On Friday, April 6th, New York’s Times Square was filled with thousands of Nokia and Nicki Minaj fans to launch the Nokia Lumia 900.  Minaj performed the “Starship Remix” and much to the delight of her fans, the performance was recorded and will be part of the music video remix.

“When Nokia came to me with the idea to make a building come alive and to perform in Times Square in front of my fans to celebrate the launch of the Nokia Lumia 900, there was only ever one answer,” Minaj stated.  “To see the idea on paper was amazing, but to see it for real blew me away.”

If you’re asking what Minaj has got to do with Nokia or the Lumia 900, I have no idea but nine gigantic screens, a building that came to life with CGI technology plus great music, seemed the perfect combination for an awesome show.  To check out the video and learn more about the Lumia 900, click here.

Unfortunately, though the event rounded up thousands of people, there was only one display that showed off the Lumia 900, making you wonder– was the show’s real focus on the artist or the device?  And if thousands flocked to Times Square on Friday night, Nokia fans, even if they wanted to, weren’t able to buy the Lumia 900 come Easter Sunday, since most of the shops were closed for the holiday.

Last month, AT&T announced that the launch of the Lumia 900 would be bigger than anything they’ve done for any brand before.  And indeed, they delivered during Friday’s event.  But come Sunday, most AT&T store were closed and people looking to buy the device were baffled.  Even those who called AT&T stores were surprised when no one picked up, and even more surprised when recorded messages advertised Apple’s iPhone 4S and not the Lumia 900.

It’s just weird that a brand looking to renter the US market chose to launch during Easter.  It was like they were preemptively making up an excuse in the event they suffered poor first day sales.

On the brighter side, though the Lumia 900 was only available in some AT&T stores on Easter Sunday, it was still available online and by Sunday afternoon, it was already the fifth in Amazon’s list of best selling phones with service plans.  As of today, the black Lumia 900 is on top of Amazon’s list, the cyan Lumia 900 at number 3.

Tero Kuittinen, an analyst and a vice president of Alekstra, a company that helps customers manage their cellphone bills, is impressed at how well the Lumia 900 is doing in online sales despite the strange Easter Sunday release.

“I have no idea why they handled it like this, but I have to say I’m pretty impressed by how it’s doing on Amazon.com,” Kuittinen said.  “Who knows how long that’s going to last? But at least they made the splash.”

Early Lumia 900 issues

Though the Lumia 900 just launched, those who already bought the device reported problems in connectivity like cell data not working.  When they sought help from AT&T, the company’s tech support wasn’t able to figure out what was wrong.

A report from PCMag stated that Phone Arena found a quick fix that worked for some users.  All you have to do is Remove the SIM card > Perform a Master Reset (Settings > About) > Boot up without the SIM card > Turn off the Lumia 900 > Verify that the SIM card is LTE-enabled > Insert SIM and boot up.

The Nokia Lumia 900 is available in AT&T stores, Microsoft stores, Nokia stores and of course online stores.  It sells for only $99.99 with a two-year AT&T contract and $499.99 if you don’t want to be tied to AT&T for two years.

Lumia launch pivotal for Nokia, developers

The launch of the Windows Phone-based Nokia smartphone is not only pivotal for the Finish phone maker but for app developers as well.  Apple’s App store, Google Play, and other Android-app selling markets are quite congested and for new app developers, it’s hard to get noticed.  So app developers tired of competing in those overcrowded markets should take this opportunity to look into developing Windows Phone apps.  Even if Nokia is just now trying for a comeback in the US market, the Nokia brand is still popular in other parts of the world.

“Nokia offers more distribution,” said Marco Argenti, senior vice president of developer experience at Nokia. “We bring the customer base, and developers see the opportunity.”

Microsoft’s app market recently reached the 80,000 app mark.  Most of their apps are based on famous iOS or Android apps as Microsoft paid app developers somewhere between $60,000-$600,000 to make them available for the Windows Phone platform.