were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

I wonder if we could learn anything from previous Maemo releases.

Seems there are some legitimate software issues which have been identified now that the device can be found in the wild. I'm fine with dealing with these for some time as long as I know that Nokia will actively work on resolving them. How much effort can we expect from Nokia to ensure these are going to be resolved? I'm concerned they will pull all their development resources into Maemo 6 soon and leave us with a device "which could have been"

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

There is already a new firmware update though I do not believe its available to flash for the public yet. Cant find the thread where its mentioned think it was -20 rather than -11 which is what is currently in the phone

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

There are usually 2 gyrations of updates in the past before the platform was left stale...I hope this is not the case with Fremantle.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

As a Diablo user, I can't wait for you to have to put up with "Fixed in Harmattan". :D

That said, the Diablo OS does seem to have gotten stable before they abandoned it. It's more the extra capabilities and apps that never seemed to have gotten updated.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

As a Diablo user also if Nokia is planning on pulling that stunt again I am going over to Android for my next device after the n900. Already they're starting to resolve some of the issues that I don't like about the Android platform.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

I don't think nokia can afford to drop the ball on this one...
Not with the amount of units they will sell and the popularity it is gaining.

If they leave this platform like they did diablo, they will be shooting themselves in the foot.

They will lose their credibility for maemo 6

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

how so?


They did it for diablo and everyone + more are buying up the n900 like its no ones business

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Because this time it's not just the maemo.org community they're going shaft. =P

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Wait - getting the shaft was an option? Why wasn't I told about this?

:p

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

It was only available if you preordered. :D

Nokia will email you a code for the Shaft app to download from the secret Ovi directory.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Exactly because more are buying it...

There is a lot more buzz around this device, so imagine what would happen to the future of their next maemo device if Nokia was known by everyone to have shafted all people who purchased the N900.

The next Maemo device would probably flop, or at the very least its sales be hindered.

I am sure they are expecting the Maemo6 device to have much greater success than the N900, being the 5th and final step.

It is in their interest to prove themselves on the N900.
(maybe this is why nokia was downplaying the N900, they were afraid of too much attention... but now they're stuck with it and they'll have to keep updating the device!)

Not many knew what an N800 or N810 or maemo was prior to the N900. The community was very small. It is now growing very fast and the N900 is barely out.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

While they did abandon Diablo, it should be said that they gave Chinook (the original N800 OS) an upgrade path.

Hopefully their next OS will allow N900 users to upgrade as well, even if the N900 will not be able to use all the possible hardware dependent features of the new OS.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Yeah, at least @pple are doing that for their phones. Nokia better learn from @pple's success.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

To answer the original poster:

Every shipped/sold device releases with a certain tolerance of issues. Because of the volitle nature of mobile devices, its nearly impossible to release something that has absoutely no issues - that is unless the device is feature simple. The more complex the device, the greater the tolerances need to be in order to assign features, fixes, and updates in due course.

Previous tablets had up to two major firmware updates before the next major version came out. This was generally ok since many of the smaller fixes came through this community's ability to find the problems, note possible solutions, and then a small-ish group of persons would work on the fix - either as something within a 3rd party application, or an unoffical fix. In some of these cases, the updates made it to an official capacity and appeared as fixed in a later update to the software.

With the last version of the Maemo OS - Diablo - a new feature called Seamless Software Updating (SSU) was introduced. This was designed as a mechanism to offer updates to device owners, without the need for a full device reflash. 3rd party developers could also utilize this feature to push out updates to devices when the updates were ready, not necessarly at a major firmware update time. This feature was also a test bed for over the air (OTA) updates for tablet devices. In most cases, this was successful enough of a feature that it was rolled into Maemo 5 pretty much intact.

Therefore, in terms of your expectations for updates with Maemo 5. There has already been mention of one update coming around the Christmas timeframe. This update would seem to address many issues not caught before the devices left the factory for global distribution (testing taking anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months depending on the aspects of the system being updated and if they will have any dependencies on carrier infrastructure). This update is not confirmed, just rumored.*

That applies only for Nokia supplied firmware. If you are using any 3rd party applications, widgets, or plugins, these might be updated way before or after then. Its up to the developers to be transparent with their release schedules in order for you to know this information. Be aware though that software development is a lot like shopping without a list - there's a store and things you need, but at some point you need to stop and purchase something. Many parts of the software development process stop simply at knowing there's a need; more successful projects get to the checkout line as soon as possible so that they can get you back in the store.

Hope that helps (everyone).

* Update confirmed, spoken in a post below this one. Look for it before the end of the calendar year if all goes well with its testing/

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Well, Nokia constantly builds new firmware versions internally. Every week, at least a dozen, to find new regressions quickly.
From time to time somebody decides that some version will be made public. Hence that version needs to go through extensive testing and afterwards will be released.

Seeing people running a newer version than 2.2009.42-11 ("42" is the week) means that these people have access to internal builds, nothing else. :-)

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Actually this was announced by Nokia themselves at the Maemo summit:
http://media.share.ovi.com/m1/s/1440...5e1ea2fd2b.jpg
(I do not know who shot this photo - sorry for not correctly giving credits.)

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

You can expect several maintenance releases in the pipeline. Filing and voting the bugs that matter to you does help increasing the chances to get them fixed, or at least to have them resolved in some other way.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

I have been programming since 1981. I am very hard on things. Bricked the loaner.. Filled the filesystem. Did a lot of dumb things to see what a "user" could break.

maemo5 is not a flaky or instable OS.

I have managed to get odd behavior and even some reboots, but recreating has been impossible. I would have no qualms at all using this for daily work.

Some of the things that bother users are very shallow issues from a systems perspective The architecture of maemo5 is very well considered and evolves based on years of experience.

Learning to contribute to this effort takes some time, but is well worth your talents.

What t.m.o. and the maemo community face with product launch is a flood of new interest from users who see every shipped app as integral to "the phone os". Knowing this, Nokia shipped a *much* more feature rich set of apps out of the box than previous versions.

It seems that the concept of the mobile device as application platform hasnt really matured in the minds of most customers.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Just to say I am impressed with the whole 'firmware upgrade' stuff. I had an n95 on first release, and there were a few upgrades. My technician kept telling me 'no don't bother' till there was one really making a difference. It made a huge difference to the phone (espcially to the camera software).

What I'm hoping is that the n900 will basically do that itself without scaring me too much. The n95 went back to the technician for upgrade, and some things were somewhat screwed up by their practice of removing everything to back up, upgrading, and just bunting it back. This time I'm counting on the community to hold my paw through upgrades.

And ArnimS, I appreciate people who push the device to see what a user could break. Cos I bet someone will, and it might be me.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

IMHO, it is somewhere between arrogant and ignorant to start a thread called "were previous Maemo releases this buggy", because it implies that Maemo is quite buggy - when in fact it is a very stable OS. It also does not make a difference between the OS itself (Maemo) and the Application installed (Nokia default apps, 3rd party apps).

I've been extremely pleased with the featureset, quality and performance of my N900 during the last weeks (especially when compared to my wife's N97 :-)

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Having used Diablo for years and hearing that the feature is basically unchanged for the N900 you should be very impressed. A little indicator appears in the status area near the battery and signal meter to show an update is available. Tap on that and app manager launches listing available updates. Click on Update or Update all and watch it download and apply the updates in a manner similar to an install. Often no reboot required.

:)

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

What I missed in the application manager when it comes to updates, and installing applications in general, is the fact that you can not select more than one application to install/update at the time, which can be annoying sometimes. Of course it is always possible to use apt-get from the terminal, but that would not be greeted well with the mainstream users, I guess.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Internet tablets just do not have such a big audience.
If you want mobility without missing features you ask yourself:
Is 10" screen size to big? Probably not.
So you will buy a small netbook/umpc instead of an Internet tablet with 4.x" screen.

But if you are going to plan on buying a new smartphone. All have the same screen size, so you buy the one with the most features. Which today would probably be the N900, the new xperia or an iphone.

So this is a totally different story here.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

For updates you can tap the menu and choose "Update all" just like in Maemo4 :) .

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

But what if I don't want all of the updates? :)
This seems like a fairly simple task, don't know why it hasn't been implemented?

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

I would say that 99% of the users want all the updates :p.
But I agree with you and it seems easy to implement, can you make a enhancement bug report about it ?

Thanks.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Of course, no problem. :)

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Please post the link back here, in order to the ones wanting that feature (me me:)) can vote for the bug :).

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Very true. I am a massive Nokia fan and in ten years of owning mobile phones I have never had any phone that wasn't made by Nokia. Yet until the N900 I had never heard of internet tablet, N800, N810 or maemo.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

As written before you can choose "Update all" from the menu.
For installing, feel free to vote for https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=601 .

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Hmmm. May I draw your attention to N900 bugs

I am encouraged that most of the issues reported are for apps/clients and not with the underlying platform, drivers and services. (exception to that is Mail For Exchange support which should have worked 100% right out of the box in my opinion) The beauty of Maemo is that Apps/clients can be replaced by other products developed by the community, so issues with them are not as important in my mind than with the underlying platform.

I suppose reading the feedback on this forum I had expected a lot more "Wow!!"s and am surprised with the number of issues which have been reported. Seems there is just a lack of final polish as I'm sure that Nokia was under alot of pressure to get this out the door. Nothing that can't be fixed by software updates however.

This thread has helped me understand that:
- updates to this device are a lot easier to manage than other devices. (i.e. it requires a lot less overhead to do package releases than a whole firmware update)
- the Maemo community is in general more technically savvy than the average platform which will supplement the effort by Nokia to resolve these issues.
- Maemo is open and allows the community to develop alternatives to the stock set of applications provided by Nokia.
- we can expect Nokia to provide us with at least a couple of updates to the device and we can influence which items need to be worked on by raising and voting on them.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

Ok, thanks will do!

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

I think this is the list you're looking for (no 3rd party apps, no enhancement requests). :D

(Still, 79 items, 7 of which being of high or critical severity...)

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

I think to be honest... the answer is yes... previous initial Maemo releases were buggy until a few updates later.

Diablo, the very last update that will ever come out for the N810 is very stable. Glad it is, to be honest.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

This device is gonna be picked up by the general public, so this Maemo forum can expect to attract a number of people who are not particularly techy. Something that will help those people greatly is to feel that they are welcomed, rather than ridiculed, to this community. They can learn things by ASKING QUESTIONS or REPORTING PROBLEMS, neither of which should be treated with hostility. Obviously some people will just troll etc, but I think there is a real danger of elitism on this forum.

Not accusing anyone in particular, cant be bothered, but just felt it was worth saying.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

What happened to your phrase "Handled in Harmattan"? :)

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

That all depends on the first impression they give.

Re: were previous Maemo releases this buggy, and how long did it take to resolve key issues?
 

... Syncing things never work at 100% ... in every products sync has always failure exception ...