Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

hey,
we all know you guys are passionate about the tablets and their capabilities now, but what would you like to see in the future.
By the future I mean the real thing, Nokia has Harmattan pressed for the next schedule, but whats to come after that?
Assume all the capacitive/resistive/rotationy/toolkit/battery technical details are sorted and we have a battery that lasts all day, what and where are our tablets going to be?


for me, I'd like to see my devices seamlessly adapt themselves so when I sit down and everything is there and I'm logged in and all my software is available with properly configured to just as I like it.
this should be wherever I am, on the train or bus or in someone elses office or just chilling at home I want to have maeStuff near me :)


what about you?

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

Well, not going to be original here: In short, I would like to see Maemo power StarTrek-like PADD devices of various sizes. In fact, I would like the difference in size stop being a deciding factor: you should be able to walk into a store and choose from variety of different sizes, all running the same software on pretty much the same hardware.

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

At this rate of development, I expect to see the n910 in 2015. My n800 with 128GB of sd storage will still be functioning. While I wait . . .

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

They're going to be embedded in my contacts, in my glasses, or in the panel on my arm... ;)

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

leinir o_O but what will you be doing with them?
x-ray glasses or just a regular hud?
do your driving with it directly?

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

Speculating about the hardware platform is a bit irrelevant, as it is just that, speculation.

That being said, the software platform is where the community can work its magic. We can define the boundaries of the path Maemo will take.

I would like to see the device being powered up for real "business" use. Playing Quake 3 on it is nice and all, but really, does that help me convince IT to buy them in bulk? Not really.

What would make it interesting for the businesses that put money in these devices would be to have it prime ready for heavy emailing (and that means, not having to wait 30+ to read an email after receiving the notification you just got an email), easy answering and immediate, hyper-responsive User Interfaces.

Glued to that, support all the major meeting-makers formats (there's not that many), so that people can switch seamlessly from their corporate phone to their N900, and that they never have to look back. All the time people are struggling to do the most basic things on their BlackBerry's, yet, I didn't leave my corporate SIM card in the N900, not because I don't absolutely love it, but because it doesn't support BES, and the Microsoft Exchange integration is dodgy as hell.

Maybe in 5 or 10 years -- provided the platform survives -- we will have multiple flavours of Maemo. The business oriented one, versus the teen-facebook-addict one. Or maybe, we'll just have "themes", but instead of having those themes define presets of colours and icons, they'll allow us to easily switch between the different use cases of the device.

One desktop be a personal one, with links to one's music, one's movies and whatever social media it is they like. Another desktop would allow them to have easy access to their boss's incendiary emails, and the last desktop would give them access to their families, instantly. For each of these desktops, the application menu would be different, and how the applications interact with each other would change based on the "profile" currently selected.

5, 10 years, will mark the greatest changes in User Experiences. People will start realising that the way they've been using their phones and computers is archaic, and maybe the majority of users will start understanding what we've been screaming all along.

There you go lcuk. Enough ranting for you?

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

I'm like Lcuk, in that I want better and more importantly intelligent integration between my device(s) and my environments.

I would like one device to be a central hub for all my converged information and media

When I am out walking the dog or cycling (or whatever), it will have maps available, play music and rout calls though my bluetooth headphones. When I get to the car it needs to automatically connect to the internal car router and wireless for internet access - maps which should have a learning mode of favorite locations, deciding which one is likely based on the day and time and calendar entries, downloading smart traffic info for the route etc. It would also then re-route music and calls through the in-car system.

When I am at home, and watching TV, I want my tablet and DVR to communicate, and for my DVR to pull information and updates I want such as news, friend updates, etc from my tablet and overlay them onto the screen I am watching. If I am at my desk I want to be able to hook my tablet up to a large screen and full size keyboard and use it like a full on desktop or laptop system.

There is quite a lot there which is doable now with the hardware we have. The software would take a bit of work though, and I think it would take another couple of software generations to get there though.

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

my future internet device will be a receptacle for my spirit with some classical cpu/gpu to simulate a body and world

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

Hopefully that reseach on battery power (can't find the link at the moment) will be good enough to provide the promised batteries that can last a month... that way we can use our devices how we want to without trying to ration battery power.

And we'll all have flying cars ;)

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

Ok. At what resolution? Will 256x192x16 do? =)

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

I'd like to see the sort of moves suggested by CrashAndDie with one exception: I don;t want a separate 'business' maemo and leisure maemo. I want one device that will do it all. One device that will be my work unit for connecting to groupwise, email exchange etc, and my fun device with games, videos and music, my connected device with twitter, tumblr and LJ, and my 'me-time' device with books and a Bible.

As I see the market right now, maemo is the OS most likely to be able to deliver that in 5 years time.

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

No one will ever make anything like a correct prediction about computing in 20 years time. Even 10 years time is extremely unlikely.

Would anyone in 1989 really have guessed that the majority of computing devices in 2009 would be mobile phones? Or that the majority of mobile phones would be sold in the developing world?

The only prediction I would make is that in 20 years time computing devices will be so cheap and ubiquitous that the hardware brand will be as trivial as the brand of pocket calculator you use. Most people won't care what the device OS is, as they will use their apps through online services.

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

[Off Topic] I predict that the conclusion of the Long Count will put an end to all this in 2012. Humanity will be catapulted back to a stone age, where the primary technology will be flint knapping and stitching garments with bone needles, making the superiority of maemo over iPhone all rather accademic[/off topic]

Hey, someone had to say it!

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

RevdKathy,
and when that happens I will curl up in a little ball and continue to draw my world :)
I will find some way to power it (ive got plenty of motors and enough circuit knowledge to jimmy something together)

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

Does this mean we have to start inscribing lists of iPhone zealots in stone right away, so that we can return to them and finish the business with flint weaponry once the new stone age begins? =)

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

didn't someone say that these devices have more computing power than what NASA sent a rocket to the moon with originally?!
being able to count needles and calculate how many wild antelope you need to kill to make your new furnishings with is important! (I spent 10 years working with a curtain calculations program lol)

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

Right, I'm buying one of the solar powered chargers. Then I can continue to use my n900. I will be seen as a mystical shaman who controls a powerful god called Mae Mo. Of course, it won't be much use with no-one to connect with, but it will still be Strong Magick.

And Lcuk, I need some new curtains. Is this progamme available on Fremantle?

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

And if by chance that doesn't happen, the world will have run out of Lithium for the batteries. You don't get much talk time out of carbon-zinc.

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

Lithium really isn't rare at all. They'll just need to find a way to extract it from something else than those highly concentrated salt lakes.

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

With MIT releasing SixthSense as open source I think the future will show a lanyard with a speakerpatch behind your ear to have VR bundled with reality, your screen is the environment, your interface is the world and believe me it is just a matter of community how fast this will be available as the hardware the inventing team used is just about a few hundred bucks!

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

So, who is gonna be holding the other end of that lanyard?

Re: Crystal ball thread: Maemo in 5,10,20 years
 

I hope we don't run out of lithium! I have several clients who're dependent on it (though these days sodium valporate is preferable).