alt Hacker NewsNokia development was limited by its relation with telecom industry (telecoms could limits what Nokias could do, software feautures. The telecoms wanted to profit from software running on Nokias, telecoms didn't wanted to be just dumb Internet providers. Telecoms wanted to be digital service providers - AOLs).
In contrast Apple with iPhone had much stronger position:
"Cingular gave Apple the freedom to develop the iPhone's hardware and software in-house, a rare practice at the time, and paid Apple a fraction of its monthly service revenue (until the iPhone 3G), in exchange for four years of exclusive U.S. sales, until 2011."
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Yes I can second that.
During that time I was working for a large Telco. I could see how Nokia operated. They did everything the telco asked for, they installed any bloatware just to keep their sales numbers high.
Apple in contrast would say: if you ever touch the user experience on our phone we will go to the other big Telco in your country. Guess who won.
We complain (rightly) about the Apple monopoly, but have forgotten that the carriers were a much more annoying monopoly, with even worse policies for trying to charge for things that they'd specifically prevented you from doing.
I think the last remaining example of that is charging for using your phone as a WiFi hotspot.