouldn’t say [designing phones] is less exciting than before, but it’s more difficult, for sure.”

Another issue confronting device makers is whether to go with a global design, as Nokia and Samsung have, or to customize devices for specific regions or operators.

LG, for example, plans different versions of its Optimus G for different carriers even within the U.S. market. The Sprint model features a higher-end camera that protrudes slightly in the back, while AT&T’s has what Lee described as a more pragmatic design, with a flat back.

Again, Nokia’s take varies from LG’s. Ahtisaari said that Nokia likes to take one design and use it across the whole portfolio.

“When you look at all our devices together, it looks like a family portrait,” he said. “They should look like they come from the same place.”

Beyond physical looks, both companies are looking at other ways to differentiate their design, either through customizing the user interface or providing experiences outside of the screen, such as wireless charging.

The Lumia 520 sells for around $180, roughly twice as much as the cheapest Android phones.

“Yes, we do have to continue to broaden the Lumia,” Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said in a roundtable with reporters on Monday. “There’s definitely an opportunity to push to even lower price points.”

At the same time, Elop said, he is cautious of sacrificing capability in the name of cutting price. Many of those low-end Android phones, he says, are running older software and can’t run the latest programs.

“It’s a careful balance,” he said.

Nokia is thus far trying to position its Series 40-based Asha phones to take on the low end of the Android market. Those devices, he said, contain proxy browsers and other technology designed to limit data use for price-sensitive customers in emerging markets.

“Asha, and how we innovate against Asha, is what we need,” Elop said. “The experience there is better than low-cost Android. I think there’s more opportunity there than people realize.”

For a time, Nokia had a project called Meltemi that sought to introduce mobile Linux for low-end smartphones; however, that project was scrapped in the middle of last year.

Although he has continued to express confidence in Windows Phone as the present and future of Nokia’s smartphone business, Elop acknowledged that establishing the ecosystem has been a greater-than-expected challenge.

“I think it has been very hard,” he said. “The amount of effort to break through in retail has been harder than anyone estimated.”

Nokia, for its part, has started to find its stride with the Lumia 920, Elop said. That phone, with its wireless charging and photography abilities, is starting to show what Nokia is capable of doing on top of Windows. “That gives me great hope for the future.”

Asked about whether there could be a wearable device in Nokia’s future, Elop said there is a definite rise in sensor capability beyond the smartphone.

“We think that’s a fundamental trend,” he said, declining to talk specifically about Nokia’s plans in the area. “These devices are sensing the world around you.”

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With the launch of the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720 in Barcelona, the Finnish phone maker is hoping to change that.

“We are bringing elements of our high-end flagship Lumia devices to more prices and therefore to more people,” CEO Stephen Elop said during a press conference at its Mobile World Congress booth.

Expanding Windows Phone is especially important considering the company scrapped its Meltemi effort for low-end Linux and has introduced its last Symbian phones, leaving Windows Phone as the company’s only true smartphone platform.

But with a price of 139 Euros ($183), the Lumia 520 won’t bring Nokia into the bottom reaches of the Android market, which stretches into the sub-$100 range. There Nokia is counting on its Asha line, which it has been pitching as more entry-level smartphone than feature phone.

Nokia is also bringing improved camera and voice quality along with support for corporate email to a new basic phone, the Nokia 301. The phone also has built-in support for popular messaging program WhatsApp.

One interesting camera feature talks users through getting a good self-portrait with voice interaction. Taking a cue from Bump, Nokia is introducing “Slam,” a new means of sharing photos between nearby devices.

An even lower-end phone, the Nokia 105, shares design cues from the Lumia and Asha lines but at a 15 Euro price point aimed at the 2.7 billion people who don’t have a phone. Even at that price, it includes a flashlight, FM radio and weeks worth of battery life.

“You can charge this phone once a month and still rely on it,” said Nokia design head Marko Ahtisaari.

Beyond the new phones, Nokia noted that it plans to bring its Here location services to non-Nokia Windows Phones in some markets; it is also licensing its location technology to Mozilla for use with Firefox OS.

“By gaining scale we can increase the quantity and quality of the data we receive,” Elop said.

The company is also opening up more of its technologies on the imaging, music and location fronts to developers and announced a deal with DreamWorks Animation to create Nokia-exclusive entertainment software.

Nokia, Elop insisted, is getting bolder, a word he used frequently during Monday’s event.

“It hasn’t always been easy,” Elop said. “But without question we have remained focused on our strategy.”

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But there was another key player in Nokia’s Q4 uptick: The company’s Asha family of low-end, multitouch smartphones.

According to Nokia’s announcement, shipments of Asha smartphones hit 9.3 million units in the fourth quarter (note: this obviously does NOT include shipments of Asha feature phones). That’s more than double the 4.4 million Lumias shipped during the same period. More to the point, it’s nearly 50 percent more than the 6.5 million Asha smartphones shipped in the third quarter.

Pretty significant sequential growth, and it suggests that the Asha smartphone line is gaining good traction in emerging markets.

And that’s a point well worth noting as Nokia struggles to right itself. With the Lumia line, the company has a tough battle ahead of it in the smartphone market’s higher reaches.

But with the Asha — which with its limited functionality and Series 40 OS, just barely classifies as a smartphone — it may have a line of devices with which to capture share in emerging markets dominated by Google’s Android and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry.

“Some countries, like China, appear to be “game, set, match” for Android, while others like Indonesia are heavily BlackBerry,” Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt told AllThingsD. “Asha is interesting for Nokia because in many of these markets Nokia’s brand is very strong and Symbian devices used to sell very well. India, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America are examples of of regions and countries where Nokia likely has a strong opportunity with Asha, but even in these markets android phones are growing rapidly as well.”

So it’s possible that the Asha smartphone line could serve as Nokia’s bread and butter while it works to spur demand for the Lumia. But “could” is the operative word here. While the Asha’s recent growth is encouraging, it’s not yet clear if Nokia can sustain it.

Said McCourt, “The growth in Asha from Q3 to Q4 was impressive, but Nokia has had a history of heavy shipment volume in emerging markets in fourth quarters followed by weak first quarters. So it’s probably a bit early to declare victory for Nokia against low end Android competitors in emerging markets.”

Nokia said Thursday that it sold 86.3 million mobile devices. Of those, 15.9 million were smartphones, and of those, 4.4 million were Lumias running Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS. Another 9.3 million were from Nokia’s Asha portfolio — a line of handsets targeted at emerging markets. And 2.2 million were Symbian smartphones.

Taken together with lower-than-expected operating expenses, those handset sales were enough to push Nokia’s Devices & Services division into “underlying profitability,” beating a pretty ugly Q4 forecast. It might even be enough for it to post a small profit. We’ll find out on Jan. 24, when Nokia releases its full quarterly financials.

Either way, this uptick in Nokia’s fortunes is great news for the struggling company. Nokia has posted losses for three consecutive quarters now, racking up about $6.3 billion in losses since it first bet on Windows Phone in early 2011.

Said ETX Capital analyst Markus Huber, “After almost consistently posting mostly negative results and missing frequently estimates for several quarters it might just seem that Nokia is finally on the way up, having beaten estimates and their own previous outlook.”

At $4.41, Nokia shares are up well over 17 percent in early trading.

Already this week, we’ve had Amazon make its usual statement of how its latest Kindle is nearly double another figure they won’t tell you. Now Microsoft is joining in.

At the company’s shareholder meeting on Wednesday, CEO Steve Ballmer said that Windows Phone sales are four times what they were a year ago. But, he didn’t attach a figure or a specific time period, so just how many phones Microsoft is selling remains something for analysts to merely guess at.

The number could well be good news for Microsoft. While last year’s sales were pretty dismal, they weren’t insignificant, and certainly growing fourfold is the kind of thing Microsoft needs to do if it hopes to become a serious player in the smartphone market.

In addition to wanting to hear about things at Nokia and Elop’s efforts to reverse sliding sales, we’re both huge hockey fans, and I had been looking to commiserate about the locked-out hockey season.

But Hurricane Sandy had other plans for us. Since Elop and I were both stuck in midtown Manhattan to ride out the storm, we decided to cover some of the same ground on video.

Elop was big on touting the imagining capabilities of the new Lumia 920, so we used it to film this video, sans tripod, and to take this fun picture of the two of us in the rain.

And, in a drier setting, we sat down to talk.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121031/nokia-ceo-stephen-elop-aims-to-ride-out-the-storm-and-hurricane-sandy/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121019/nokia-ceo-always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life/ http://allthingsd.com/20121019/nokia-ceo-always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life/#comments Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:06:06 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=261689 Nokia lost nearly $1.3 billion in the last quarter. It was the company’s sixth consecutive quarterly loss, one made more dismal by the announcement that it sold just 6.3 million smartphones in the quarter — down from 16.8 million a year ago. Of those, only 300,000 were sold in the vital North American market. And of the 6.3 million unit total, fewer than half were Nokia’s new Windows Phone-based Lumias.

It was a difficult quarter, tough enough to shake the confidence of anyone who has bought into Nokia’s comeback story. But CEO Stephen Elop remains undaunted. He believes Nokia’s fortunes are about to change, and that change will be expedited by carriers’ need for a third smartphone ecosystem apart from Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

“There’s a dynamic that we’re seeing and hearing about … and that is increasing concern amongst operators about the concentration of power that is landing with two particular ecosystems that are obviously quite strong out there today,” Elop said during a Thursday earnings call. “I think you’re going to see a trend where operators, starting in the West, begin to say, ‘We need a third ecosystem to really begin to happen. We really need to double down on it. We need to cause it to happen.’”

When will that trend begin in earnest? Now. And Nokia is fully prepared to exploit it.

“This is an opportunity that we look at as quite positive for 2013 as a whole,” Elop said. “And it begins in Q4.”

Presumably, that means with the launch of Nokia’s next smartphone, the Lumia 920, and the other devices that will follow it to market. So, if Elop is right, we’ll see Nokia regaining some traction in the near future. And if he’s not? Well, it might be time to revisit that “burning platform” memo.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121019/nokia-ceo-always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121017/extent-of-nokias-woes-to-be-laid-bare-in-earnings-report-thursday/ http://allthingsd.com/20121017/extent-of-nokias-woes-to-be-laid-bare-in-earnings-report-thursday/#comments Wed, 17 Oct 2012 23:42:48 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=261239 Nokia has already warned it will be another rough quarter, but the extent of the fiscal challenges will be put into ones and zeroes on Thursday as the Finnish phone maker reports quarterly earnings.

The real question, though, isn’t just how tough things were the last few months, but rather whether the next crop of Nokia Windows Phones can help reverse recent fortunes.

In an interview earlier this month, CEO Stephen Elop told AllThingsD that the company would have liked to have seen its first crop of Lumia devices sell better but that it still believes in its bet on Microsoft’s operating system.

Nokia has shown off its first Windows Phone 8 devices, but has yet to announce exact pricing and availability. AT&T will have the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, while T-Mobile will have the Lumia 810. Verizon is also widely believed to be getting its own Nokia Windows Phone 8 device.

Now the question is just how well consumers will take to the phones.

Nokia has other big bets as well, including an expansion of its Navteq location and mapping business as well as the Asha line of entry-level smartphones for emerging markets.

Elop will also be a featured speaker at D: Dive Into Mobile, which takes place in New York Oct. 29-30.

(To see Elop, Android chief Andy Rubin and top executives from Facebook, Verizon Wireless, WhatsApp and more, be sure to register soon.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121017/extent-of-nokias-woes-to-be-laid-bare-in-earnings-report-thursday/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121008/t-mobile-to-get-its-hands-on-nokias-windows-phone-8-based-lumia-810/ http://allthingsd.com/20121008/t-mobile-to-get-its-hands-on-nokias-windows-phone-8-based-lumia-810/#comments Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:00:49 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=258026 T-Mobile said on Monday that it will have exclusive dibs on the Lumia 810, a new midrange Windows Phone 8 smartphone.

Nokia last month announced two other Windows Phone 8 devices, the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820. AT&T said last week that it will have the U.S. exclusive on the Lumia 920.

The Lumia 810 will hit stores “in the coming weeks,” T-Mobile said, with pricing yet to be announced. Like the Lumia 820, T-Mobile’s new Windows Phone will have a 4.3-inch screen and optional wireless charging with an add-on shell.

T-Mobile said that the front-facing camera will feature a 1.2-megapixel Skype HD-certified camera for video chatting, along with an eight-megapixel camera.

Although Nokia, HTC and Samsung have all announced Windows Phone 8 devices, Microsoft has yet to show off all of the operating system’s new features, with a full unveiling scheduled for Oct. 29 in San Francisco.

Nokia is counting on the new Windows Phone lineup to help the company improve its fortunes. In an interview last week, CEO Stephen Elop told AllThingsD that the company would have liked its first batch of Windows Phones to do better than it had.

Part of the strategy this time around, Elop said, is to be more strategic about which models are available with which carriers.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121008/t-mobile-to-get-its-hands-on-nokias-windows-phone-8-based-lumia-810/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121007/longtime-nokia-smartphone-executive-departs-on-eve-of-new-windows-phone-launches/ http://allthingsd.com/20121007/longtime-nokia-smartphone-executive-departs-on-eve-of-new-windows-phone-launches/#comments Mon, 08 Oct 2012 04:34:33 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=257767 Ilari Nurmi, a 15-year Nokia veteran and a top smartphone executive at the company, has left the Finnish phone maker.

“I have left Nokia,” Nurmi said in a tweet on Sunday. “I am thankful for almost 15 (years) there. I wish Nokia all the best and look forward to getting Lumia 920 once available.”

Nurmi, a Nokia vice president, had helped oversee the launch of several Windows-based Nokia phones, including the announcement of the lower-end Lumia 610 back in February.

Nokia did not offer any details on Nurmi’s departure.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121007/longtime-nokia-smartphone-executive-departs-on-eve-of-new-windows-phone-launches/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121004/att-will-have-the-exclusive-on-nokias-new-high-end-windows-phone/ http://allthingsd.com/20121004/att-will-have-the-exclusive-on-nokias-new-high-end-windows-phone/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:28:32 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=257115 Details about Nokia’s upcoming Windows 8 smartphones, the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, just went from “It’s complicated” to “In a relationship.”

AT&T announced today that Nokia’s new flagship phone, the Lumia 920, will be available exclusively through the wireless carrier. AT&T will offer the midrange 820 Lumia, as well. Both 4G LTE-compatible phones are expected to hit the market in November; pricing for the devices is still unknown.

The Lumia will be one of AT&T’s first devices to run Windows Phone 8, Microsoft’s updated mobile operating system, and comes with an enhanced 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ touchscreen and wireless charging capabilities. It will be available in white, red, black, gray or yellow; the 820 model only comes in black.

AT&T also had the exclusive on Nokia’s first high-end Windows Phone, the Lumia 900.

The launch of devices is critical to Nokia, which has hitched its wagon firmly to Windows Phone. In an interview earlier this week, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop told AllThingsD that the company feels good about its Windows Phones — both the last crop and the new ones — but has not had the market success it had been seeking.

“I would have liked to have done better,” Elop said. “There is no question.”

Despite the challenges, though, Elop said he isn’t having second thoughts about choosing Windows, noting that the Android market increasingly belongs to Samsung, and that being late to that market, Nokia would have had a tough time standing out from the pack.

AllThingsD’s Ina Fried contributed to this report.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121004/att-will-have-the-exclusive-on-nokias-new-high-end-windows-phone/feed/ 15 http://allthingsd.com/20120927/nokia-sets-rollout-for-new-lumia-phones/ http://allthingsd.com/20120927/nokia-sets-rollout-for-new-lumia-phones/#comments Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:22:48 +0000 Sven Grundberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=254938 Nokia Corp. broke its long silence on European marketing plans for new Lumia smartphones one day before rival Apple Inc. plans to put the new iPhone in nearly two dozen additional countries.

The Finnish handset maker said the new Lumia 820 and 920 devices — unveiled earlier this month — go on sale in key European markets in November. Nokia didn’t reveal its plans for the crucial U.S. market, where it hopes to regain footing after losing considerable ground to Apple and other competitors.

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