Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Your guess is correct. And ITavisen - "the IT paper" is indeed IT centric. Of course, IT centric means that it will attract all the 14 year old fanboys. You find them at Engadget, digi.no, tek.no, everywhere there is IT news. There is a limited number of norwegian IT centric news sites, and like it or not, ITavisen, despite it's quality, is one of the biggest. I am an IT professional, and all the IT professionals I know, read ITavisen.

And we laugh at the comments. Even so, the comments and flame wars reflect the consumers. The vocal ones end up being the people who Joe Average ask for advice.


I'm not worried for my own sake, I still believe that Maemo 5 will have sufficient good software to keep me happy as long as the N900 attract as many people as the N810 did. And it will. But in the long run, I'd want to see Nokia make money on Maemo. I would rather that non-tech people didn't hear about the N900 than they all heard about it and hated it.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Hi.

Of course I can't speak for other countries but, here in Portugal, we have 10 million people and even more mobile phones (average is 1.x phones per person). Although the iPhone is considered [here] to be a luxury/stylish phone, Nokia phones are still the prefered brand. I only know 1 person with an iPhone. On the other hand, most of the people I know have Nokias. Of course this discussion isn't about ordinary nokias but the n900 and why would Joe Avarage want it. Well, it's a Nokia and it's expensive [and good]. The rest will come later. We, technology people, make serious considerations about purchasing an equipment. We make researches to determine if it is what we want. Joe Average will buy it if others have it. Why will others have it? Well it's a Nokia... And it's expensive so... I want it. :)
Remember, the iPhone fever is gone...

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

i think people under estimate how tech savvy the average Joe is these days, the average Joe in the US might not appreciate it purely b/c they are brainwashed by media hype and will probably never hear of the N900.
but the average Joe in Europe is way more open minded and willing to take a stab at the unknown and adapt.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

It seems that the amount of tech heads is increasing all the time. More and more people seem want something fancy from their electronics. Even people who really don't understand or know how to use the advanced features in their gadgets.

It's something like old sci-fi movies and blinking led lights. They just have to be in there. Otherwise it just doesn't do it :)

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

This is precisely the point!!! For me Nokia have some wonderful technology but usually presented in a way that is hard to 'the average user' to understand or use. Nokia needs to learn from (god forbid) apple to make their applications easy to use, bug free, so they talk to each other and MARKETING - all it takes is a shift of focus on usability and a holistic approach. For the N900 to be mass market (because it definitely could be) it needs to use its great tech heads AND think for of the average consumer.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

I see so many people try to 'understand and predict' how Joe Average thinks here.

I just have one question for you...

Have you personally observed one, or are y'all just pulling these templates out of your own you-know-what?

Cause I've never seen so many ignorant elitist comments thrown together in a thread that would've been a great discussion.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

You are rigth. I am also an IT-professional, and all the IT-professionals I know also read ITavisen, because all it does is basically aggregate the interesting stuff from engadget, slashdot etc. So basically it's just a translated aggregated RSS-feed with entertaining comments from fanboys. My point was that the comments on this particular site does not belong to IT-professionals (even though it may be the target audience for the website). Take Tek.no's forums as an example, which has an overall much higher quality.

When it comes to if average Joe will understand why it is special, I really dont think so. You will lose them as soon as you mention linux or open source. But he should still be able to appreciate the eye-candy and functionality of the nokia and ovi-store apps.

The true potential of Maemo will probably only be harvested by the good people here at maemo.org and the likes. I honestly cant wait anymore....

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

I was coming into work on the bus this morning thinking the same thoughts. It is really too bad.

As for me, I am to an extent rather an AJoe. Qualify this with a good education, some prospects, and a good job. Some AJoes are different, some with more money (I have kids, how can I have money). I get excited about shiny things, and have a knowledge about how they work.

Okay, so I'm a computer scientist. Has anyone considered that people in other professions may see geeks as average Joes with respect to their profession? I have no clue about car mechanics, or laser surgery, beyond the bare basics. I hope they don't belittle me (too much, I can take the ribbing) accordingly.

I see the problem as this: we have here a potentially powerful device that's a phone and a computer and is hopefully not bad at both. It's more than possible to see it as one and not the other. In fact, I'm willing to say I'll almost certainly use it as both, but probably in completely different contexts. I'm getting it as a complete laptop replacement (actually, an n810 replacement, cos my n810 has been my laptop replacement for nearly 2 years now. Never looked back). The fact that it'll also be my phone is a bonus.

Another AJoe may well just buy it as a phone. Perhaps do some facebook or whatever on it. I never touch facebook (I'm a security researcher, I know the issues) but if Joe2 wants to, thats just great. In his context, it'll work perfectly.

Another Joe, let's call her Joette, will get it and use it in lieu of her current Blackberry. Email, corporate network stuff. In that context, it'll do just fine too.

Joe doesn't need to understand the 'special' in the same way I do. For me, the 'special' is I don't have to lug a laptop through airports (oh, my poor back). For Joe2 the special is fast facebook access and a camera to upload his pictures. For Joette it's always on email access to corporate (I can imagine nothing worse, personally).

It's special because it can do these things, and because at the end of the day there's no such thing as an average Joe or Joette. We're all different, and the magic of the N900 is going to be the ability to accommodate those differences handsomely. You know something else? I don't think there's a device like it that can handle those differences so well. Yet.

One last thought - when I see a fellow commuter watching movies on his iphone, chatting on her blackberry, listening to music on his ipod, or writing a report on her laptop I get excited about the sheer potential to fill those niches that this device has. I'd be happy to show it to any of those people (when I get it) and watch the results. If they don't want it, it's not because they're dumb, it's because their particular niche their 'special') is already filled, thanks. Maybe when they move to a different job, or leave school and get a job, or lose a job, or whatever, that 'special' will change and they'll see the benefits of such an amazing device. We'll see.

Will I evangelize? Probably. I'll do it differently for different people though - through my years of educating people, I've realized that nothing turns someone off more than condescension (unless they're geeks AND my friends, in which case condescension is key).

Understand, show, tell, listen (without prejudice, thanks Texrat) and watch the lights come on inside. It's a nice feeling.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

You just made my day!

I'm so tired of average joe understanding this and that, iphone appeal to the average yuppie and what they did good to obtain that, heck I begin to worry if I notice that I use devices that the average joe uses :)

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

As a psychology graduate student I can tell you first hand. Average is simply based on whatever sample you gathered. e.g. average joe on Maemo forums would be someone who posts but doesn't code.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

I don't have much to offer that hasn't already been said except for one small thing. While it's true that we shouldn't underestimate the techiness of Average Joes and also true that the number of techies is rapidly increasing, the vast majority of people Nokia will eventually want to win over from the competition really are that tech-ignorant.

For instance, you would expect 20-somethings to be pretty savvy, but in my college biology lab in the heart of Silicon Valley, we needed a stopwatch for an experiment a couple weeks ago... I wish I were making this up:

Student A: Oh, a stopwatch? I have one on my phone.
Student B: *jaw drops* Wow, what phone do you have?!"
Student A: *whips out her iPhone with a smirk*
Student B: Ohhh... no wonder. They have the best apps!

Student B is a Blackberry user, btw.

I died a little inside.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Perhaps we should exclude the land of fruits and nuts from our analysis ;)

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

This does not specifically mean the N900, but it indirectly refers to it since Maemo is on the N900. Mainstream can be a loaded statement, but I am of the opinion that non/not mainstream really means people who are more likely to take a risk on a product... So to bring this back to the original topic of whether Joe or Josephine Average understands how special the N900.. it's anyone's guess he can like it for whatever rational or irrational reason he or she has and educating people that they have options that may fit them better than other devices and that Nokia is a company that produces products with quality, innovation, and end-user participation is something that we as members of the Nokia community could educate others on if and when the time comes and if it really matters to us to cheer Nokia on.

But I think we should just get the device and enjoy it for whatever reason we bought it and there's no point wasting cycles in dwelling over whether other people will understand it or appreciate it as much as you. If it fails because it fails to reach the mainstream and lack of revenue at least it's open source and has many protocols and applications that are functional and feature-packed for you to keep enjoying it. But of course it's a risk like anything else.. a little more so because it is a new device and because it is not mainstream.

Nokia N900 -- It fits you. Go for it!

It's for you, go for it! ???

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

I have a pocketable computer that replaced my laptop and even at two years old every indication is that it would blow the doors off the computer aspect of the N900. For the unsubsidized price of an N900, you could get a Viliv S5 or UMID M1 and a Nokia 1661 for voice calls.

Like it or not, the competition the N900 is up against is the smartphone segment which can handle phone duties and light computing. Facebook and email are significant to the users, the relative openness of the Linux distro is much less so.

Nokia needs to focus on the everyday capabilities and apps of the N900 to be successful. It is rapidly loosing the initial advantages as far as hardware (the new Samsung Moment has a faster CPU and an OLED screen). It needs to wow people with the UI.

In a CNet interview with Doug Fisher of Intel (which is well worth reading in its entirety), he discussed what is driving their Linux distro, Moblin, which will eventually be competing with Maemo and Android for the smartphone market:

"We had three main areas that we had been driving requirements around, which is Internet usage, media consumption, and social networking. Those are really the three design points Moblin is focused around--that type of device. It's really a different usage experience. What you described [lack of end user adoption of Linux] is really true. Educating the user to make them comfortable with this type of environment is important, and what they do with this device after they get it is critical."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-103...g=2547-1_3-0-5

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Well, since I started this thread, I can explain what I personally mean with Joe Average.

Average Joe Average:

My Joe Average is the guy who isn't in any way stupider or more ignorant or less prone to make smart choices. He is the guy who call you when they have trouble with a corrupt hard drive, your sister who think computers are boring, the guy across the street that has no time to research his buying decision, the pretty girl at the gas station, your young but technologically challenged economics professor at school. Really, not a stereotype as much as the lack of the stereotype that we fit in by being active on t.m.o.

I don't think we're talking down on these people in this thread, we just have to admit that we in here are more than average interested in technology. Average Joe is the rest.

A phone that only sells to people as interested in technology as us would per definition not sell very good.

Roy at IT:

Furthermore, there's a risk that we that can be called tech-heads are divided into Symbian people, Maemo people, Android people, and iPple. So even Roy at IT may not look at the N900 twice because it's just the new Nokia flagship, and he's much more interested in Hero / Leo / 3gs. And on each of the other platforms, these days there are coming out new devices that are much, much cooler than the previous generation. Really. There is a lot to read about on all platforms. And Engadget has article after article every day, about every model, and for us tech heads there is a lot of noise the N900 can drown in.

Volt at t.m.o.:

If I wasn't already a Maemo user, I would most certainly be getting an HTC phone next. Most probably an Android. There is a lot of buzz about the Android, with it's opennessy linuxy coolness. The Maemo platform had an timing advantage but lost it, they really should have came up with the N900 last year instead of the N810 wimax. Now Android has a lot of things working for them. I believe that until you start considering the platform strenghts and weeknesses, the HTC phones are more appealing than the N900 - there are more models to choose from, they're stylish as long as you like black, the high resolutions are there, they were early to implement WiFi, etc. Nokia is doing a lot right these days, but they're a bit late to save the smart phone market. I fear I might not have noticed the N900 amongst the other interesting products, and I probably would not have hold back and waited. The Diamond2, the Touch Pro2, the Hero, already on the market. To see where the N900 kicks these phones arses, you have to look beyond the marketing brochures, even beyond the specs. The sales person may not know. It's hard to see that one platform might have more applications but another is growing faster, yet another have better terms and more potential. You have to know stuff about the operating systems, the platforms.

The percentage who do that, really low. Here at maemo.org, the percentage is probably really high. Amongst our friends, rather high. The world market overall... Really low.

Why, then, would people pick the Maemo phone? Well, good reviews maybe. Price difference, maybe. Recognition of words like "android", "maemo", "windows mobile", makes people feel safe. "Does it have a facebook widget" seems to matter.

On one hand, if facebook widgets matter the most, maybe the Maemo platform doesn't have anything extra to offer mr. and mrs. Joe Average. Maybe the phone isn't special.

On the other hand, if this phone has more potential to grown services and apps that other platform doesn't have, then I think it'd be a shame if the platform drowned in the media flow.

I don't think we here are smarter, more informed, better than the Joe Average that is a incarnation of "wide market appeal". We're just more informed about a tiny slice of technology. My sister would never, ever buy a N900 unless I told her to. My coworkers only know of the N900 because I forcefeed them info when they link me HTC Leo/Hero links. I think the N900 has a better platform. I just fear very few people will find out.

By step 5 out of 5, people had better have noticed. Or there will be no step 6.

Peter... Is it going to work? :d

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

That's quite a good slogan.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

...for a vaginal diaphragm

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Not for nothing isn't it not all about speed. For instance my overclocked near 600 mhz mytouch 3g runs like *** compared to the N900. So boasting its 800mhz depends on what processor is inside.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Would you mind telling us what your pocketable computer is? Otherwise, it's hard to evaluate your claim about "blowing the doors off" the computer aspect of the N900

And the key question: do you have a fully functional Linux running on it? There are a lot of MIDs that have been designed for the Windows market, but the Nokia tablets + maemo appear to me to be the most polished Linux devices to date. I am eager, however, to see what Intel + Moblin delivers.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Out of context and if you're mind is in the gutter, sure. lol

I fixed it a little, how about now?

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

joe want to have a nice userfriendly interface like the iphone.

an appstore with tons of miserable apps ,some of them are rly good, but all of them look nice.

and thats the point.

there is a tv-remote program for the n900.
that app is looking really complicated for joe...
a linux person is accustomed to complicated software ^^

but i want a apps which are easy and fast to use and that will be the problem of the n900.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Nice. I'll just dust off my 80's shoulder pads and put on my skinny keyboard necktie and we can go dancing. Somewhere with lasers.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Hopefully we won't be talking about what might have been in a few years. But, unfortunately, better does not imply more successful.

Ignoring the needs of Joe Average puts you in a niche category and all too often those niches gradually disappear. The most commonly cited example is VHS versus Beta (video tape formats from before the days of DVRs and recordable DVDs). Beta had corporate support (Sony) and better recording quality. However they forget one simple thing - that most movies shown on TV ran for two hours with commercials. VHS had two hour tapes, Beta didn't, Beta never caught up with the initial acceptance of VHS and it died.

Nokia needs to focus on Joe. They've already convinced us.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Quick! Somebody write a NASCAR app!

FTW

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Not that one, look at the the original post.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

N900 - The silicon Jack Bauer

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

I think Nokia are doing some rather Joe-friendly things already, like binding the communication protocols together on the contact. Of course, Joe will have to administrate these things, he's becoming a system administrator. He best not find out!

I am eager to try the whole N900 experience, but yes... They already convinced us. Joe is probably not all that interested.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

"N900 - as seen in the latest James Bond movie"

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

N900 -- Be James Bond.

I think I opened a can of worms. haha... we should probably have posted these in the thread that asked about slogans.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

I don't think any amount of cool Nokia phones can make me into James Bond. :/

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

I have an OQO 02 with a 1.6GHz Via C7M processor, 1GB of RAM, a 32GB SSD, and an internal EVDO card linked to the Sprint 3G network. It has a 5" display with native resolution of 800x480 and interpolated zooms of 1000x600 and 1200x720. It supports an external display via VGA or HDMI connectors of up to 1920x1200. It uses an active Wacom digitizer for pen input, a TrackStick for mouse movement, and has what is considered by the press one of the best thumb keyboards ever. It's 5.6x3.3x1.0" and weighs a bit less than 1 pound. It came with Windows Vista Business and I'm currently running Windows 7 Ultimate. My main apps are MS Office, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Lotus Notes, and Firefox. It cost a fortune two years ago and despite being a technological wonder the company that made them went bankrupt because only techies bought them.

My N810 was intended to replace my aging Palm TX. The N900 would allow me to replace my Palm and my phone. I'm keeping my pocket rocket computer till it dies.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

James Bond massages Jack Bauers' feet

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

N900 - Shaken, not Stirred.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

N900 - No tagline needed

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

"N900. Because girls don't like guys that pinch."

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

N900 -- The fastest, most powerful iPhone yet. Oh... wait..

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Y'all are trashing these tag lines in the wrong topic..

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Already said that and at least we aren't arguing about anything--all in good laughs. Though it's funny how someone finally mentions that about some of these longer paged topics. Now if there were only an option to move... posts like there is for threads.

And we could always say that these are slogans catered to Joe Average which relates to the topic. ;) :D

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

It's cause we're trying to find a way to make Joe Average understand that we're the N900 is spechul.

Re: Will Joe Average understand why the N900 is special?
 

Think of it this way, if you don't have a tag line or a visual icon, Joe Average will loose you in the general miasma of smartphone ads. Apple is the only company that can live with a self-referential "best iPhone yet" tag. You want as much mindshare as the Palm Pre woman (or at least the Android robot) have.

Forget James Bond, maybe Nokia could convince George Lucas that he loves the N900 and then he'd allow Yoda to be the spokesthing.

N900 - phone and internet it is.