Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Right, the community is back to speculating based on what we know because Nokia is being cagey.

What we DO know

• OMAP3 won't be ready for a commercial device until Nov '08
• The Alpha SDK release *might* be this year
• Nokia employees at the summit didn't know what hardware was in the device. It sure didn't seem like they were hiding the truth, it sure seemed like they just didn't know.
• Community members often seemed more knowledgeable on the n900 subject than the employees
• Developing Maemo 5 will be hard as there will be many new libraries and new hardware bugs to deal with. Look how much effort was put into Maemo 4 and they had production hardware to test with.

Engineering is not easy and I don't see Nokia dedicating even more resources then it already has working on Maemo ( 100+ employees? )

So yes we are speculating, but we are not just pulling that out of thin air and honestly I think many are being too optimistic. It took what 4 months to get Maemo 4.1 hammered out... and that was based on a production release of Maemo 4... we don't even have an Alpha SDK on a basically new stack.

So best case we see an Alpha SDK this year new year '08 + 4 months for a stable SDK + another month for a stable firmware. That's 8 months away being optimistic.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Please use the (Quote) Button! It would be much easier to read your comments that way.

... which drives me nuts. ;)

• Battery life is nice, but: My S60 cellphone can do many of the things the tablet does for me (and there's more software) and has a much better battery life.
• Touch screen: I don't get this one. We both know there are a lot of devices with touch screens around.
• UMPCs: You almost got me. If Nokia didn't have the tablets, I'd probably have bought a UMPC. It's almost the same concept, only too big and too heavy. I will seriously look at Moblin-based devices though as they become mature.

UI for me is the UI of the application on the screen; I probably don't even think of the D-pad etc. because in my world, applications don't know if they happen to run on a Nokia tablet, on a Moblin-based device or on my desktop. So the UI is what the application draws on the screen, not what (more or less by chance) is in the hardware.
There are only very few applications that rely on the hardware buttons you mention (I think Vagalume does for volume); usually they're only an additional way to do something that can well be done on the touch screen in some menu.

Again, as with your statement above about the touch screen, I don't understand what you're saying here. My own private definition of a desktop-like experience is: A start menu, applications that run side by side and show their icons in the status bar so that I can easily switch, a number of small status icons, a unix-type file system, the possibility to install and uninstall applications (or write my own if only I could), windows, application menus, dialogs, buttons, drop down menus, checkboxes...
All of this is there on my N800. And it's even faster than the 90Mhz Pentium with 192MB of RAM I use at weekends.
The only thing missing are a few expansion slots for network-, sound- or graphic-cards. I hope the N900 will... no. ;)

I don't see how any application would need to "support" a touch screen. Applications support clicks (or rather: listen to such events), and the touch screen is one way to produce them (as is the touchpad on a laptop, which applications don't "support").

I'm not quite sure what your idea of "leveraging" is in this context. My opinion is that it should be enough in most cases to hildonize the beast. There are applications that will need more attention UI-wise: you know, the one gigantic options dialog that's twice as high as the screen might look better when split into 3 tabs etc. - But that's cosmetics and fine tuning. In general, I feel more comfortable when an application looks the same on my tablet as it does on my desktop. I use the same applications with the same settings on all my computers. Why should the tablet be different?

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Okay, so it won't take anything by storm. Big deal; no device will. The iPhone took nothing except the media by storm. The Eee was perhaps the closest, but only because it came from nothing. No successor in a line of devices will take things by storm, and there's loads of hype about all of them anyway...

(I haven't reread the discussions to verify this, but my impression has been that different people have different emphases, different reasons they think it will be awesome, not that certain people are ducking around to different issues. And I think most people would say it's a combination; obviously it's not going to take over the world by virtue of using desktop software alone, or laptops (running desktop software) would have done so already!)

Let me recall you the timeline:

• end 2005: 770
• early 2007: N8x0 #1
  • end 2007: N8x0 #2
  • end 2008: N8x0 #3
• reasonable predictions seem to indicate mid 2009: N9xx

Yes, I think you are the only one. Why would they be firing up this big summit and everything for this tiny corner of business if they're doing nothing? It's not like some one-trick shop trying to scam (or otherwise impress) the VCs.


Well, since it ought to have twice the battery anyway... maybe the HSPA is a good thing even for those who won't use it.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

<sarcasm>Wow, good thing I'm not a product VP. All the hardcore pessimism would induce me to just give up entirely. Apparently there's just no hope at all for future NITs</sarcasm>

:rolleyes:

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I just dont care about the previous 47 pages

I want my N900 ...............NOW!!!!

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

The company has been increasingly forthcoming on the tablets and software. I see no credit whatsoever for that from naysayers and detractors. None.

Guys, this ain't black and white.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I'm using the LG CU720 (Shine) with tethering @ 3G.

Subjectively, it feels faster than tethering through my Nokia 6555 @ 3G.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Oh really...so this is as good as we are going to get and we should be happy with it?

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I see this vision failing majorly (don't get me wrong, I understand what you want personally). But if the aim of the tablets is to carry over all (or most) desktop apps to a portable device and only that (so that we have a LOT of apps), then it is doomed. There has been many such devices (Zaurus to start with with Debian ported over, many Windows based MID's) where desktop apps have been ported (or the whole OS in fact). But porting an app is only half the job. The actual part is making it usable, and that is where this paradigm fails miserably.

Why, oh why would a general user want the full featured desktop app on his little 4" screened device ? I mean would I want the tablet apps to be ported over to my little 2" phone next, just so I can have access to most popular apps on every device ? That IS NOT the point of mobile devices.

IPhone interface (and I am not praising iPhone here, so lets not go there) is an example of mobile devices having its own unique UI and UX which should be distinct from its desktop application.

Mobile apps can compliment the desktop apps in function and extend it that way, but just porting a desktop app to a mobile platform, UI and all, does not a mobile application make.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Now think: "increasingly", wouldn't that imply a continuing process? If you think he used the wrong words, say so, but your proposed interpretation doesn't follow from what he said.