Has Nokia found an Achilles heel?

The launch of another wave of phones from Nokia yesterday is primarily interesting for what it says about traditional phone manufacturers likely response to the impact of Apple's iPhone.

Apple's strong point has always been great interface design, the iPhone's interface has put other manufacturers to shame. I'd expect to see Nokia and other manufacturers try to challenge this in the future but in the meantime Nokia has cleverly gone for two aother potential Apple weakness:

1: Connection. Apple insists on placing a desktop computer between it's WiFi enabled iPhone and the download service (iTunes) that provides it with content. Nokia, with no interest in desktop computing platforms, are allowing users to skip this irrelevant step.

2: Games: The N-Gage phone may well have been a failure but repackaging the brand as a games distribution service is a smart move. Mobile gaming is going to be big and gaming is an area where Apple have always been weak. At the moment Apple have the the established distribution service but little worthwhile gaming content, Nokia have the (promises of) content but an untried distribution model.

It'll be interesting to see what further developments Nokia have in store. From a professional perspective I hope that Nokia take something from the lesson Apple is teaching them with regards to interface design - especially when it comes to e-mail clients (Nokia's phone client has always been appalling).

Apple have really stirred up the mobile market and, judging from this Nokia launch, consumers stand to benefit from a deluge of new phones, interfaces and services.