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The iPhone set a new standard for smartphones. Symbian did not compare.

A new standard in "feed me entertainment!" perhaps.

At launch of iPhone Nokia had featurephones that were more capable.

You are maybe talking past each other a little. It wasn't case the case that the phones just lacked an app store. What really sucked about Nokia's symbian phones was the UI and the price tag. Now that's the fault of dysfunction within Nokia and not the fault of Symbian per se, but the fact remains if Nokia had just switched to Android it would likely still exist as a mobile phone company.

The argument against going Android was to avoid being another "me to" company. Back then the mantra of the Nokia leadership was "differentiation" (it was basically their response to why they could not open source the power management on the N800).

And if one look at the current Android market, they may be right. Samsung is only where it is right now because of a massive marketing push in the last few years.

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