Monkeytreats

Lot of talk today about the N91 delay, and speculation as to why. It sounds like Nokia wasn’t expecting to be able to get Janus integrated until much later. When they announced the phone, they made statements to the effect that Janus support would be not be available at launch, but that it would be available later via firmware upgrade.

Given what a monster pain in the ass it is to upgrade firmware, and given that Janus support (and the portable subscription support that it provides) will give them something to differentiate the N91 from the iPod, I think Nokia is being smart by delaying the N91 launch a little bit to roll in that functionality.  Otherwise they'd launch a little sooner, but they'd lose a very useful feature.  They also wouldn't be making as big of a splash;  if you dribble out new features here and there, the press hardly takes notice.

Personally, I’m really looking forward to a music phone that might work with Rhapsody and Napster. Portable subscriptions are overly complex at the moment, but I really do think they’re the way of the future where music is concerned.