Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Yep, and what scares the **** out of me is that they brought an App Store into OS X.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

That's absolutely not a problem. If they make it the sole means of getting software on to the platform, THEN there is a problem.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

I doubt they have that many people working on it, a couple thousand sure, and I agree about the desktop integration as long as your on windows go figure MS kind of makes that, but i use Linux on all my computers, and as for apple with it's continually growing consumer marketshare???

Have you used a WP7 phone? If so what were your impressions? I tinkered with one one of the IT deans at my work got( a die hard ms fan by the way ) I did not care for it personally the ui seemed interesting but not smooth flowing, did it have promise, sure, do I think it was more stable then any android or iPhone I've used? No. Did it wow me? No. Connectivity was lacking, it couldn't get on the wireless for some reason, didn't sync right through imap. Seemed pretty beta.

That dean didn't have that phone when we came back from winter break, instead they had a droid2. Said they got frustrated with it. I consider this person your average high end user, and they are a self confesed MS fan.

And as of a few weeks ago nokia had a few hundred employees workin on meego and who knows how man intel devs are working on it and how many and plans to put on it.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

So, to summarize your rather lengthy post consisted of repeating the same sentence in as many ways as humanly possible - people are magpies, they go for the shiny, flashy things? :rolleyes: Ok, I tend to agree with that actually...

However, about the cheering masses on the Nokia WP7 concept @ Engadget, you might want to check their Disqus profiles - most of them, especially the high-praising ones, are single-comment only participants, specifically joined/registered to post that one comment. Now I'm not saying that Nokia or Microsoft were sending drones to praise the concept - which would not be all that unbelievable as I highly doubt they'd release the concept pics prior to last night at MWC, but given the rapid stock value decline they needed some positive feedback - but I'd bet that most of those are coming from either .NET developers or WP fan-page forums that are there to praise Microsoft, not Nokia.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Explain please why Android is not a viable option to customize and sell in NA whereas WP7 is?

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Buy! Buy! Buy! :D

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

exactly. I suggest that you should do your research better. I am sick and tired telling all the "look outside your own bellybutton" -mantra so I won't do it (again here).

e: hint: s^3 was getting affordable in the eyes of 4 billion people. Your america has 0,35 billion people....

ee: and this is what symbian is fighting against there:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/28/htc-wildfire-review/

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

I am fainthearted! :o

That didn't stop me to make some sweet cash in '09 off of the very same stocks. :cool:

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

I never assumed you were a WP7 fan so sorry if I gave that impression I was just trying to point out WP7 is late too with no real backing outside of a huge money machine and even at that it is still by no means a production ready platform yet, just a good beta still missing a lot of core functionality despite it's release.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

I'll accede that that's certainly a possibility. Where I would like to disagree though is that at times I feel I have repeated myself in ways that ascend into the inhumanly possible. Please don't ask for explanations, as it involves the use of something called the Nokianomicon.... ;) [Unless you're a Lovecraft fan, you won't get it.]

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

That's a hilarious website, but needs a lot of improvement. It does not provide a count of hits, which would be really useful.

If you "suck-search" for Symbian, you get hits. The first one is from about 17 hours ago, the last one on the first page is from Feb 10th 10:49pm.

Now, if we do an Android "suck-search", the first tweet is from 30 minutes ago and the last tweet on the first page is about 11 hours ago.

This seems to indicate that Android sucks much more than Symbian.

Further research shows:
- Iphone sucks as much as Android
- HTC sucks less than Symbian

But the winners are:
- WP7 does not suck at all

and most importantly:
- cBeam does not suck either!

Thanks, alcalde, for this entertaining site!

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

1. Android is also beginning to find itself in very cheap Chinese handsets as Elop mentioned.

2. Awww... the HTC Wildfire! I wished that came to America; I thought it was the perfect little baby Android phone for my mother.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

I was going to say that cBeam has just shown me how much more of an expert at sucking he is than me! ;) :D

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

>>> busy searching if alcalde sucks <<<

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

1. but still those cheap Chinese handsets have pretty high specs (ZTE Blade ~= N900), unlike wildfire = room for competition with price by lower hw requirements.

2. do not ever never go even near of Wildfire, I'd have to consider a lot between selling my mother as a slave and buying her a wildfire...

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Oh, but you'd first have to define what Nokianomicon is, unless you are thinking of cryptic WONTFIX reports from the Nokia's Book of Magic Bugs. Or are you trying to imply that Nokia is now, how shall I put it, Necro? Even if so, I can't find the leter 'e' in both Microsoft or Nokia, thus making it a lousy joint abbreviation of their respective names.
[No, I'm not a Lovecraft fan, really]

However, me explaining how yielding to the masses of magpies is strategically wrong and how it presents a crime against technology, and humanity by extension, would be nothing short of a masterpiece essay worthy of one Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings' signature. I'm pretty sure, should I write it here, that I'd effectively decimate Maemo/MeeGo supporters much better than Nokia could ever do. Elop might even hire me as a hitman. Hmmm, I should buy some stocks :D

Now, back to the topic, where were we? :confused:

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

I said meego would suck as from day one. but no one would listen. it looks like a childish learn platform with these rediculous puppets as logo. its insane! its a good thing nokia didn't put that garbage on all their "high end phones"

Im not sure windows phone 7 will save them... its both terrible... they really should have builded further on maemo 5, upgrading it instead of building yet another whole new system...

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

You seem to be pretty insightful!

Interesting analyze. Tell us more! Could you give any hints about what else is childish.

I would highly appreciate your golden hints!

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

shame that it was scrapped before you could prove your point....

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Gates essentially bought QDOS from a corporation, and as far as I understood it he only had to port it. And then, once MSDOS has marketshare, he made sure every IBM clone had to run Microsoft OS via all kind of dirty tactics, see for example AARD code.

Had IBM not opted to partner with Microsoft at this point, there would've been more competition on technical grounds. Because if there is one thing Microsoft hates to do is compete on that ground.

So Microsoft became big in the PC consumer market thanks to IBM, and then Microsoft used lies and deceit to make sure IBM would not get their cut (including control) in the desktop and server market. That is the OS/2 & wnt/w9x debacle.

Some call the above "brilliant businessman" and all that. Fine, I find it shortsighted (dumb & selfish).

While it was not only due to Microsoft that IBM lost its dominant position, IBM left the consumer market when OS/2 didn't prevail in the consumer market (because Microsoft went with Windows NT and Windows 9x behind their back), and never came back. From that point there was no IBM and "home computer markets", and the Thinkpad never aimed for consumers. The fact laptops became a commodity instead of a business product with high margins made IBM leave that market. They knew they could not compete with trends in market a-la gadgets, they suck at that kind of stuff, its not where they do business, so they sold something not part of their core-business.

And yeah, Microsoft ****ed their partner. Its not only the situation which matters. It is also about the choices made by the parties involved.

Here's what happened with SGI when they were in trouble late 90s. From Wikipedia:

The guy who managed to make these decisions (Rick Belluzzo) got himself a job at Microsoft afterwards as COO. Here a brief history of how he screwed SGI. One of the things he did was going for Windows NT workstations which undermined the faith customers had in the IRIX/MIPS product line. We see the very same here! I thought Qt was going to be the bridge between Nokia's products but now its all vague. See e.g. this post + comments.

Speaking of which. It is the ****ing same for the games industry. Instead of writing for OpenGL et al, they write for DirectX and therefore cannot port to platforms on which DirectX does not run (every non-Microsoft platform). Studios are screwed with this lack of portability.

I don't get how people keep falling with their big fat feet in this **** puddle of Microsoft!

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

I just want to know what would've made a better platform Android or MeeGo?

Android is now pushing insignificant updates compared to before, I feel it is reaching a plateau. And there is no denying that the software runs noticably slower than it should on the hardware (I've seen first hand how the N8 can outpace the SE Xperia X10: ARM11 vs Snapdragon)

So the question really is=
Is Qt not as great as we thought it to be?

Surely if it was faster than the java* implementation in Android, and provided the promised cross-platform compatability (between ARM and x86) .... Nokia would've realeased it already.

Is Qt a dud?

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

There are bug reports for meego which say that battery charging still doesn't work properly (for the n900). This is too far away from perfect. It makes meego useless for production purposes (at the moment).

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Qt is the technology behind one of the two major Linux desktop GUIs, and as such has been used every day on millions of computers for over a decade now. So, Qt itself is no dud; had Nokia chosen to actually use it for a phone, rather than hem and haw and finally throw up their hands and let some other company write the all OS software for all of their phones, we might have had a chance to see how well it would really perform...

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Wow, so this is going on and on ; From what I gather ppl are already mad at Nokia for being unreadable, constantly switching horses, this is not going to improve I guess.

I mean it's all about consistency in mobile devices : Ppl are *scared* of machines you know. You don't realize, you fiddle with bash on chrooted phones, but out there people barely dare tapping the icons on their new fancy phone (that they bough because they were practically forced to by overwhelming marketing forces).

Is there such a thing as techno-fatigue ? I guess Nokia is tired of all that, and wants to quietly go out of business.

If thats the case, then way to go, ditch the most used mobile OS for the least-used one.

Even here where I live (Africa) where MSoft was once very popular, it's starting to look bleak. Who wants to use windows anyway ? Windows is soo passé. I really mean it ; I work with teachers, school directors, students, parents, and they're all mad at MSoft. Look closer, everybody hates Microsoft. They dragged the entire IT business down ever since they came into business, forcing adoption of bad technologies, burying good ones, and generally behaving like a bully to users, and like a regular thug to competitors ; If they had their way, things would be even worse now.

Now they want to kill QT. One can understand why they would want to do that. QT is cool. QT works ; QT is a real threat to them.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

So long as people are blaming Elop as the source of the problem, then they will be missing the bigger issue.

He is a black sheep.

A logical red herring to stop your thoughts from tracing the true issue.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Meego just doesn't exist, so it is a drawing board OS that is easy to get rid of now, whereas supporting it if phones were using it takes resources, so it makes sense to jump ship.

Then again they jumped into bed with ballmer and M$, silly people. WP7 is dire and isn't selling, M$ is jaded in a world of open source they still cling to an old model. IE9 and internet standards, buying the docx support and dubious business practices and they still have no search website like google and can't compete in the mobile market. Me thinks Nokia are on the way out with going to WP7.

Wonder if Elop still drawers a salary from M$ for this jump?

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

frankly, it doesn't matter to >me< whether MeeGo is ready or not, my loyalty is to an open platform not Nokia itself.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Off topic:

You must be slavic to have that avatar :)

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

The source as in Micro($)oft

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Check out TwimGo. It seems to be running smoother on N8's ARM 11 rather than N900's Cortex A8.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Let me just point out that Maemo exists, it works right now, they were happy to dump that off. Why not jump back to a ship that already floats? :-) The geek in me would love an enhanced Maemo or the much better MeeGo. Doesn't matter, both are good.

When you look at MeeGo from a normal human perspective, the user interface that is, it seems to me it's a childlike cross between Android and iOS instead of anything unique and interesting. Cartoon characters? - really, we moved past that in 80's. People want glitzy transitions, a nice 3D beveled interface, and real time interaction - meaning you touch the screen and something happens instantly.

Your average human also wants tons of near identical pointless applications to choose from - all of these must live in a store that utterly fails to categorize anything correctly, this store must also excel at making your searches present you with the opposite of what you actually want - but you wont notice because it shows you a bunch of new shiny stuff, distractions. As a normal human you don't really know what you want anyway, and your attention span is microscopic in length :-)

Android, anyone that likes the N900 will not be happy with a migration in that direction. It's clunky, not very intuitive, and the UI just gets in your way and slows you down.

WM7? I don't know, haven't used it, but I believe slashdot posted a story yesterday or the day before to say Microsoft would open it up to be more geek friendly.

Ultimately it's safe to say that Nokia are being monumentally stupid with their decision making process right now - give it six months they might decide to go with Android after all :-)

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Seems to me most people on here (not all thankfully) believe what they read !!.

You lot need to get much more realistic and see everything for what is is based on past history and stop jumping to conclusions like... oh we have a new wizz at the helm of Nokia.

Something very wrong about all of this and it will only take time to find out just what will happen.... till then WAIT.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Ok, I haven't done very deep research about MeeGo development. But from what I've seen, a consumer handset release in 2011 pretty much needs to be based on the upcoming 1.2 branch (due in April. Since the development cycle is 6 months, a handset based on 1.3 would have made it "a 2012 event".)

So I have 2 basic questions, that I hope some of the more directly involved people might be able to answer.

1. Was 1.2 (including the seemingly top-secret Nokia handset UX) on track to be production-ready on time?
2. Is the overall user experience of 1.2+handset UX in its current state competitive with iOS 4 or Android 2.x?

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Whenever you post, all i see is:

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

You have assessed the whole platform, based purely on the reference (read: vendor-neutral, test) theme? *That* seems childish.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

The source as in:

WTF happened between Nokia's golden years and now?

It's certainly isn't MS (nor Google, Apple, etc).




IE:

You're fat, broke and ignorant... and for some reason your sexy wife ran off with a young dashing rich dude.

What's the true source of the problem?

(Then again, due to the ignorance level this may not pose a problem to the subject.).

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Some people truly believe everything they read. Nokia had on Friday 130 jobs open from this month alone for MeeGo.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Interesting, jobs.nokia.com (US-only, I think) shows 20 and nokia.taleo.net (global) 71 when searching for "meego" today.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Considering they were demoing a unit to carriers and got rejected on the hinge I suspect that it was ready. Of course, we don't know about the finer details so this segues into your second question:

We don't know, because it's entirely hidden within Nokia. And that has absolutely nothing to do with MeeGo, despite the entirety of this thread.

Re: Maybe the unpleasant truth is that MeeGo really was too late and/or not good enough?
 

Nokia was building on top of the Linux kernel, GNU libs, and QT. All of the heavy lifting was done for them. They only needed to release a solid basic OS. I think that this is exactly what it looks like, a former MS exec whose intentions had always been to bring Microsoft in regardless of Nokia's best interests. Nokia could have partnered with Google, reskinned Android and used OVI services instead of Google services and they'd have their stopgap platform. They'd still have OVI store revenue, and most people probably wouldn't even know it was an Android device. Tablets would be covered, and with steady revenue and possibly even some growth, development could have continued on Meego/QT without the pressure of pushing it out prematurely, offering both short and long term solutions. Investors would have been satisfied, and business would've moved on. I don't think the problem was Meego, there was a lot of enthusiasm over it and they had a prominent partner in Intel. The unpleasant truth is that the Nokia board made a very unwise choice in Elop and should have seen this coming.