Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Doesn't "failing" somehow imply "trying"? Maemo wasn't meant for the consumer market, so while it's true to say it wasn't successful there, I wouldn't use the word "fail". AFAIK, it was even more successful than Nokia had planned - which isn't necessarily a good thing in terms of image, cost for customer care etc.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Please read the whole post, then comment I have explained why it is _not_ linux. Making a pointless comment on a thing already explained?!

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

if it has patches it is not vanilla....

but you are right that linux is the kernel only and has nothing and absolutely nothing to do with libs or qt or any other software.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Whenever I see this argument, it's hard for me to believe. Like executives were saying, "hey, let's make a quality product and lose a lot of money! Yeah, that would be cool!"

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

The reason why it failed is simple: Its NOT idiot proof like iPhone and UI not as smooth and polished.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

You did talk about the libs, what isnt the linux.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

True, any company wishes that their product will be the next big thing. But when you set your sights low for sales volume and adjust your business model accordingly with limited marketing/support, the definition of success changes.

I believe Nokia has actually stated that the n900 sales far exceeded their expectations (wish I had a citation for this). Then to Nokia, this is the exact opposite of failure.

Citation: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/5984678.cms

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

yes. but somehow it puzzles why they put a badly supported unfinished prototype instead of a quality product on the marked. in regard to quality the n900 is realy bad in regard to capabilities its rather highend.
i don't think realy like they wanted it to be a flop but well its nokia: nokia always diversified instead of concentrating on one successfull device. they allways put out a lot of different devices. well the next is different and might be a hit.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

What about when a company says in a live world wide broadcast that product A is just step 4 of 5? How does that fit into your ideal business plan scenario?

Take a good, long, hard look at the n900. Who the fvck were they marketing it to? It's got an IR and FM transmitter for Christ's sake!

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

everything is a step in a process, 4 of 5 2 of 3 or 1 of 100. Was the original iphone a step 5? And it has not been improved since? How did that step 1 device sell? I really don't know what this step 4 business is. It is a product and they wanted it to sell like hotcakes.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Only thing what I know after talking with Nokia employee who has been involved with maemo for longer is that N900 was to Nokia success. I think that they totally underestimated the power of hype circling around blogs and forums. And what I understood from his comments is that they had to order quite much more batches after first ones went like puff.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I don't know where you work. In my company, when we plan a product, we try to figure out who may buy it and then tailor it around the target group's requirements. (Actually, we do it the other way round: First we identify target group & need and then we try to find a product... but anyway...)

Before we launch a product, we need to make sure it's profitable. It needn't be successful in terms of units sold (some of our products we sell less than 100 times, others several million times). The only requirement is that the money we put into developing and marketing the thing is less than what we get from our customers in return. (Well, not quite as simple, but you get the idea.)

Now having one of our "100 items sold" products accidentally sold 901744 times would be a disaster. A product targeted at only 100 customers makes assumptions about these customers, about their needs in terms of customer care, about their technical skills etc. etc.; selling it to 901744 customers means that 901644 of them will most probably not be satisfied: They'll return the product, use the technical helpline more often than we had calculated, write negative reviews and so on. Costs would go up significantly, the whole business case would no longer be valid... and we'd actually lose money because of the additional sales.

So depending on who the product was targeted at and who actually buys it, more sales can actually mean higher costs per unit sold (customer care, returns)... and may in the end make the whole product unprofitable if your margins weren't too high to begin with.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Was the employee named Bernie Madoff?

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

In my opinion, N900 is quite of achievement in internet tablet phone series (N7XX,N8XX). I personally think that maemo is way better than symbian since i used to own 5800XM. From hardware perspective, N900 was quite advance at that time. It has 32gb internal memory, can have up to 16 gb external memory or possibly more, 5MB camera, etc. Not to mention the ability to do multitasking (can run 32 apps simultaneously).

What it lacks are Nokia supports/commitment for the device and commercial apps. Not long after N900 was launched, Nokia started to shift to another device namely N8/N9 and new symbian^3 os. This is what kills N900. Got betrayed by its creator.

I personally think that N900 was a stepping stone of the unborn N9. Without maemo, meego will not exist. So N9 owes a big time to N900.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

It's a geek phone, and an awesome one at that. How many other phones allow you to easily dual boot, much like a pc into ANDROID vis NITDROID. It pretty much transforms your phone into something it wasn't initially designed for. Once calls and battery life improve on nitdroid you can fully go droid if so desired :p This for me makes the N900 very desirable since unlike other phones you are not locked into the OS the phone maker gives you :p That is a huge deal for us geeks...

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

this is the point:
see apple has the iphone or alternatively the iphone and for a change additionally: the iphone. they improve it and put some new technology in it but it stays one line and nothing else.

thats soo different from nokia who puts out devices en mass. all kind of types. differnt types and...

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I don't think the tablet market got "hot" because it suddenly decided to do so. It got "hot" because Apple released the ipad and Jobs' cult army of fanbois fanatics all wanted one.

What if Nokia had released a smartphone before Apple did? That's a rhetorical question BTW :)

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

actually nokia messed the dual boot up. it doesn't dual boot for they got the bootmanager wrong. well you can't fix it. why? because it is proprietary nokia nolo bootloader.

such things are excactly my point: either they had to make nolo capable of multibooting(some effort) OR have it in a way to be replacable OR even better use some existing bootloader that works by just pushing some patches(device dependend drivers) upstream.... .

but instead they didn't make nolo fit AND put it in in a way that it is very hard to replace. now we chainload uboot and folks have problems with that. now tell me that makes for good promotion compared with a device that is capable of it without the problems.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

n900 introduced some variety into a boring world of smart-phones. If the upcoming N9 will be just like every other android phone out-here it will be hugely disappointing. I love N900 for its customization, hardware and a shear power of linux (without silly VM) in it.

I used android phones, G1, Vibrant, they are all iCRAP clones...

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Hey, it's the new Nokia z500 tablet! :p

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Hah..or maybe Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf? Just guy who has been there from almost beginning. Still he is not only one from Nokia who has clearly been happy about how much they sold N900 devices.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

... don't support them, don't provide updates or even bugfixes except for the top selling 1 or 2 models.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Which S60 (N70, N82, N95, E71, E75) already had.

Actually, Qt on Maemo and Symbian 3 are the stepping stones to Meego.

Again, N900 is a niche device targeted more at developers. Since Apple is a *very* closed company, let's not compare to them. N900 is more comparable to G1 developer phone.

It's not a Porsche 911, it's a Bugatti Veyron

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Exactly, so stop guessing what you think Nokia expected and do some research.

The n900 is a tough mainstream sell, but Nokia didn't do themselves any favors by closing as much source as they did. The developers circling this community were champing at the bit, but Nokia shot themselves in the foot by making it difficult to work around their front-end proprietary pieces. And we all know how restless the natives got...

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

yes. but many things can be solved with community effort. and partly they did it.
updates are developed by the authors of software. and if you keep the software like it is and keep things working like they supposed to(even if they have a bug leave that in and give a patch to the devs to fix it!): well you have at least the updates from the devs which you can easily apply. if you on the other hand put your own bugfixes in and change things you drift away from what the devs do and their fixes(anhancements) can't be applied.
and you end up with a device far below its capabilities.

or look at this fight about ui and qt or not. if it is only for qt and not something else: for a different ui you need no other os. if everything else was standard you have the ui and just install it alternatively. have the ui you prever by just installing it? that would be good promotion, wouldn't it? qt runs on maemo. you prefer gtk: well why not - principally runs(sure i tried it)? or elementary: looks nice indeed(and is lightweight)! have you seen the examples? nice! but a casual user will never see these things on the n900. and i think that has an impact on the popularity of the device. if that all was available for a casual user: it sure would give a hype for that device.

look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0FYVYtoAT4
and:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNys6l65K4o
nice hu?

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

To review, PR 1.3 obviously was not an update nor did it contain bugfixes. Also, Nokia Customer Care does not replace devices under warranty or provide basic customer support.

@ All these people claiming that the n900 is not supported:

1) wtf are you smoking?
2) can i have some?

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

unstable when launched, bad Nokia marketing, lack of "AppStore" (with money kick-back and QA process) and therefore lack of (consumer) applications

EDIT: but I love my oc N900 and this community!

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

nope, they only said: "lets do major improvements to maemo and release work in progress thing just like 770, N800 and N810 were. After N900 we can make entrance to mass markets with Maemo".

I wish Jaaksi would write here occasionally so you would get your lessons from maemo history.

The whole maemo thing was intended to be 5 step program with minimal R&D resources and huge contribution from hacker-developer-early adopter/similar community.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

get the facts so you don't need to fud all the time

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

This I think shows why something like the N900 won't sell in large volume, no matter how it is promoted, and even if the company doesn't immediately anounce that the OS is a dead end. We want as open, and configurable a device as possible. We are interested in things like uboot, and setting up our phones for dual booting. I kinda get a kick out of reflashing the OS. This is simply not what the mass market wants or needs. If you look at the fact that Apple is now harvesting roughly half of all profit in the smart phone market, worldwide, you've got to admit they're doing something right. And what they're doing is locking everything down. We may grind our teeth about it. iOS developers may grumble the hoops and restrictions. But what most consumers want is nearly the opposite of what N900 owners want. Consumers want a device that cannot be bricked no matter what they do. Consumers do not want to dual boot - they don't want to boot period. Consumers want a machine on which spyware cannot be installed. I have several relatives who are tremendously happy with their iPhones; not a single one of them wants to discuss the virtues of different swappiness values with me. They do not want to go on a treasure hunt around the net to find apps.

I fear that if the N9 is as open as the N900, it will only sell in N900-like quantities. My guess is that our best hope in the long run is for Nokia (or some other big player) to release their flagship phones with Symbian, or Android, and for them to simultaneously support the installation of meego on that same hardware platform, to satisfy the geeks.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I don't see how openness has anything to do with it. The reason Android and iOS have been so successful is that they have a) a user friendly and intuitive UX b) a robust and profitable app ecosystem which attracts developers and c) brilliant marketing campaigns.

Meego seems to be aiming squarely at a and b (not so sure about c yet) while still retaining its openness. The big question now is what Meego will do to differentiate itself from the other players and convince people to adopt it.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

The short answer to the original question of why the n900 failed on the consumer market is because it wasn't marketed to consumers.

I've never seen an ad for it anywhere.

This is probably for the best. My mom can barely figure out how to dial her iphone. I'd hate to think what would happen if someone gave her an n900. She wouldn't even be able to call me for help.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

why don't you get you facts straight: with a unix system it is nothing very special or outordinary to have as many ius and look and feels as you like. windows traditionally has only one at a time an traditionally is a single user system so that this makes sense.

you can have as many differnt ui's run on the same phone as you want. any ui is just a bunch of applications you install and run. and you run as many as you want and your resources allow you. yes have a gnome, a kde a fluxbox, a matchbox run on the device simultanously as long as your memory lasts.

with that i do not want to smallen efforts to create a iu for phones i really appreciate the work of everyone trying to achieve this. but it is just a application system like any other, like a game or a navigation system. like you have opera and firefox o rlike different mailclients or or. you install as many of them as you like and have as many of them running at the same time as you like(if you like). and if you install easy debian, you see that in action: two completely different ui's running simultanously on the n900. and it has always been that way with unix. for decades. even with dumb xterminals - yes: xterminals executing applications on a server for decades. even same applications with different uis... nothing special, just an application you start like any other.

so if the ui is not intuitive enough for you: go and just install a different one. yes the problem for a casual user now is: he will not be able to install it for the one he might want is not available in the dist. but the latter is the problem. this is the odd thing. not if your taste is better than the one of others.(funny enough: with desktop and ui it is just as easy as that: download and start it).

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I am going to assume you meant to respond to someone other than me. But if you were responding to me... wtf?

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

It can't have failed, I am a consumer and I bought it.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I was rather sloppily using "open" to mean "allows the owner to do whatever he wants to with the product" rather than open as in Open Source. Can you imagine how well things would work for Apple if iPhones trivially allowed root access + shell as the N900 does? How many phone support people would they have to add to handle calls from people who did some variation of "rm *" ? Imagine how easy it would be to write mallicious apps for a phone that allowed naive users that kind of control over their product. Having a wonderful little computer in your pocket that you completely control, which also happens to be a mobile phone, is just not the right product for most people, no matter how pretty the UI is, and no matter how slick the marketing is.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

for you argumenting with the ui. you could as well talk about your desktop background image and point out that you have a nicer background in maemo and so maemo is by far better. a none isue. a different story would be if the system prevented you from changing the background image.

same with the ui, which ui you have installed and like the best is a noneissue. however if you cannot simple replace it: thats an issue.

another example: its like you come up and tell that you like opera better then firefox. thats not realy a problem of the n900. install the one you like better. same with the ui. thats an application system.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

The n900 is probably the beginning of the end for Nokia and it serves them right.

Any company doing research before developing on Meego will see the result of the n900 mess and stay clear.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I am not "argumenting with the ui" - I was simply pointing out why iOS and Android have been such huge mainstream success stories.

Perhaps you should brush up on your reading comprehension a bit before writing more combative replies that completely miss the point.