Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

The thing is, I wouldn't see such a concept in direct competition with iOS, as it is simply as mass market solution that is seriously flawed when it comes to the needs of a power user. I'm talking about something that would essentially replace a laptop in your pocket, a evolution to what Nokia already tried to market with the N900. I don't like the fragmented approach of mobile apps and the closed software strategy used by Apple. I'm sure that there must be others like me that want a device that would truly replace the laptop whilst on the go?? With the miniaturisation of hardware this should be very much possible.

Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

I don't think this is true at all, especially when talking about Linux, you can start with a minimal distro like Slackware or Arch Linux and scale up perfectly well without any bloat.

Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

I believe that the 'shape' of the current smartphone's market does not happen purely by chance.

If you poll 1million qualified potential customers, i'd bet that a huge majority of them would prefer a pocketable computer-like device, with a touch optimized interface.

Why? Because they probably already have a computer at work, at home and/or in their bag to do their cmputing needs on while not mobile.

Squeezing a desktop app without ui optimization to a sub 4" device is a recipe for pain. Sure, one's initial reaction to it would probably be "wow, this is neat. It's JUST like on my desktop/notebook... Only smaller!" (well I at least I've had that response in Zaurus days). But after spending sometime with the unoptimized UI, you'll likely realize that using a desktop interface on a handheld device is painful and inefficient. Sure, you can train and practice, create macros and scripts to ease the pain, but if you take a step back, you'd probably say 'there's gotta be a better way than this!'.

On the other hand,of you're talking about desktop apps with custom/dhnamically scalable ui that becomes touch-friendly when that same binary is run on a pocketable system, then I'm all for that.

Defaults to touch-ui for daily tasks in mh pocket, with an option to fallback to it's 'full' ui when needed; and also will default to desktop interface when the device is docked to a big screen with desktop-like input devices.

Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

Sniplets from Tomi Ahonens blog His site

"The year 2010 established a new record for new mobile phones sold, at about 1.37 Billion units sold. Bear in mind, that the world has only about 1.2 Billion personal computers and about 1.6 Billion television sets. But mobile phones sold almost 1.4 Billion new handsets just during the 12 months of 2010."

"Only about 750 million of the 4.2 Billion mobile phones in use, are smartphones or about 18% of all phones it the world."

So yes, we need mobile platform(s).
2010 22 % of sold mobiles were smartphones. Soon smartphones are likely to sell yearly even more than whole installed base of internet connected PC´s.

Mobile is priority. When developing programs adapting those to different userinterfaces should be norm.

Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

woops wrong thread

Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

While I would love a handset with full-on, no-holds-barred, pure linux distro with a phone capability, the mass doesn't. So mass market solution is not a problem, we, the "super users", geeks whatever you want to call us, are the problem. We don't pay Nokia's bills, the mass market does.

As an Archer myself, and a n00b at it at best, I love the idea of full customization and the KISS-concept. But with it comes a boatload of issues that the average mass market user will never ever want to deal with. They want out-of-the-box usability which means bloatware. Can't have the cake and eat it too.

Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

do we even need a nokia? I want a MeeGo phone, if nokia doesn't want to sell it to me, that's fine.

Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

Well, i dont aree here. Linux is also very bloated because of the standard use of C-code instead of handoptimized assembler.
C on the other hand provides linux with a great deal of portability, but it will always be bloated programs from it.
Back in the early days people could do more with 64kilobyte than can be done today with 64Megabyte.
-the first unix was btw limited to 4KB of ram :cool:

Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

To be honest, I think Nokia did a great job optimizing Maemo 5. Perhaps it's just that I've tweaked it, or that I'm running at 950mhz, but compared to a HP TC1100(1ghz x86 processor, 1GB ram, 1024x768 screen) with Ubuntu 10.10, my N900 blows it out of the water as far as responsiveness goes, even tnough the raw power is around half as much.

I think that a proper system would involve something like we have now with the N900+Easy Debian - We have a good mobile UI, and can run desktop applications "seamlessly".
What you'd want to do, though, is set it up with a custom repo of optimized desktop apps - Or at least a set of saner defaults - Touchscreen left/right click is always a problem.

Re: A forward thinking strategy for Nokia - Do we even need a mobile platform?
 

well it seems to me the n900's versatility could point towards a possible direction, deliver good solid hardware, with a somewhat lacking but very open and upgradeable os, then allow users the option of tweaking their device to whatever os suits their need. but much more refined and deliberate than the system we have now. imagine hot-swapping between your customised maemo 5, to a fully functioning android, to a desktop distro of your choice, (substitute for whatever future os's are around at the time.) without ever having to reboot or miss a call.