Re: bad news from nokia today
 

to op:wtf. My device is about an year old. Placed my preorder about 375 days ago...
Even iToys get old in a year. Galaxy S will be prehistoric in an year etc...

So in nutshell: world doesn't rotate around you.

E: n900 has already beaten kin for 350 days or so....

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

there is plenty life in the N900 yet we have bright future maybe its with maemo or maybe with almost any OS you want
http://twitter.com/stskeeps/status/24195693319

http://al.robotfuzz.com/~al/maemo/u-boot/

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

With the N900 running an OS that is openly known to be a dead-end OS (no more devices to be sold with Maemo and Nokia development resources being moved from Maemo to MeeGo) how is that not effecting third-parties interest in developing for the N900? When the N900 is discontinued (now or in 4-5 months, who knows) how will that 'status' of the N900 not effect developers interest in developing for it - and the only official OS that it is supporting? Developers and s/w companies goes for where there is volume and some level of manufacturer-backed continuity for the platform. The N900 does not have either of them (sure there may well be a support release (1.3) but I would not expect anything after that.

I'll be the first to admit I know very little about Qt and how well adopted that is by the large, commercial s/w developers. I must admit that I've always considered Qt to be more of a community-developer tool and not something used by the larger houses. If so, I don't quite see your point as I was talking about commercial s/w products (games and applications) and not community efforts. I'm sure there will be many versions of File Managers and text editors that can run both on MeeGo and Maemo5.

Are you seriously telling me that you expect the Maemo5 platform to receive official and commercial third-party support into 'the distant future'? If you mean that it will not be 'discontinued' due to community efforts that is a different argument and discussion. I'm sure there are Commodore 64/Sinclair Spectrum user groups out there that are hacking and modding away but I would not make the argument that their OS is not discontinued based on that.

No, that is simply speaking incorrect.
Any s/w developer with commercial interests will base their interest on;
- Volume,
- Continuity (will the OS carry to the next h/w generation, compatibility, etc),
- Users (profile),
- Device life, and
- Adoption (how well is the OS adopted by other device makers).

Let me generalize for a moment:
If there are, say, 2 million devices sold running OS X, the userbase is mixed corp/non-corp - but the device and OS is about to be EOL'd it does not matter what 'state an appstore' is in or, for much longer, how many devices were sold. Assuming, again, that 2 million devices were sold (random made up number) and that there was an existing third-party commercial interest in the product - it is not far-fetched to extrapolate that the device was replaced with a newer, updated model running OS Y (to make this N900 relevant to some extent). With such a switch you will have a significant amount of users from the old OS X device switching over to the newer OS Y device (brand loyalty, obviously this was a successful product so the assumption is that enough R&D was invested into making something even shinier, etc). The number of devices sold - but now sitting at the bottom of a drawer - does not a sale make.

Cell phones are even 'worse' with an average of 2 years of usage (not life but usage before new purchase).

To sum up my ramblings: Number of sold devices becomes rapidly much less important and does not have the profound impact that you mention when you start looking at the other factors.

Once again, I was not arguing that community efforts would end. See my Commodore 64/Spectrum reference.

End comment (I know finally right...): One thing I don't know - and depending on the answer it would either support or nullify all my ramblings - is how these 'closed source, commercial grade apps/games' developed for MeeGo can/will run on Maemo5.

I'm not a developer and I don't claim to know if it's all just comes down to Qt-based MeeGo API compatibility - or if the kernel differences between the two platforms (MeeGo using DeviceKit to interact with the h/w (I think) plays a role as well.

I guess a simple question would answer it:
Would a copy of "Jurassic 3D Rollercoaster Rush 2" developed by "Digital Chocolate" to be sold for MeeGo device X run on N900 running Maemo5?

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

If the rebate doesn't go through smoothly and quickly, American Express will forcibly get my refund. I love those guys sometimes; no questions asked when it comes down to obtaining refunds.

We'll see. I truly do need a spare phone for overseas travel - my Motorola F3 is truly 100% no frills, would be nice to see stuff in color.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Exactly. But the difference is that new "Galaxys" pops out every day, and they all look the same, they all run the same OS, they all do the same thing. The N900 probably was/is a one off. A special made device for the hacker/enthusiast. The normal reaction would be to get at least one more N900 while they still are around, not to curse Nokia for producing the coolest device ever.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

It's true for all phone.

"[INSERT ANY PHONE HERE] will be discontinued."

He should be relieved that you settled for such statement.

If I were you, I'd say, "as long as it's under warrant, do you fscking job". :D

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

It's because the Galaxy S is a line of phones, same 1ghz Hummingbird processor, same Super AMOLED screen, same 512mb of RAM and are customized per the carrier requests in terms of outer case while maintaining the same insides, et al. And selling rather well as a line of phones in South Korea, Europe and North America.

So yeah... they'll invariably do the same thing, run the same OS, and look similarly to each other... that's part of being in that family called Galaxy S. If they were markedly different, then you'd have fragmentation like no other and Samsung would probably have a support nightmare on their hands.

To me... their approach makes sense.

Nothing else officially ran Maemo 5, no real companies outside of Sygic made any software for it... I'd call it a definite one-off.

I have to question this. Was it really made for the hacker/enthusiast, or for the Nokia enthusiast? If it's the former, then that group didn't exactly buy in huge numbers. And if it's the latter, then Nokia messed up by EOL this so quickly. Only the Microsoft KIN (which... deserved to die) went EOL faster. Hell, I complained about the N810 going EOL after 13 months... N900 beat that easily.

Reports are saying that they're built like tanks, apparently "nobody" is having problems with the USB port any more and they're such a quality built phone. Are you saying that not even a year later, you feel prompted to buy another? For instance... I have had my iPhone 3GS for a year - screen is still great, it still works without incident, still is in near perfect shape. In fact, when I moved to my Captivate - one of those aforementioned Galaxy S spin-offs - I still keep it around because it works so gosh darn well as a music player and/or communication device. And with my N900 on its way, I don't anticipate the need to buy multiple one(s) because... well, it's well-built.

So why buy two or more? Conflicts with the above paragraph on some level.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

I agree it is a sad state. I'm just saying that info is widely available for months now.

You couldn't be more wrong. This may sound as a marketing pitch, but hey - Qt's root were primarily commercial (just to name a few of the more $$$ oriented vendors using Qt in their commercial products: Autodesk, Google, Skype) and has just recently been pushed into the community arena with GPL licensing. Nokia is betting the farm on Qt software-wise. ALL (I hope I don't have to bold/fontsize this ALL) applications for Nokia phones will be done in Qt. Really, In Symbian^4 and MeeGo, Qt is the only official framework. Plus, to build momentum, you have it out-of-the-box on Symbian^3 and made available to legacy Nokia devices, going back as far as the N95. That's an ecosystem that has literally hundreds of millions of devices just from Nokia, not to mention devices from other vendors. And the N900 is part of that ecosystem, regardless of what a techsupport dude says on a Friday afternoon.

What people still don't realize is that there is no Maemo5 platform. There is a Qt platform. Maemo 5 is an OS supported by that platform. A subtle but extremely important difference.

No, it doesn't work that way really. It is STILL a very important factor for Ovi apps for example to run on a N95. It has been discontinued centuries ago, the successors had a less than stellar reception, but still, if you submit an app to the Ovi store, you make it work on the N95, period. I would agree with you on an armchair basis, but reality disagrees.

That is a very good question - the answer depends primarily on the publisher, whether they WANT to make it available (this in fact has no bearing how much longer Maemo5 is officially supported by Nokia). The actual technical effort is minimal, the API level stuff is almost identical as long as there are Qt updates, with packaging and DRM being the sticking points - and that is far more a policy question which will be decided by publishers on a case by case basis.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Well I told you I knew very little about this area ;)
Thanks for that area, I had no idea where Qt really came from or how adopted it was.

Then substitute 'platform' with OS in my statement.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on that point.

Also very interesting to me as this is an area that I admittedly am far from knowledgeable. I come from a belief of where the underlying OS is what determines if an application can be run or not. Reading the above it almost sounds as if the OS is secondary and the APIs/presentation layer is what determines compatibility. Something that I must admit I can't quite wrap my head around.
I guess in a way Windows operates in the same way where I can on a machine running Win7 run both Win XP and 2000 apps.
However, I do admit that I thought that the difference between Maemo5 and MeeGo was much more significant - more on par with Win vs Mac.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

my opinion about commercial games developed for MeeGo being released for N900 is its not going to happen.
MeeGo will have all security and DRM in place so why would they release them for a device what as zero security and will be pirated in seconds it would then get recported so n900 zero security pirated version would run on MeeGo too.
even though DRM is rubbish and would end up getting pirated any way commercial companies will not make it that easy to happen.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

At the risk of being labeled a Nokia apologist... if you open your eyes just a wee bit beyond the iPhone you'll see that due to development pace and supply shortages, phones (especially non-flagship ones) are being EOL-d in no time. Let's take a peek at that Android greener side. HTC Hero ? Legend ? Samsung Moment ? All devices whose life expectancy was measured in months and had support levels arguably even worse than the N900 (which, contrary to what is constantly being lamented on talk since February, isn't dead just yet). OTOH Nokia in August shipped an update for the 5800 which was released even before the first Android device. At some point you will have to realize this is not about HTC, Nokia, Samsung, etc. It's about devices X or Y, and "I'll never buy a [insert hated vendor here]" will not make you immune to this problem as every vendor has more and less successful models whose life expectancy varies depending on a myriad of factors. I know and agree this doesn't make the no-Fremantle-on-N8x0 and no-Harmattan-on-N900 less painful, but just to put things into perspective.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

I think maybe you are thinking more complex than I did. With 'galaxys' I meant all similar phones from all vendors. By getting an extra device or two, I meant to sell them or to have one as a museum piece. You know that HP-15c calculators from the 80s are sold for more today than they did back then, the reason being that no better calculator has been made since.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

770 was for hackers,enthusiasts and geeks with n8x0 and early adopters with n900. So real hackers can pick any from those 4 steps but 770 was the real milestone, n900 is its successor in finger usability and only improvement to the first iteration, not the real gamechanger.

Ps damn there goes my money for wetab: I got to get another n900 asap to get 2yrs warranty

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Nope, both MeeGo and Maemo *do* show a strong Linux ancestry (as opposed, to, say, Android), technically, the comparison would be more like Ubuntu vs Fedora. And that is even without Qt, just by virtue of them both being Linux - Qt just makes it easy to abstract away the small nuances/peculiarities of the OS (and that's why it can act as a bridge towards Symbian). And really - barring packaging, DRM and hardware differences, most MeeGo apps should be a recompile away (or even less, in case of Python apps). Though, as NvyUs says - if people get hung up on DRM, then support will not change anything - that stuff is pretty low level (=hardware) so not something that can be just slapped on top of an existing OS (and something not everyone would want to).

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

I first were sure my little brother was lying when he told me he had his first update after 14 months or so to his hero. In addition the update messed touchscreen input up and his handset started crashing.

Now he has desire and other brother has galaxy s. They are not any miracles either. People here just seem to require perfection sometimes..

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

I'm one of the lucky ones who doesn't have any major problems with the phone, and I'm not about to create one out of this.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

No matter how well it's built, it's a mobile device, so bad stuff can happen.

I personally know several people who switch phones more often than once a year average, because they break them in various amusing ways (dropping in toilet, sitting on, driving over, using as hammer replacement) (yes, all true stories). If they somehow manage to keep the phone working, it gets lost or stolen.

Of course, not everyone is like this, but for those who identify themselves as frequent phone-breakers, getting a spare does make sense.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

I've had the n900 since it's release and plan on keeping it for a while. I will not be switching unless another phone comes into the market as open source as the n900 and with a keyboard. The n900 is the best smartphone i've ever had. Due to it running on linux it never crashes and/or restarts. I feel like this is the most under rated phone on the market. I feel like nokia gave up on it so quickly because it was too damn good. Part of it though is because nokia sold it as a tablet and not as a phone. I'm anxious to see if nokia makes another n9xx and i want a keyboard. If there is no keyboard i will keep this baby till its complete trash.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

No ****, Sherlock. But with a specific conversation about specific phones, such as the Nokia N900 - I was referring only to that phone being EOL slightly slower than the Microsoft KIN, but EOL nonetheless.

I didn't say anything about the EOL of the iPhone - you've injected that somehow; rather unnecessarily. But since you went there, 3 major OS's per revision of their phone is miles above what Nokia has done for the N900; only the N95 is the exception to that statement thus far.

Why don't you look at the G1? It seems to still be an exception to your myopic conjecture. There are others. Want to keep pointing to the failures, feel free.

That's exactly what I did with the N900 and N810. So... fair is fair. All of the above, G1 excepted, had a shelf life measured in months.

That ship has passed. So will this one. Let's hope that the next one doesn't pass in such a expeditious manner.

Facts are facts. EOL in months plain sucks to the consumer.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Galaxy S is only manufactured by Samsung. There's nothing complex about that.

Similar phones will happen especially when they (and I'm assuming you meant Google Android phones here) are all running Google Android.

Just as there's only one phone (ever) that ran Maemo 5, it's easy to stand out. And apparently, even easier to get left behind.

I'll take reservation with the calculator remark - I'm a huge fan of my HP 48GX. 17 years later, it's still rock solid. To each his own.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

count me in......i mean.....me too!!! alert when a cheap one comes out....:D

8210??? (sorry, so dumb of here askin' :D)

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Just so I understand this:

All the energy being expended in this thread is because someone reported what some guy, at some Nokia, some where said, and offered no collaborating information to back this up?

***

To put this in perspective and it being Sunday and all, I wanted to spend some time at church.

I called the local congregation to find out what time services would be today and a guy answered the phone there. He told me what time services would be held but then he added that todays sermon was about death and beyond, and how we should all prepare for this eventuality.

:eek: WTF???

This is the first I'm hearing about this "death" thing and needles to say, I am very disappointed. :mad:

I will never go to church again!
...What's the point if we are all going to die anyway?

:p

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

YoDude,

You are cluttering this very, very serious thread. It would be nice if you could open a new one about your omnipotence-module not working. While you're at it, perhaps you could open a second one (or two) in competition, so we could actually have a comparison at hand between n900 and the iPhone and the way they perceive death.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Very serious thread. Dude wait... what?

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

the phone's support will be discontinued?
it took u a call to nokia to figure that out?
LOL!

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Sorry about that. :o

I guess I need to find "Godzilla" and report this "death" bug thing. It certainly wasn't my expected outcome and I'm hoping one of Life's developers will be working on some sort of update.

Boot loading a new image may be problematic though.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

We need a new sub forum. It should be called

WTF???

And this thread could be first.

As far as I can tell, the OP owned an n900 for a few months, and then he/she

WTF were you enquiring about? Please don't ask why, but for some strange reason this thread reminds me of this.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

what "news" is this ?

Anyone with half a brain and a teaspoon of common sense knew this was the case when Nokia announced there will be no official Meego for N900 (or even earlier when Nokia REFUSED to specify an official position until PR1.2)

It was plain as day at that point that Nokia has decided that the N900 was not worth further investment.

If this is "news" to you, then you are remarkably naive. Hell I was naive to believe that Nokia may officially support Meego on N900 when Meego was initially announced.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Gerbick. Good that you are going to get a n900. Finally you can practically understand why everyone likes maemo 5 & the N900 so much.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

If you PM me, I can put you in touch with a guy I know who has figured a work-around for the Death bug. It's quite resource-heavy and requires a bit of commitment from the user to run, but I'm reassured the UX will be amazing in the end.

[edit] You may now resume your regularly sheduled thread[/edit]

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

A guy in tthe street interrupted his chanting to give me a pamphlet that promised my phone would be re-incarnated a certain number of times before I achieved the perfect OS...

There's also that guy in a black turtleneck who promises me the earth if I sell him my soul and take a byte from his apple!

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

I did look at the G1, if not obvious, it was hidden in the 'first Android device' reference of my post. You still managed to miss the point - the support cycle has much more to do with the success and position of the particular device than a manufacturer approach (with the notable exception of Apple).

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Like I said; good luck with continued, official support. There is not one ounce of falsehood in that statement.

I missed no point. If people were to only handpick what supports their wayward agendas and/or speaking points, then they will appear correct.

In this situation, comparing the N900, one item out of many in Nokia's portfolio, but the only one that ran Maemo 5 and comparing it to a handful of Android phones out of many only to support the notion that EOL support happens on a mass scale in that arena is misleading; whereas the only Maemo 5 device got EOL basically in 6-7 months.

Again. That's the unfortunate fact. The official support cycle for the only Maemo 5 device was cut short and it's never going to come back.

Those aforesaid Android devices that didn't make the transition past 1.6 - it's unfortunate to the customer. In fact, both are downright a negative for the customer.

Just seems odd that people are so gosh darn happy about lack of support and are willing to buy multiple devices that are all EOL.

EOL happens. I just cannot rejoice when it's less than 1 year. And if you go back to what I said earlier; that's what the **** I said earlier too. Stop adding ******** to what's been said; it's annoying.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

:) By complex I meant your deduction and ultimately the implications of what you thought I said, but didn't, simply because I didn't think in such complex terms.

Every now and then, manufacturers make something extraordinary, it can be cars, motorcycles, sewing machines or whatever. Some people call these things a flop, and from a mainstream commercial point of view they are correct. But it is the extraordinary that ultimately defines the mainstream. The N900 is such a device, while iPhones and all Androids (with some exceptions) are the mainstream. We may never again see a commercially available phone that the average guy can use and install several different OS'es on. But then again, maybe we will. Either way the N900 will be recorded in the history of phones as something truly extraordinary, while all the Galaxy-type Android phones no matter the exact specs, will be forgotten. Samsung wave (Bada) will be remembered, as will the original iPhone.

The N900, even when "dead" and forgotten by Nokia, will outlive all the top Android phones of today and tomorrow, just like the 25 year old HP15c. Purchasing a couple of N900s is an investment. It won't make you a millionaire, but you will not loose much money either.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

holla! i got my n900 @ 550 usd and now its 160 usd less, same supplier.......i am being temped to get another one......

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Admitted, I never really looked in to it but I always assumed Death was open-source. Now it seems to be reverse-engineered and the binaries shared through PM channels.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

I am confused by the claims that the N900 is no longer for sale on the nokia website. It is in the UK, Finland, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, China etc etc. (all the ones I could be bothered to check). Not the USA though. But that doesn't mean squat!!

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

I think hardware wise N900 has a lot going for it... and with the clever minds of the folk on here, it will continue to be the device to be beaten.

Meego will be ported by "someone" at "some point". even if its out of curiosity. as im sure other OS's will be. whatever linux derivative comes next.

Like the Nitdroid guys. it may be that maemo is completely replaced by it, giving the N900 years of servicable life. it dont really matter that nokia arent supporting maemo / software wise any more.

the N900 is dead (maybe)... long live the N900 hardware! lol.

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

Yep, official support is short, but with a successor on the rise (Harmattan) this was, in my case, expected.

I wonder what will happen if a corporation gets sued for such. For example, not providing security and reliability fixes is probably neglecting the 'proper functionality' which is an aspect of warranty under EU law. Does anyone have jurisprudence concerning this?

He was probably thinking about battery performance :p

Re: bad news from nokia today
 

n900 = next Sega Dreamcast.

it will keep a group of loyal followers, and hacking / developing for it will never end! it will be great times!!