Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

While N900 Maemo fits a whole lot of people that know exactly what they want (and also where they can't get it right now),

Android fits all users that don't know yet what they want..

They can go app zapping..a download every 15 minutes..Look :Skype, look: SIP, Look: 100K games..

The users can change hardware edition every few months and think a new world will open.

Google is now cashing based on the boredom of the new generation of smart phone users .

Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

Not sure where you got that Nokia are not developing Symbian anymore, becuase the have stated that Symbian is there main OS, what they are not doing anymore is to have different verions of it.

From now on its just Symbian in Qt all the way, which is good news for Maemo.

Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

The N900 was never intended to be a mainstream device, that's why there was no marketing for it. Sales for the N900 far exceeded Nokia's expectations, so from Nokia's point of view the N900 was a success.

And more on topic, a point no-one else has brought up is, Maemo was a Nokia project, even if it is open source (and some key parts aren't e.g. the Phone app and the Messaging app), that Maemo was developed and controlled by Nokia was a deterrent to other phone manufacturers making use of it. This is why the merger of Maemo and Moblin to create Meego and more importantly handing Meego to the Linux Foundation to develop was necessary, so other manufacturers don't have to worry about being dependent on something made by one of their competitors. With Android, there was never an issue of phone manufacturer's using a product made by one of their competitors.

Also read this for some insight to why Maemo hasn't been given enough attention by Nokia.

Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

One interesting Android 3 video, don't know if it is posted, so I'm not opening a new thread:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/12/07...h-android-3-0/

Ah, I see now its already posted in the Samsung Galaxy Tab thread. Anyway :)

Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

I thought Android was developed and controlled by Google, a potential competitor? On the other hand, you could argue that it was the Android handset alliance that helped Android really take off. MeeGo may be trying to replicate that same alliance effort, but it might be too late to the game.

Nokia could have been a contender! Instead, it got sloppy and confused. Better late than never, I suppose? Any bets that Nokia might take a good open-source MeeGo move and pervert it up with baked-in lockware (the way they made you depend on closed-source to run a usable OS with Maemo so far) and lots of proprietary crapware and shortcuts (ala RealPlayer/Gizmo/etc install shortcuts you can't easily remove without using root access) like they did with Maemo? So much for pounding your chest about how you don't have to 'root' your device to make it look or work the way you want it to. At that point, what's the difference between MeeGo and Android, if Nokia does that to their device image? More importantly, what's the advantage to the average customer?

Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

Honestly, I just don't see the difference. Apple did the thing Jobs has always been good at doing: integrating a handful of different technologies into a single device, and wrapping them up within a shiny, pretty unified container for the consumer to use. In short, he's turned the smartphone into a toaster.

And since then, everybody wants to make toasters. Smartphones are getting no smarter! Simpler, prettier, yes -- cute little widgets on the homescreen are our new innovations. But the whole point behind Android was to do _exactly_ what Apple did; hide all the technology of a smart phone behind a gaudy interface, and entice the user to buy lots of tiny colorful apps to perform lots of tiny colorful functions for him.

I just don't see any real difference between my four-year-old iPhone and the latest offerings from Apple or Google or whoever. The n900 is the closest thing I've found to a phone manufacturer willing to try something different.

Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

I see. Is this what the smartphone market has come to? By the above criteria, my four year old first-gen iPhone is superior to the n900. Heck, a dumb phone would be superior to the n900. Who cares what the phone actually does, so long as it looks good doing it... :)

Yeah, I understand what you're saying, I'm just saying that the whole concept of a "smartphone" seems to have morphed ever since Jobs jumped into the market. It is no longer a "phone + pda", but more of a "phone + tv". You don't use a smartphone to get work done any more, you use a smartphone to become a couch potato. I just find this whole shift kind of irritating. I must be getting old...

Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

Yeah, but there is a difference between potential competitor and an actual competitor (and especially a competitor that makes more mobiles than any other company), and Google aren't really in the business of making phones. Well, at least they weren't, I see Google has just announced a new phone, I don't know how this will change the way phone manufacturers see Google, but Google have established the Android brand now, and it will be hard for phone manufacturers not to carry on selling Android phones.

Meego is definitely late to the game, and that will make it hard to gain traction, but if Nokia does really get behind it and pushes a good implementation of it (i.e. not full of bugs) on a number of their mainstream phones, that could help Meego break into the market as a viable phone OS. I think it is too early to say whether Meego really is too late or not.

Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

Maybe someone already said this, but whatever, I am too lazy to read everything.
Maybe all, and if not all, a great deal of android phones has capacitive ( froyo capable devices ) screens, and are designed for gaming or so.
If not, why a multi touch screen? only for a zoom in images.
Anyway, that's not the point.
Maemo was not for that originally, although we have a great video chip.
Many people expects a psp with phone capabilities, not a N900.
You can see this for example when you look for a phone on youtube,
apart from comercials, reviews and unboxing videos, you will find 70% of gaming examples...
The great problem of all manufacturers is that they don't see what makes iphone a sucess for example.
We have ( for nowadays more or less ) N8, N900 and soon N9.
Why so much if we could have all in one, open source, multitouch, hell to go device?
Developers would be able to spend tim in one device, instead of changing them from month to month, even though I don't love Steve Jobs, he actually wins at this point.

Re: Why maemo is not as popular as Android?
 

It is not user friendly, and doesn't have much apps backing it up.