Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Ah, now here's something I've never really understood. Something like, oh, maybe ten years ago, we had these things called PDAs. And they somehow had perfect integration with Windows e-mail; at least that seemed to be how it worked. Every serious business person had a Blackberry, it seemed.

Nowadays, we get more and more features on phones, and they get less and less able to communicate with Windows e-mail servers. (Not any other type of email, mind you -- every phone out there, the N900 included, works just fine with all normal e-mail systems. Just not with Windows e-mail.)

But yeah, if you need a Microsoft-compliant phone, you gotta have a Microsoft-compliant phone. I guess that's just the way the world works.

(I apologize for the tone of voice, I'm not a big fan of Exchange.)

Yeah, this is a problem for Linux in general -- internationalization is spotty and oddly-implemented. Thats one area where the big corporations seem to have the edge these days.

And again, here's where we diverge. I see all the people doing all these amazing things with their phones. I expected I would do the same. I got one of these wonderful phones. It did, as advertised, provide all these wonderful capabilities. I used these capabilities for, oh, maybe a week or two. After that, it was just a phone sitting on my desk.

The idea of my phone being a wonderful little toy was appealing. The reality of my phone being a wonderful little toy was underwhelming. My desktop computers are much better toys, and I'm just not away from them long enough to make having a little smartphone toy worthwhile.

Hmm. "Less tinkering" I might believe. "More customizable" seems highly unlikely. :) I'm here writing my own little apps for my N900 (in C++ no less, something verboten in both iOS and Android), I'd have to jailbreak or root any other phone to do that...

Yeah, Nokia has been in something of a tailspin for years now, unfortunately. But I've left the iPhone world behind now, and have no interest in hopping on the Android bus. If I have to get a new phone, I'll get a cheap dumb phone. If I need to work with Exchange, I'll get a cheap netbook or something. (At least with those, I can dual-boot into Linux to get real work done.)

The modern world of portable-toy-smartphones just leaves me cold for some reason...

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

I am seriously thinking about doing this. I will buy my Raspberry PI as soon as they are available. But will it be possible to use a touch lcd screen?

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

lol the lights are on, but nobody's home?? :D

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

i read on the forums for PI that it was possible to do so, all about "drivers" to reconize touch screen

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bingomion what??

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

By this you mean get $LINUX_DISTRO and install Fremantle Hildon-Desktop? Maemo needs a massive rework from the ground up, from the horribly written initscripts to the proprietary bits (and d-bus abuse). It's a lot better to start from a regular Desktop Linux distro, slap on the things that make Maemo look like Maemo, thus making a nice cushion of support for core components while letting devs focus on modernizing whatever components of Maemo we have (you know, like our multitasking that's still 9000 years ahead of everybody else).

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

I love my N900, that is why I have two. One in the box waiting for my current one to die, which is fortunately not looking like it will be soon. So, I hope to have an N900 on my pocket for the next few years. I am perfectly fine with that. I just did my first PyQt application for it and I am delighted.

I have been a KDE fan for a long time. So, what I am looking forward to is a pocketable KDE device. Give me a pocket device with KDE, and PyQt or PySide on it, at a reasonable price (under $500) and I will buy one, or two, or ...

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Well, all iPhones, Windows Phone 7 or higher phones. Android (gingerbread or higher) phones, Symbian phones, Meego Harmattan phones (N9 at least) can all work perfectly with Exchange provisioning. But sadly, N900 does not.

I can totally agree with leaving the iPhone world. :p My wife has one and no matter what, I hate it. Even my wife now wants an Android phone as iPhone is so restricted, too dependent on itunes and the screen size is way too small. (she wants minimum 4.3" now)

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Yes this is something in line with what i was thinking.
Can't we also make something like this for our N900, i mean is there not some way of making a custom flash and flashing it like normal eMMC and Vanilla?, like the easy debian, but flashing only that no maemo.

Lets face it everybody maemo is awesome, but it should not be hard to transfer/make own to some barebone DIST, also it would be awesome to could go out to a log in screen and instead switching to KDE or even GNOME (if possible), maybe even some lightweight Unity for those that like it.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Well, cool then. My iPhone didn't work perfectly with Exchange, but then my iPhone was a first-generation model... I guess I don't keep up with this the way I used to.

Maybe I'm getting too old. 3.5 inch screen, 4.3 inch screen, I gotta squint either way. Being stuck with Apple's severe restrictions, or stuck with Google's slightly different severe restrictions, just doesn't make a huge difference to me. Being forced to use the iTunes app store doesn't seem that much worse than having a choice of which Android app store you are forced to use; Apple has certainly put tons of time and effort into their store...

In the details, iPhones and Android phones are certainly different. As a whole, though, I look at an Android phone and I still see Steve Jobs' handiwork -- an amazing, ultra-friendly user interface, helping you every step along the way, while keeping you from ever touching any of the guts of the machine. "A computer as easy to use as a toaster" was Jobs' mantra back from when he created the first Macintosh.

The "cellphone easy as a toaster" concept is a great idea, for the right audience. Maybe for most people, even. But honestly, there have to be other ways of creating products out there, for other kinds of people, right?

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

i like the way gnome 3 multitasks, kinda like maemo