Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

This I think shows why something like the N900 won't sell in large volume, no matter how it is promoted, and even if the company doesn't immediately anounce that the OS is a dead end. We want as open, and configurable a device as possible. We are interested in things like uboot, and setting up our phones for dual booting. I kinda get a kick out of reflashing the OS. This is simply not what the mass market wants or needs. If you look at the fact that Apple is now harvesting roughly half of all profit in the smart phone market, worldwide, you've got to admit they're doing something right. And what they're doing is locking everything down. We may grind our teeth about it. iOS developers may grumble the hoops and restrictions. But what most consumers want is nearly the opposite of what N900 owners want. Consumers want a device that cannot be bricked no matter what they do. Consumers do not want to dual boot - they don't want to boot period. Consumers want a machine on which spyware cannot be installed. I have several relatives who are tremendously happy with their iPhones; not a single one of them wants to discuss the virtues of different swappiness values with me. They do not want to go on a treasure hunt around the net to find apps.

I fear that if the N9 is as open as the N900, it will only sell in N900-like quantities. My guess is that our best hope in the long run is for Nokia (or some other big player) to release their flagship phones with Symbian, or Android, and for them to simultaneously support the installation of meego on that same hardware platform, to satisfy the geeks.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I don't see how openness has anything to do with it. The reason Android and iOS have been so successful is that they have a) a user friendly and intuitive UX b) a robust and profitable app ecosystem which attracts developers and c) brilliant marketing campaigns.

Meego seems to be aiming squarely at a and b (not so sure about c yet) while still retaining its openness. The big question now is what Meego will do to differentiate itself from the other players and convince people to adopt it.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

The short answer to the original question of why the n900 failed on the consumer market is because it wasn't marketed to consumers.

I've never seen an ad for it anywhere.

This is probably for the best. My mom can barely figure out how to dial her iphone. I'd hate to think what would happen if someone gave her an n900. She wouldn't even be able to call me for help.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

why don't you get you facts straight: with a unix system it is nothing very special or outordinary to have as many ius and look and feels as you like. windows traditionally has only one at a time an traditionally is a single user system so that this makes sense.

you can have as many differnt ui's run on the same phone as you want. any ui is just a bunch of applications you install and run. and you run as many as you want and your resources allow you. yes have a gnome, a kde a fluxbox, a matchbox run on the device simultanously as long as your memory lasts.

with that i do not want to smallen efforts to create a iu for phones i really appreciate the work of everyone trying to achieve this. but it is just a application system like any other, like a game or a navigation system. like you have opera and firefox o rlike different mailclients or or. you install as many of them as you like and have as many of them running at the same time as you like(if you like). and if you install easy debian, you see that in action: two completely different ui's running simultanously on the n900. and it has always been that way with unix. for decades. even with dumb xterminals - yes: xterminals executing applications on a server for decades. even same applications with different uis... nothing special, just an application you start like any other.

so if the ui is not intuitive enough for you: go and just install a different one. yes the problem for a casual user now is: he will not be able to install it for the one he might want is not available in the dist. but the latter is the problem. this is the odd thing. not if your taste is better than the one of others.(funny enough: with desktop and ui it is just as easy as that: download and start it).

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I am going to assume you meant to respond to someone other than me. But if you were responding to me... wtf?

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

It can't have failed, I am a consumer and I bought it.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I was rather sloppily using "open" to mean "allows the owner to do whatever he wants to with the product" rather than open as in Open Source. Can you imagine how well things would work for Apple if iPhones trivially allowed root access + shell as the N900 does? How many phone support people would they have to add to handle calls from people who did some variation of "rm *" ? Imagine how easy it would be to write mallicious apps for a phone that allowed naive users that kind of control over their product. Having a wonderful little computer in your pocket that you completely control, which also happens to be a mobile phone, is just not the right product for most people, no matter how pretty the UI is, and no matter how slick the marketing is.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

for you argumenting with the ui. you could as well talk about your desktop background image and point out that you have a nicer background in maemo and so maemo is by far better. a none isue. a different story would be if the system prevented you from changing the background image.

same with the ui, which ui you have installed and like the best is a noneissue. however if you cannot simple replace it: thats an issue.

another example: its like you come up and tell that you like opera better then firefox. thats not realy a problem of the n900. install the one you like better. same with the ui. thats an application system.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

The n900 is probably the beginning of the end for Nokia and it serves them right.

Any company doing research before developing on Meego will see the result of the n900 mess and stay clear.

Re: Why N900 failed on consumer market ?
 

I am not "argumenting with the ui" - I was simply pointing out why iOS and Android have been such huge mainstream success stories.

Perhaps you should brush up on your reading comprehension a bit before writing more combative replies that completely miss the point.