Oh, no, Nokia: Another oopsie?
Nokia suddenly chooses to fess up that not only was the Lumia 920 launch promotional video faked, but the stills were too. Symptoms of dysfunction?
There are days when I want to bawl out loud. And then there are days when it's just a need for simpering tears to course slowly down my face, rolling in time to a little Enya.
This morning is a time for the latter, as a company for which I have considerable affection -- Nokia -- has admitted to further dissimulation.
You may remember that last week, as it launched its canary yellow Lumia 920 phone, the company showed a rather nice video to accompany it. It heralded the new PureView technology, which makes images just so pristine.
Sadly, it didn't count on the pin-sharp retinas of nerds, who forced the company to admit that the footage was not from any kind of Lumia at all. It was a pure view, but from some other camera.
The guilt seems to have been weighing heavily on Finnish minds, as the Wall Street Journal now reports of further Nokia culpas.
In a voluntary statement, the company decided to point out that, well, um, other pieces of the Lumia 920 launch materials were also less than Webster's version of pure.
In Nokia's own words: "Further misunderstanding has arisen about still photographs taken at night in the street in Helsinki. We want to be very clear that these still images were taken from the same video."
Nokia would not be the first, nor last, company to create images with products that were not its own. However, the fact that it needed to make this further admission suggests a certain messiness in Helsinki Central.
It's odd how companies can pretzel themselves. Nokias were the first phones I ever used. This was in Europe, before America could untwist its wires sufficiently to grasp the cell phone idea.
Nokia phones were simple, original, and just plain lustrously lovable.
On moving to the U.S., I sought out Nokia phones wherever I could find them -- which was often not at carrier stores but at those highly questionable Manhattan multi-gadget retailers, who could also sell you a suitcase and an umbrella.
In the end, I just gave up and bought an iPhone. They worked rather well. And they were, well, there.
Now, Nokia is trying to make us believe that the Lumia 920 truly is a worthwhile competitor, something we should consider very seriously.
Yet as this week will see the frenzy behind the new iPhone, will the Lumia 920 be adorning store windows, Best Buy displays (how the canary yellow would match Best Buy's), and Jimmy Kimmel?
Possibly not. It won't be out until November 2.
Errors upon errors upon errors suggest a curious dysfunction that might never be remedied.
It is so sad to see a company so in need of image stabilization.
