Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

Got myself a new desktop PC the other week. Most of the hardware is by Intel. Should I go and ask Intel for all the software I need/want? A word processor, great strategy games, a VoIP-client, ...? Would you? Probably not, because you know that there's people who do the hardware and there's people who do the software.

Nokia is the company who does the hardware. I understand it is their intention that it should be others who do the software; just to get things working, there's a few applications pre-installed, similar to a pre-installed Windows on a new PC.

I think its a reasonable strategy. The only thing they did wrong was to incorporate hardware thats unsupported in free software land, which prevents other variants of GNU/Linux to run on the device.

And: Yes, they are great contributors to the free software movement. Didn't we all read how now even their competitors plan to re-use the components they developed?

Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

Thanks for addressing, I too don't believe you should go into a forum and start shooting down rumors, however when you deal with a market that is as savvy as this one I feel that they can be respected with a different level of interaction than is granted the regular Windows/Mac/Symbian user.
Also I think since the community is relatively small a little bit of interaction will result in a larger result than expected. It would be really interesting to know how many devices had been shipped/sold as compared to other Nokia devices such as mobile phones etc.

Anyway thanks a lot for all the hard work, I already enjoy this device and appreciate your input into the situation.

Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

Your comparison is seriously flawed. A more accurate one would have been to compare the Internet Tablet to Apple computers, but I guess that would have been less convenient.

Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

You should all have "Nokia" appended (or prefixed) to your usernames so that we know who you are! :D

Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

Why?
Why?

Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

I see I need to elaborate on that original one-liner (I tend to be a bit terse when using the on-screen tapboard on the tablet, nothing like a real keyboard :-)...

Actually I mostly agree with you, as sometimes happens, except maybe for the end bit.

What I meant is that when I bought into the 770, and its proclaimed future, I had been using a Zaurus for some time. The hardware was fantastic for its time (and still unequaled in some respects, just like a Psion or a Newton), and the system & software probably OK at the very beginning. But it had already been clear for some time that Sharp was just riding its original masterstroke, and milking the platform's domestic success, with very few improvements from one hardware model to the next (750 vs 760 vs 860, anyone ?...) and just about none in the system/software department. The result was that outside of Japan the Zaurus lived, and still lives, just as if Sharp didn't exist, and mostly though its enthusiast user base. Unfortunately, from a user's point of view, the results were/are not pretty : fragmentation, quarrels between teams, dozens of competing ROMs incompatible with each other, and not one that you could call feature complete and/or user-ready.

In late 2005 I believed the 770 was another nice, innovative bit of hardware, but one that might escape such a sorry fate because its maker seemed to "get" the open-source game, thought globally, sold it worldwide, and looked like it could pull a "benevolent dictator" trick : allow the enthusiast community to grow and breed the platform, while acting as a central clearinghouse to maintain its unity and consistency. This is a known hallmark of many successful OSS standards : Linux/Torvalds, Samba/Tridgell, Python/van Rossum, Perl/Wall, etc., etc.

I do agree with you that in this matter, despite much posturing and feeble (or not very visible) attempts, Nokia's delivery has been utterly disappointing.

At this point, sadly, it looks like another (big) company unable to play the trump cards in its hands before it's too late, to relate to its user base, and recognize the value of its inside assets (that's for you Tex :-).

I hope I'm wrong, but this mess reminds me of the recent "History of Psion" recently published by the Register :
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/26/psion_special/

Psion had a dominant, first-to-market position, innovative projects, and the right people to implement them (some of which later went on to create the iPod and Tom Tom success stories). Yet it faltered through lack of vision, lack of user communication, mismanagement, strategic errors and fear of competitors. Ring any bells ?

However, I don't share your optimism concerning OpenMoko. Yes, they have an innovative hardware approach ; but history shows that the problem is software, not hardware. Without someone with the right attitude at the helm, what's to prevent this new platform to also become a wasteland of half-baked, mostly abandoned hacker efforts ?

Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

Hi, I work at Nokia for maemo and the Internet Tablet projects. I have recently blogged about feedback and communication between Nokia and the community: http://desdeamericaconamor.org/blog/node/373

Some thoughts after reading this thread.

- I agree we have to improve our communications with the community. Ideas are welcome (please keep reading).

- "Silence" is a tough accusation though. In the maemo.org context @nokia.com people are discussing with users and developers regularly.

- I guess the "silence" accusation comes from the fact that nobody is answering officially as Nokia in ITT discussions. I'm really not sure if Nokia members should commit to be active here, in an independent (and successful, and pretty cool) forum. Does anybody expect answers from Mozilla, OOo, Ubuntu, (etc) developers out of their own channels of feedback and discussion?

- If you want to know/influence the plans for maemo and the Nokia Internet Tablets your main reference is http://maemo.org/intro/roadmap.html . You hit that roadmap after going through the process suggested there: filing enhancement requests or proposals on wiki pages at maemo.org and communicating them to the maemo mailing lists.

- Let's agree that not every ITT contributor can/will go happily through that process even if her idea is good and feasible. But let's also agree that we can't compromise to be active in all the discussions happening out of our official channels. The role of the senior contributors or the highly interested is very relevant: they can pick interesting ideas in i.e. ITT, develop and push them into our process.

Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

(snipped all the stuff I agree with, because -- well, because I totally agree with it)

OpenMoko is indeed taking its first baby-steps, but you have to agree that they appear to be listening to their user base: They just quadrupled the flash memory, almost doubled the processor speed and included WiFi b/g, all the things prospective users and developers had been asking (I'm assuming the motion sensors and the graphics accelerator were a free bonus ;) ). To me, that shows commitment. If Nokia had done that, we'd have started with the N800 (OK, minus the camera, because it's lame)!

Also, if you go to http://www.openmoko.org/ and check the place out, you'll find that there are already quite a few projects in development, and the device isn't even out yet!

Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

Don't you know?

Re: Tablet Advocacy
 

I agree that not every ITT contributor will go through that process - it's apparent that not every ITT contributor is even willing to file bug reports let alone file a detailed roadmap request.

However this site (ITT) is your litmus for how well Nokia is progressing and highly indicative of where some of the big problems are (from a humble end users point of view). For example, Thoughtfix has already submitted a roadmap request for Bluetooth PAN support but it should be obvious from the pain expressed on this forum that Bluetooth PAN support is an absolute necessity and not merely a wishlist item.

While I agree that we (the users) should assist Maemo and Nokia by submitting concrete requests for new functionality, it should also be possible for Maemo/Nokia to moderate their strategy based on some of the feedback available in this forum.

Nokia employees have attempted to be active in this forum in the past (Texrat) but for some reason the powers that be don't seem to appreciate his involvement - I think that's a missed opportunity.