Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

I can see it as a an option but not as main app distribution.

Why take a perfectly good N900 and efficient OS and add a byte code layer to it? By doing so, we have just defeated the purpose and efficiency of the OS.

Just look at all the same building block-type apps that Android has. With the exception of the game emulators (which use C to some extent), they are all like Lego apps. This is due to the lack of resource access to the hardware. Unless the resource is directly part of the framework- you can not use it unless you want to beat the chipset to death and suck the battery down.

Try and create something as "simple" as an audio EQ or video codec that does not bog down. Can not do it- effiiciently.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Seriously, comparing Google's offerings to WalMart might be just a tad bad comparison :cool:

Still, sure, your point is valid, it'd be nice to have more options for most things in life. But the fact remains that the companies with the best products seem to survice. Your original rant suggested very strongly that you believe this to be a ploy to kill competition and then start charging for services. That sounded ridiculous. This latest post was pretty balanced and yes, sorry about your good grocery store. It will live happy ever after with the drive-through cinemas and betamax VCRs.

Aww, how sweet. The Nokia love on this forum would make Nokia bosses very happy. In the past few years, Nokia's corporate actions haven't won them many admirers here in the home country among the general public or their own employees. Nice to know they're still the good guys to some people and you consider them to respect your privacy. They're very interested in privacy, you know, even pushed through a law about it here... (http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Leg.../1135241264898)

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

actually, i think it's pretty spot-on.

just like wal-mart, google is trying to pull the floor from underneath it's competitors by making "unbeatable" offerings. wal mart does it by economy of scale, google has it even easier because they get their revenues through something else alltogether (just adding to that with yet another ad-based service).

and this process will hurt product quality and diversity in the long run, just like it happened with _every_monopoly_ the world has seen so far. as soon as the monopoly is established, the company in control can start to decrease quality to maximize profits, because the customers have no choice any longer and are forced to accept that.
I'm sure google navigation misses many of the features Garmin or TomTom offer with their devices, but people will just accept the loss of these features, because google is "free". soon, other companies will stop offering additional features and give away a similarly dumbed down navigation. -> quality loss.

take internet search for example - google has the monopoly there for some time now, and search result quality has decreased significantly during the last 5 years or so. more advertisements, more sponsored links.
(what about them anti-trust laws in the states anyways? no one considering filing suit?)


while that might be true, they are not even close to the position google is in. google is already actively mining data without your knowledge or approval. and if you don't care about that, then... take off the pink glasses :)


edit:
by the way, that link you posted was about nokia's own employees privacy, and NOT about customers. so it's not really relevant here. i'll bet you google does this (legally) in the states already.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Why "without your knowledge or approval"? Pink glasses are required to use Google services? There are terms of use available, go read them. I would hope anybody who signs up for a Google account does.

If you want privacy for browsing (a suspicious idea at best, when are you truly anonymous online?) , log out of your google account, turn on private browsing or do something similar. There are times when I log out of google's services and disappear into the night, as well :D

Ahh, I see. That makes it OK then. Right you are!

And no, it's not only about Nokia employees. It's not even just about what the law says -- it's what the company DID. What they did was push through a law that violated our constitution and legalized snooping people's transmissions by all sorts of various companies/associations etc. Nokia wanted a way to catch people who leak information (understandable, sure) and the Finnish constitution happened to get in the way. The law that was passed was a violation of our constitution according to legal experts. A violation that was created due to pressure from Nokia.

This is relevant since that law is quite evil, to use people's favorite term here. The whole "discussion" (using that word in a very generous way) here is about random accusations of one company being evil in manners that nobody can quite explain, yet it has to do with them collecting information and, oh yes, the year 2012. My example of your knight in shining armor raping the princess who helped raise him is very relevant, in my mind. If I'm wearing colored glasses, and I don't think I am, I'm surely not the only one.

(And no, I don't think Nokia is evil. I don't believe in evil.)

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Google registers what unregistered users do as well... LOL!

That's why Google is hated this much!

Trying to find another source of evil will not deny the fact that the first source is evil, or even more evil if that's possible. I find Nokia to be the least evil of all the major companies.

Why do you keep changing the subject? It's about whether Google is evil, not Nokia.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Uhh, I didn't change the subject, it was Mr. Know-it-all who brought up Nokia respecting people's privacy.

Anyway, I give up, go on talking about evil and Darth Google. This is pointless. http://xkcd.com/386/

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

you don't seriously think many people really do that?
i myself actually did read their terms, and immediately cancelled my gmail account. but most people won't care and just happily give their data away.

i am sufficiently adept to know how to surf anonymously, and google is one of the main reasons i am doing that.

i'm not saying that's ok. far from it. but since we're comparing google and nokia, i think it's a valid point.

i don't know enough about the finnish constitution to make a judgement on that, and my only source of information is the one link you posted, so i have to take your word for it. this article does however take a very clear position on the matter, without giving voice to other points of view or even elaborating about the law itself that has been passed.
and this sentence: "The employer would not be allowed to read the content of the messages themselves, however." makes me a bit sceptical about how deep of an intrusion this really is...


i can tell you how this sort of thing is handled in my publicly owned austrian-based company. we don't really have competitive trade secrets, so that's not that much of an issue, but it does pop up now and then.
we do allow personal use of company infrastructure (as in surfing and mail), and our sysadmins are not allowed to touch private traffic as long as personal use is tolerated.
however, if they determine that there IS abuse of corporate infrastructure, there is the possibility to deny ANY private traffic, in which case the sysadmins would be allowed to log and check mails from that point forward. as i said, in our case it's not so much about stealing secrets but about overusing for private matters. still, we have the discussion of completely prohibiting personal use regularly.

i have tried to make the point that monopolies are a dangerous thing by themselves, and if you don't recognize that google is building up and controlling monopolies, you probably really wear those glasses :)
i don't care about any mythical year numbers or anything like that, i care about what i know.

i know that google is mining data and reusing it over and over (they openly say so in their terms of use), and i know that by now they have become big enough with a big enough user- (=data-) base to be a serious threat (as a monopoly).

on one hand you complain about nokia not respecting it's employees' privacy, on the other hand you don't care that google does it on a much, much, MUCH larger scale...

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

See, I constantly hear this argument - why do we need standalone apps when the best mobile browser is on the device and you can use any application from the browser itself ?

This doesn't cut with me personally. Not on a mobile device. And forget the fact that Nokia calls its a mobile computer - that doesn't in any way equate with how I use a actual desktop computer. You DO NOT want to copy how a user uses a desktop computer method and paradigm to a mobile device - irrespective of what you call the mobile device. Simply because it is a MOBILE device. You cant copy over the desktop paradigm to a mobile device.

And if the rationale that we can use browser based apps on the N900 (or any mobile device) worked fine, then pray tell me, why did Nokia go and integrate Social apps into the platform itself ? They could have just told use, use those IM / social services from the browser.

That's because standalone apps offer the one big advantage over browser based apps - Integration.

This meme of "go use a browser based app" is because we (some of us) are making excuses for not having good quality standalone apps for N900 and rationalize it by saying you can do everything from the browser. Any good UI design guy will tell you a mobile device has to be geared to mobile usage - which a full fledged desktop browser is not.

I don't understand this terminology distinction - N900 is not a smartphone. OK, I will agree with the terminology, but irrespective it is a mobile device - the same kind a smartphone is. Same size, same pocketability, same form factor. So how can the usage cases be THAT different from a smartphone. I can understand the extras the the N900 provides - more power, more opennesss etc, but that doesn't mean the smartphone use cases vanish .

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

...uh...got...to...get..away... but I can't.

If this was Slashdot, I'd have to talk about cars, but no, let's try something else.

I have some friends who refuse to get these grocery store bonus cards here...we have a few large chains who give out cards that you can use to get a few percent off of your groceries. The catch is, of course, that they track what you buy and use that to a) market directly to you b) see what sells and to whom. I know that, everybody I know knows that...yet, most of everybody has these cards. Except a few die-hard conspiracy theorists who value the privacy of their toilet paper brand identity more than discounts. It's a trade - information for discounts.

So I get 5 per cent off my grocery bill (this is hundreds per year with a family) and I get some spam in my mail from my grocery store. Spam which I don't open and throw away. It's a fair deal to me. In practice, I get a discount for telling my grocery store what brand of toilet paper I use. (it's the very soft one, triple-layered, mmm.) You probably would not get one of these cards since you cancelled your google account as well - fair enough, your grocery store will not know that you prefer the yellow, cheap brand. (too harsh, not for me.)

This is, to me, quite simply, what Google does. Google just does it on a larger scale collecting information on what I do online. To me, it's a fair trade, the services I get from them are -- to me -- amazingly useful. The net is much more useful to me with Google services than without them. So, I'm fine with the agreement I've clicked on.

Can we agree that I'm allowed to make my own choice or would you perhaps like to change the laws to deny me my possibility to agree to Google's terms? Don't disrespect people's intelligence - plenty of people do know, and the media let's them know, that Google mines data. Still, most people see it as a good trade.

Me, my bonus cards and google are just fine. Thanks.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

I wholeheartedly agree.

Service seems to be a concept that is lost on some. I like it that when I walk into my local coffee shop they know what I normally order and offer it to me. My life is less private because of it but I willingly give up that bit of privacy for that bit of service.

Google provides that on the Internet. A bit better experience in exchange for a bit less privacy. It's a tradeoff that I accept and you don't have to. Google gives you the choice.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

of course we can agree on that :)

i just want to point out one more time:

the scale is everything (as i've stated time and time again).
your local grocery shop can't really abuse what little data they collect. google's insurmountable amounts of data about individuals is on a completely different level than your nice little toilet paper example (which made me realize you didn't understand the issue at all, hence i'll stop arguing about this any further).

you may call me paranoid, but i see just too many possibilities for this much data to be abused.

if you think giving up a "little" privacy (which in fact isn't little at all) for the convenience of the google services is a fair trade, fine. i don't think it's fair at all.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Great! Glad to hear you agree with me now. :D

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Lack of agreement doesn't imply lack of understanding.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Nokia needs to do more for OVI Maps rather than just technological bling - like voice search - essentially like get the basics right.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

"You can look at Google's growing market share in Android, its dominance in search, and elsewhere as signs that it's winning in its markets. But for me, the best indicator that Google is winning is the increasingly vitriolic attacks piled on it.

You can always spot a winner by the bull's-eye painted on it. No one bothers to diss a loser."

Matt Asay - The Open Road blog - cnet.com

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10...g=2547-1_3-0-5

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

They need to give it away for free for X months, and extend that period periodically, for as long as OVI Maps is still lagging behind Google Maps in adoption. That may turn out to be forever (and at a later date, they may have to make that extension explicitly permanent, instead of "we're extending it another 3 months").

Right now, they need to gain market share and mind share. They aren't going to get that by charging for something someone else is giving away for free. They can charge for a "pro" version that offers advantages that Google doesn't (voice searching, etc.), but for the basics, they're going to need to be free. (btw: Google tends to do the same thing: many/most of their free services have "for pay" enhanced versions -- such as if you want higher quotas, or better anti-spam/anti-virus features, you can pay to have that).

They also need (for all of the OVI services) to emphasize the privacy angle. That they don't track your travel information, usage patterns, nor sell it to partners (marketing or otherwise). And they need to specifically differentiate themselves from Google when they say it. Further, they need to follow through on the behavior (ie. don't track usage patterns, travel patterns, and don't sell what information they have to their partners).

Basically, if they want to compete with Google's free services, they have to bill themselves as a service for "the privacy conscious, unlike Google" (though, obviously, only for the "moderately privacy conscious" -- the tinfoil hat people will always either avoid services they can't run themselves, or be Luddites). Google will fire back about how they're also privacy conscious ... when it comes to things like Govt Subpoenas, but Nokia will have to play up the "but not when it comes to things like tracking marketing uses" aspect. But, frankly, that's the main means of differentiating yourself from Google, with some form of value add.

Meanwhile, OVI/Nokia will still have to offer things in a manner that is competitive with Google: cross platform (ie. OVI cannot stick to just supporting Windows users), and the basics are free. For Google, "the basics are free" recovers value by how they use your information. For OVI, "the basics are free" will recover value by ... competing with Google (and, hopefully, by stealing market share from Google, starting with privacy conscious individuals). That's just the price of trying to compete with a free service. It's part of the overhead of marketing a service ... just like advertising.

Once Nokia is able to establish OVI as a competitve service, with a stable and sustainable market share ... THEN they can talk about how they might be able to charge for the basics. But, until then, charging for the basics will just make them "not a competitive offering compared to Google". That's true whether it's maps, mail, music, or whatever. Anything Google offers for free, OVI will have to offer for free.

And just like Google subsidizes that free service with money it makes elsewhere (ads, add-on services, etc.), Nokia will have to subsidize that free service with money it makes elsewhere (handset sales, patent revenue, etc.).

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Google got to be the top from changing their business model, the competitors just failed to innovate in time. Thus lots of email users from hotmail, yahoo and other competitors went to Google. Likewise for Google Maps. I see nothing evil about that, sure their privacy things are scary but it's what you exchange for the service. Like how if you work for the U.S. government you give up some of your privacy in return for the job.

If Google ever becomes the bad monpolist then all that will happen is the U.S. government will step in as long as people are pissed off enough about it.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Toilet paper brand, big deal.

No, the interesting bit is when your health insurance premiums go up because you buy cheaper, less healthy food. Or go up because you started buying laxatives a lot recently.

Considering the big grocery chains also sell insurance, it would be surprising if those databases were completely unlinked.

That said, any store can track your purchasing trends without a store discount card easily. If you pay by debit/credit card, which nearly everyone does, your card number is enough to link each purchase.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Not just scale; also type of data.

If you're using Google Latitude, or Google Maps to navigate regularly, then if you're one of those people who regularly attend, say, anti-war protests, Google knows.

If you're using those tools, Google also knows if you regularly stop off at a particular brothel on your way home from the office. How often, and for how long.

Does it matter?

Hard to say.

The data is recorded. We don't know what future use of current data will be.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

frank.wagner posted - a link to a gallery - of the Droid.

Seriously ugly machine. Reminds me of 1987.

Hands-on Gallery

I mean, look at that funky d-pad. I wonder if the Droid plays 8-tracks?

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....id_hands04.jpg

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Like I pointed out earlier, I have no clue why the dpad is on the right side and not the left.

And yes it's scary what profiles can be built on you. Though if it does concern you (like it use to concern me.. but since I'm a Federal employee now there's no point anymore since the government can easily figure this stuff out without Google's help) you can get around those problems while still using their services. It just takes more time and several accounts (and accessing those accounts randomly). Or using one gmail account and say some other web email account and having one email for each specialized purpose.

Or you can trick the system if you want to.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

But... but... I thought Google controlled the entire world. ;)

Jokes aside, you can't escape from Google with a phone (especially an Android phone), since each phone has an unique serial number, which can be tracked as well, especially if Google makes an OS especially for this purpose. I high doubt Google only registers what a specific user does.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

There's no easy way to escape from Google with a phone, at least not something that most people would do. Though you probably could with a combination of SSH to a computer + using a proxy, tor, or VPN solution like the Pirate Bay's IFPRED.

Edit: There is a Firefox addon I believe that disables Google's tracking cookie that they implement. Though that only helps with searches I think.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Having an xterm available to be able to SSH into servers is immensely useful.

Being able to have multiple xterm SSH sessions open to multiple servers and being able to view their realtime console monitors from the dashboard is going to totally rock my world.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

One of the neatest side-effects of using Skype is that it is end-to-end encrypted. I really hope they haven't broken that on the N900's implementation.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

That does assume that the NSA doesn't have a back door into their encryption. Not to mention that if they are really interested they can probably crack the encryption in near real time.

If you want to be worried, don't worry about Google, worry about governments.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

That extension would be OptimizeGoogle. It used to be CustomizeGoogle, but development on that fizzled out.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

I'd also check out BetterPrivacy which deletes cookies Local Shared Objects (LSO), also known as flash cookies.

Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (TACO) sets non personally identifiable opt-out cookies which block various online advertising networks.

And, of course, AdBlock Plus with Easy List and Easy Privacy subscriptions.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

It's really not so simple as to not use Google services or turn on Firefoxes privacy mode, to opt out of being tracked by Google. Google tracks people's online behavior by IP address. So every time you do a search with Google, logged in or not, they track where you surf to and log it by IP address. But even if you don't use Google for search at all, you still get tracked in many instances. A huge percentage of web sites embeds Google Analytics code in them. Another nice "free" service Google gives away that lets web sites track their usage statistics. But it also allows Google to track anyone who visits those websites, crossreference it by IP address, and add the information to their data base. So you can opt not to use any Google services at all and Google is still compiling a large data base of your web behavior.

Sooner or later you do something online that also allows Google to figure out who you actually are (name, address). It doesn't take that much information to uniquely identify someone. Then that goes into their data base too and even if you change IP addresses, they can eventually figure out that it's the same person and that gets cross referenced too.

Completely turning off javascript can stop some of this tracking. But then the web ceases to function as you and I know it. So you may as well just stop surfing altogether.

So there is a real privacy concern here. If people don't care, fine. But there's no reason to mock those who do care. One of the problems is that even if Google does not abuse this information and only uses it for commercial purposes, it doesn't mean that others won't eventually abuse this information. I've seen political scientists and historians talk about this and make the simple point that if you look at history, every time someone has amassed this kind of massive database of information about individuals, eventually it gets abused. It's too tempting, especially for governments, to subpoena or seize the information and use it for their own purposes. It has already been revealed that tens of thousands of secret subpoenas have been issued in the U.S., under the Patriot Act, to carry out investigations that have nothing to do with terrorism. That makes these subpoenas illegal under the Patriot Act, but since a secret court oversees them and they can't be reviewed for "national security" reasons, no one can enforce the law on these subpoenas. So I think it's naive to imagine that sooner or later Google's database won't be abused, whether or not it's Google doing the abusing.

I don't really care if people consider this "evil" or not. The word is a bit over the top and distracting to the conversation. But there is a real profound privacy issue here, whether or not everyone cares.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Then you don't know much about the Dallas Fort Worth grocery market. I live in DFW, Texas, the most competitive grocery market in the US. We have more choices than anywhere else. Walmart has begun building what they call "Neighborhood WalMarts", smaller grocery only stores, with pricing different from the Walmart Supercenters just minutes away. They compete to undercut the incumbent stores in some markets, and in others where there is no competition, they actually RAISE prices from the Supercenters. Once the competitors close, they raise prices higher, so you pay for them being closer, but save by going to the Supercenters. They've killed many great grocers and made it hard for the poor without transportation in the city. This is leaving many grocery stores that were employers in the neighborhoods empty, less jobs, higher grocery prices, bad choice of meats and produce (WalMart doesn't offer any local produce or have a butcher for custom cuts of meat) and less choice of everything. Now you have to go to Whole Foods (EXPENSIVE!!) for good produce, and Albertson's (only one left in the city, used to be at least 5) for affordable better cuts of meat. The US isn't like your country, and it pays to listen sometimes when you don't know firsthand. Ask Texrat, who's from the same metro area, and he'll tell you. Its a big issue in the US.
I don't think I was ranting, just observing a situation that can have grim repercussions on consumers. Just my analyst brain at work. I DO have ideas about Google's intent, but I'm not so against them. I prefer my personal info be private, but I am willing to give up something for something in return. I just wished Google were more upfront about how invasive they are. I like Microsoft, and Google is similar in its world domination intentions. I wasn't saying Google WILL start charging, but that they could at the peril of consumers without a viable alternative is bad news, and Ovi has to step up and be a better alternative. Tom Tom will be dead soon unless Apple buys them.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

damn. the two things i like from droid are pinch to zoom and popup onscreen keyboard.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Christexaport is on the ball here. I dont understand any of the market opinion that Symbian has no future. I also think that Nokia have been a lot smarter than any of the nay sayers have us believe. The issue for them is not about iPhone or Android growth in the high end (yes you cant deny what's happening there), but how do they maintain a revenue stream that is impressive any way you measure it. Its easy for us sitting outside of the boardroom to tell them to jump ship, kill it, move one, but I bet if anyone of you were in that boardroom you would not take the risk.

Compare and contrast this with the VW Golf or Toyota Corolla. pretty boring for sports cars enthusiasts, but you don't mess with a seller.

Just look at how the E71 has over taken the blackberries, the E72 will be a big hit. The N96 is a top notch candybar and they WILL sell shed loads of X6s and N97 minis and the open sourcing of Symbian is already bringing more OEMs on board.

What Nokia have done is to maintain that revenue stream, while introducing Maemo to take on the high end, and to bring on Qt to build out the apps ecosystem. Both Maemo and Symbian will benefit as a result.

And just to close on the subject of this thread. Why the N900 because the N900 will benefit from the huge vol of symbian devices that are already out there and will continue to be out there as Nokia's plan plays out in 2010.

Mike C

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

I don't think anyone is suggesting that Nokia should just kill Symbian and move on. People need to stop caricaturing the arguments of others, when disagreeing with them.

I do think Symbian will be increasingly demoted to the lower end of Nokia's product line and occupy the space of what was formerly feature phones and slowly be replaced. It will die a slow death.

Here's two articles about the Symbian Exchange and Exposition tradeshow that just happened:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technol...5875-21777860/
http://channel.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=20916

They both talk about how the mood was down. Developers are jumping ship for the iPhone and Android. Many complain Symbian is harder to develop for. Orders for applications on Symbian are drying up. Samsung and Sony-Ericsson are moving away from Symbian.

One developer even uses the "die" word himself: "I think Symbian is far behind…If there is no change in user friendliness, and opening of the environment, I think it will die – they have to react."

The only people who are positive are the Symbian foundation people and the Nokia marketing people, who of course have to be positive. Saying things like Symbian has an advantage because it was the first smartphone platform, as if because it was first means it can't die.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Symbian will die ?

Not a chance.

FYI Symbian is not s60 - I cannot believe how people that should know better keep making this mistake. Please try and do some research - Symbian OS micro-kernel is still the most fit for purpose out there. I will go out on a limb and say it multi-tasks more efficiently than all the other mostly Linux based competitors out there thanks to Demand paging technique. The webOs, Android, jailbroken iPhone multitasking saps battery like mad and the jury is still out on Maemo but I doubt it will do much better in this department.

The E71 for example is known to go for days without needing a charge. My 5800 keeps going - I've been listening to podcasts for a while, the browser is running in the background, made some calls etc but battery indicator unmoved.

Practically speaking, I can use Nimbuzz to make Skype calls and then keep it in the background to receive calls without a big hit on battery life - the great and illustrous iPod touch / iPhone OS cannot do this. Symbian is also unmatched in the PIM department. As for the 'apps' craze, we all know that this is such a fad and only those who are unaware of the promise of HTML5, WebGL etc are carried away by it. There is really only one killer app you need, the browser. Anyway for Symbian, there's QT for that.

It also scales well. Lets see webOs, OSX, Maemo, Android run efficiently on low powered hardware like my Nokia 5800.

At the end of the day, Symbian will remain dominant (NOKIA gets it) and with improvements to its communication architecture (freeway etc) and the impressive screenplay technology, QT, QTOrbit, ability to run on SMP arch (ARM cortex A5 / Mali) and not to forget its very open philosophy.



Please try and do some reading and face reality

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/...ase_plans-.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EKA2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbwYrilwZqg

http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/in..._-_online_book

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Basically, I agree. Although christexaport made some good points about a Symbian rejuvenation, I gotta think it will only make Symbian a better OS for it's old age and slow demise. Not because it has no real value, not through any particular fault in Symbian or an evil scheme, but because improvements in hardware will render it obsolete in a few years.

IOW, he's right that presently Maemo only can run well on expensive, high-end hardware. It's a powerful OS. But today's killer hardware is tomorrow's low-end hardware. It happens pretty quickly. 5 years ago the Razr was introduced as a $500 wonder of miniaturization. In a few years when Maemo happily runs on a $50 unit, there just won't be much need for Symbian. Nokia can then simplify their efforts to a single Maemo platform (likely a few versions for running different levels of hardware) and let go of Symbian. It may still survive as a open source OS for what by then would be considered low-end phones, but probably not much else.

I've never owned a Symbian phone so that possible outcome doesn't bother me. Maemo/Linux is so powerful and adaptable it seems clearly more capable of growing along with future technology so I see such an outcome as a Good Thing. But I can understand it might bring some sadness to longtime old-school Symbian people. Some Windoze users still wish for a DOS comeback too. Sometimes ya just gotta move on...

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

Plenty of fancy acronyms.The articles were not about technical issues, they were about enthusiasm at trade fairs and developer interest. I found it very fascinating to see that trade fair behavior corresponds to general "street level" feeling so well. Frankly I would've expected the Symbian gatherings to be more lively than the descriptions say. The poster even made a point of saying that "he doesn't believe anybody is claiming Symbian will die fast", yet you jumped down his throat for posting pretty interesting articles.

To many users (me included), Symbian is the most boring of these systems. Like the poster said, it doesn't mean that Nokia will stop selling Symbian phones or that Symbian marketshare will plummet in a year. Nobody claimed that. I found the articles highly interesting as they seem to show that developer / Symbian community moods are, in fact, tied to the general "word on the street" moods. It's been years since anybody I know has been truly excited about a Nokia phone they have, the N900 is the first in a long time to generate some sort of a "buzz".

By the way, none of this has absolutely nothing to do with the original topic, but oh well, most of this thread hasn't.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

improvement in hardware will render Symbian obsolete ?

Oh dear you just dont get it do you. Its about Scalability - Symbian can operate across the spectrum. You should check out the Samsung i8910HD yes it supports HD video capture. Consider the Sony SATIO, it supports a 12Megapixel camera and they both run Symbian. The SATIO uses the same CPU as n900 and iPhone.

If these are not high end hardware by todays standard, please enlighten me and tell me what is.

Please be reasonable, and do some basic research before jumping on a bandwagon. The Linux kernel for all the hype is monolithic - even Linus Tovarlds fully considers it bloated. Symbian OS is a micro/nano kernel and is more fit for purpose in this context. Instead of wasting time here, try and read Andrew Tanenbaum's book on OS design.

NOKIA obviously know better than us all - which is why they'll keep Symbian as their flagship OS. I love Maemo, but its there to tide NOKIA over until Symbian^4 is released.

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/m...ype=prd_detail

http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsso...ou%29-2683.php


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EKA2

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

You are making the classic mistake of assuming that the technically or conceptually superior product (at least in your opinion) will be the one to do the best in the marketplace. I guess this is why Windows has 90% marketshare? Or why Internet Explorer 6.0 continues to be the most widely used browser? Or why Toyota only managed to pass GM, as the largest auto maker, in January 2009? Becuase I guess up until January 2009 GM made better cars?

That's wonderful. But if you had actually read the articles I'd posted or even read my post closely, you would have seen that one of the things these articles mentioned is that Samsung and Sony-Ericsson are purportedly moving away from Symbian.

Basically you're making arguments about how great Symbian is, which is not necessarily the same question of whether or not it will survive in the market and what direction it's marketshare is heading in. You're confusing technical questions for business ones; they can be connected, but they don't have to be.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

I think you don't quite get what I was saying. I said there was not Symbian's fault, that there was nothing really 'wrong' with it.

My point is as hardware improves, Maemo/Linux will run on nearly anything. More and more users will expect a more 'desktop' type of experience. This will include such things as, for example, drivers for most printers included so they can print to bluetooth-enabled printers from the phone. Maemo is better suited for a general-purpose 'desktop' pocket computer. Symbian is, as I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, better suited to more specialized duties. The 'bloated' monolithic Linux kernel vs the Symbian micro/nano kernel, everything you might need vs only what you need, or IOW, a pocket computer (Maemo) vs a smartphone (Symbian).

What I'm saying above is what Nokia 'gets'. The pocket desktop computer is the future. Why else would they spend the time and money on Maemo and introduce it as their new high-end OS? (They did, ya know.) Maemo is a very long detour to be only around to tide them over to Symbian^4. If Symbian was still the future, why not keep it simple and put those resources into speeding up the release Symbian^4?

I'll check out all the links you gave later - I gotta get to work. Maybe they'll change my mind.

Re: N900 vs. Motorola Droid (Verizon Android device)
 

I wonder if your arguments about Maemo vs. Symbian also perhaps apply to Android and the iPhoneOS. I know that Android has a lot of room for growth and development, but I can't help feeling that the whole constraints of the java-layer thing were determined by the smartphone concept and technology ca. 2007.

As pocket computers get cheaper, powerful, and ubiquitous, people are going to want the power and flexibility they've come to expect in desktop computers (including the ability to run and port programs written in a variety of languages). Maemo is well poised to take advantage of the pocket computer model. I wonder whether the tightly controlled, "single language" environments of Android and iPhoneOS and PalmPre will come to seem outdated in five years. Perhaps Maemo is showing us the future high-end, while Android and iPhoneOS are the future mid- to low- range (i.e., what Symbian is today).