Nokia is building up some hype for its Nokia N9 by posting an official countdown clock. Of course this clock can only be found on the company’s Swedish page, so it is hard to tell as of right now if that means the device will be launching just in Sweden or globally on September 23. We will have 49 more days to for the exact details of the launch to come out.
It is pretty curious to see Nokia bring some attention to its misfit Meego device. When the N9 was first announced, it was showered with praise for several reasons. Not just for how stunningly-beautiful the device was, but for its fresh take on user interface. Not counting the volume and power buttons, there are no buttons on the N9. All interaction with the phone is done through the touch screen, and utilizing the swipe movement. You will notice on the countdown page that it talks a lot about swiping, even in Swedish.
The reason it’s interesting to see the N9 getting attention is that it is a platform that really has no future with Nokia. Nokia is placing its smartphone future in the hands of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. About the same time, the N9 was soaking up all that praise, there also just so happened to be a video “leaked” showing off Nokia’s first WP7 device. Nokia is calling the WP7 prototype the “Sea Ray,” but we don’t think that name will stick to production.
Even with all of the hype around the beautiful device and simple UI, it is hard to imagine the N9 being an overly popular phone. This is unfortunate because it looks amazing and MeeGo looks simply elegant. Hopefully there will be lots of early adopters and developer support so we can see Megoo thrive.
