Some more details emerge about Nokia’s Android adventure and it is from someone with knowledge of Nokia’s plans.
What was it?
Android UI was being developed for Ashas as Nokia wanted to sustain and rebuild scale and revenues for mobile phones using Android. They knew Asha with Nokia brand will help them.
The Team
The work was headed by Egil Kvaleberg and his team and Peter Skillman lead the UI. Same team that delivered Asha 501 and follow-up products.
Missed opportunity
It looks like while the team was working on Asha’s development, and Nokia needed to decide the platform for Asha and Android was an option. They missed the opportunity to go Android with Swipe UI in 2012.
We have just seen Nokia Normandy (above image) which may be running forked version of Android leaking out for second time. We can add from our knowledge is that it will have 4-inch display and will come in dual-sim flavour as well with a variant code RM-980.
It will be interesting to see whether it makes to the market in face of MS-Nokia deal. Our sources have hinted that Nokia has put the product on release path so it may get launched even in face of Nokia-MS deal.
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