[Anechoic]

> And it was far less an important part of the user experience at that time

I don't think that's necessarily true. The browser was an extremely important part of the user experience, but 2 things happened: 1) MS stopped developing IE which allowed Mozilla and Apple to leap frog MS in terms of user experience, and 2) the iPod came along which became a gateway drug to Macs and helped Apple become what it is today.

However the 90's Apple/today's Nokia analogy only fits if Nokia has something outside of phones that it can use to grow it's business. It remains to be seen if that's the case.

There's also the problem that Apple became more insular in terms of developing the whole widget and making sure it wasn't dependent (as much as it could) on ISVs while Nokia seems to be going in the exact opposite direction.