Blackberry managed to crack into the mobile market by offering devices that didn't do telephony at all. The "current smartphone obsession" as you call it has been developing for a decade now. People who primarily want to make phone calls from their phone is a dwindling market. For business, on demand email is significantly more important. For teens, texting ability is much more important (my daughter never calls anyone). There's a cultural shift in the works here.

Telephony isn't that difficult and all "american-style" smartphones do a perfectly adequate job. If you can make calls and answer calls, it's a phone. Most people don't need anything more than that. I don't see what more Nokia can offer on that point but they lots of room to screw everything else up.

Really, you're totally wrong. :o)

I think you're confusing what 'people who read HN' want with 'what the majority want'. It happens really commonly in tech-literate circles.

I'll grant you that texting is important, but that revolution happened a decade ago with the Nokia 3310. You don't need a smartphone for that.

The calling experience on most smartphones is horrific. On my iPhone I need to find an icon and tap it before I can even start dialling. Once I do get through to someone, the signal reception is weak - and this is an iPhone 3G on a UK network.

Pick up a Nokia S60 smartphone. There's number buttons on the front of them (except their weak attempts at touchscreen phones). You push them. The signal quality is rock-solid. These are things that normal people don't even think about until they dismiss an iPhone or Android smartphone as 'too fiddly'.

I think you're still confusing smartphone users with the regular mobile phone users. The iPhone is huge but I can guarantee that most people are purchasing it because it's a mini portable connected computer and not because it's a phone. That's the point.