Heads up: new users may be coming
 

The closure of Nokia's Alliance facility is resulting in the discounted sale of 770s to remaining employees. Assuming anyone buys them, there may be a brief surge of new 770 owners entering the forum. This also serves as notice to 770/N800 program management that the device ain't dead yet... hint hint. ;)

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

What is the "Alliance Facility" and where is/was it? Just curious how it relates to 770s.

Larry

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Sorry, I thought I'd gven enough info out on that previously.

Alliance is/was Nokia's one North American manufacturing, assembly and distribution facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Both the 770 and the N800 launched there. Both products have now moved to Mexico.

The closure has necessitated the disposal of a significant amount of inventory in various forms. There are numerous 770s that will be available for sale cheap to employees only (no N800s though) and if they're bought I expect some new users to show up here.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

I'm sure we'll make them welcome, just as long as they remember to use the Forum Search function before posting! :)

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Good suggestion Mil. They'll be given notice. ;)

EDIT: ...or so I thought. I was unable to include the info I wanted. Oh well. They're going to have to be adventurous!

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Texrat: How's your future location? Are you moving to the Nokia Irving facility? (I don't think you are moving to Mexico... ;) )

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Mara, I don't know yet. Had an interview but I left it a little disappointed in how I came across to the manager.

I couldn't go to Mexico, realistically. Too many hurdles in the way. Irving is almost in my backyard though.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

I don't follow the hint! Has there been talk of tablet death?

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

You know, that's the thing about embedded devices - even if they are sold, (like Newtons) over and over, they continue to work, and so they continue to have 'new' users.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Did you miss the talk here when the N800 came out? :D

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Well, a couple of months in, I've seen exactly what I figured would happen. The surge of N800 development is nowhere near what it was for the 770, the 770 is all but neglected, and both tablets have never achieved the greatness that the 770 did in the ensuing months after it's launch.

Everything seems half-assed though there are exceptions. Canola was done by people who 'got it'. It was polished, not left at the command line because that was 'good enough'. I realize everything's voluntary and some of the issues are the nature of the beast when dealing with OSS, but there's got to be someone who's anal retentive enough to take the UI and hildonize it even if the original author has run out of steam or has to address other commitments.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

As michaelalanjones observed: "You know, that's the thing about embedded devices ... they continue to work". The 770 does what Nokia designed it to do very very well. Any additional apps and functionality that the community contributes are strictly 'bonus' material, provided for free.

It is easy to lose sight of the fact that the userbase and hence developer base for the device is a tiny fraction of that for x86 linux PCs. It's easy to forget that for most of computing and open-source history, unpolished UIs and incomplete implementations were normal, especially when the given userbase was below a million.

Maemo and the scratchbox environment make porting and writing applications really easy and fun (otherwise i wouldn't have gotten anywhere), but few real programmers are going to approach development for these devices with a professional focus, especially when Maemo hasn't yet taken off as a cross-platform tablet OS.

This is not to discount Hedgecore's lamentations; I too would like to see good developers flock to the Nokia, and i'm somewhat surprised at how many people (even in the linux community) haven't heard of the products. But let's not lose sight of the fact that these are pioneering products - a lot of people haven't woken up to the possibilities they open-up at this price point.

For me the greatest thing about these devices is that they are PDAs for which even 'bears of little brain' like myself can actually write and port usable programs. I'm someone who hasn't managed to release or port any* software in his whole life, yet the N770 has inspired me to do so -- it's been more fun, and easy, than I could have imagined.

Thanks, Nokia!

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

The quality of the applications on Internet Tablets is very, very poor - they're full of bugs which are never addressed which sets a general tone for the devices and prevents them from being taken seriously. In my opinion the apps shipped with the device should be excellent quality or not shipped at all - the sub-standard dross (Email, RSS, general lack of integration and UI consistency) would not be allowed on other platforms. The total lack of control that Nokia have over the browser shows a lack of ambition - Nokia should replace the browser with one of their own (Minimo, S60, whatever) which would allow them to drive the platform forward rather than wait for Opera.

Nothing about the software shipped with the tablets screams of quality, and it's expecting an awful lot from third-party developers for them to ship quality products built on such a shaky foundation. Canola is an excellent product but is often flawed and limited by underlying problems with the stock Nokia firmware. Same goes for mplayer.

Nokia customer support for Internet Tablets is a farce. The promised but apparently now "not going to happen" support for 770s is an outrage. The missing-in-action accessories (the N800 case? Where's the freaking case?) smacks of ineptitude - they remove the hard cover but are incapable of offering any alternative screen protection within a reasonable time frame.

"Half-assed" is being kind to Nokia. I'm a big fan of what they are trying to achieve but even I am slowly losing my patience. Between now and the "N900" they need to step it up, or frankly just give it up and not bother.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Milhouse,

I feel compelled to raise questions in response to your comments:

I can only speak for the 770 (and this is a 770 thread), but since upgrading to latest IT2006 i haven't had any Nokia app crash or even behave strangely. What bugs are you talking about? Could it be that your post is full of allegations which are never supported which sets a general tone that prevents them from being taken seriously?

So you would prefer to pay a third-party company a lot of money for applications of 'excellent quality', developed for a new OS in very limited time. OK then: Divide the software development costs by the number of end-users of the app and then divide that by the fraction of people who would actually pay for (rather than pirate) the software to get the marginal cost, per app, that your proposal entails.

How are these 'sub standard dross' for bundled applications? Can you name for us a free application bundle - developed in-house for a comparable device in a comparable timeframe - that are 'excellent quality' by your ineffable standards? What do you mean by 'lack of integration' and what UI elements are inconsistent, exactly?

The total lack of analysis that you have provided shows a lack of cognition - How is Minimo, S60 or "whatever" better?

Nothing about the comments contained in your post screams of quality, and it's expecting an awful lot from third-party developers like myself to understand what you mean by 'such a shaky foundation'. How is Canola 'often flawed' but not always? What do you imagine to be the underlying problems with the stock Nokia firmware? What causes you displeasure with mplayer? I find it to be one of the most flexible and powerful media players ever made, and with the accelerated YUV/RGB it just 'screams' on my 770.

What encounters with Nokia support lead you to call it a farce? I own a 770 and just installed the latest maemo2.1 released in November 2006. That's a free, current OS upgrade that has made my device rock-solid.

Here is your first concrete point, and I agree that the n800 would have been better with a cover or a case. But if you decide to purchase a product without a case, you will get a product without a case. Do you also publically slam the manufacturer if you buy a jacket without a hood? Did Nokia falsely advertise the 800 as having a cover?

Comparing my 770, where over 90% of things are 'right', against your post in which over 90% of your claims are unsupported, I wonder whom to respect more; Nokia, who develops a new OS and creates an entirely new category of low cost Internet tablet, or someone who doesn't 'bother' to create a constructive, cogent critique?

To be taken seriously, a critique or analysis of a product must reflect some understanding of the field; it must compare like products based on similar technology being sold at a comparable price point.

To not be taken seriously, a critique or analysis can compare bundled apps for a new OS on a niche product with a small user base to high price commercial software, or to the best-of-breed open-source software from the PC world, or to some thoughtless users perfect personal fantasy wish-ware.

Arnim

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

I don't really want to be part of a flame war, but have you people noticed that there IS actually screen protector film covering the screen.

So, in case your device is scratched, you can always replace that film with a new screen protector.

The film is of very poor quality though, but, anyway, it is there, nevertheless.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

This could get ugly. :eek:

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Go and read up on the OS 2006 AND OS 2007 bugs against Email, RSS, Browser, Media Player etc. in Bugzilla. Just because you aren't aware of the bugs doesn't mean they don't exist, or that I'm making them up.

I've paid $400 for the device - I expect at the very least "good" quality applications, applications that are fit for purpose which is definately not what can be said about the Email client or the RSS news reader. Opera is OK, but has a number of flaws that will not be fixed because Nokia don't control the browser on *their* INTERNET TABLET device. Surely if there is one application that Nokia should have total control over, it's the browser. As for UI incosistencies, read the web review of the Internet Tablet UI by Sean Luke.

You appear very happy with mediocre and sub-standard Nokia applications, that's fantastic, I'm very happy for you. I simply believe Nokia should do better, and the vast number of bugs in Bugzilla tend to bear this out - go read it. If you want to know about my dealings with Nokia UK support, read the forum - I won't repeat it here.

I knew the N800 didn't come with a case, but Nokia have been promising a case accessory for 3 months - where is it? You seem to have misunderstood the point I'm making, perhaps in your haste to respond. Try reading it again.

As for the rest of the post, I don't have the time to respond but it's clear you aren't reading this forum or Maemo bugzilla, otherwise you would be better informed.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

It appears one of Nokia strengths is also one of its perceived weaknesses.

Let me start by saying I bought my Nokia 770 (and n800) to do a specific job; replace my laptop when I travel. I need simple applications; email, web, remote access (to our business systems) and a way of giving presentations to customers. The nokia does all this and fits in my pocket: Job done!

Now compare it with other platforms (windows mobile for example) and you discover its amazing strength and weakness. And as an aside you also become aware of the difference between the Microsoft and Nokia approach to the market.

I used to use an xda 2i. It worked well for email, was limited for web browsing and useless for remote access (even though it came with the remote desktop software). But from the day I got it out of the box until the day I put it in a cupboard it ran the same software and had the same limitations! There was a small range of third party software product available - all of them over priced for the functionality offered.

So to the utopia that is my n770 and then n800. The email client is no doubt weak but claws-mail isn't! A free, stable, easy to install alternative - oh yes and fast! The standard web browser is fine 90% of the time but can't access our company intranet because of the windows security but minimo does - no problem...oh yes and it was free, stable and easy to install. (I think I can see a pattern)...RDesktop (version 0.1 worked for me....version 0.4 is much improved)...VNC (a little messing with the first releases but they worked, the current version on my n800 is excellent).

The point is simple: n800 is a very diverse platform and can be moulded to the needs of the individual. My requirements are the next persons requirements and what nokia has achieved is to build a trully portable platform (it still fits in my pocket!), with good battery life AND made it so that people can extend the platform with software.

So what to criticise? Well I can understand; the standard email client and web browser have limitations which really give a very poor perception - and beyond that video stopping after 20 minutes or so was another limitation (now fixed on my n800).

If this was a Microsoft device the platform would not exist because commercially it is too hard to control. Who is the typical n770/n800 owner? What do they want to do with the device? What is important to them? These questions are hard to answer. So Nokia have simply thrown out a rather "unfocused" device and said to people "See what you can make of this". As I result my expectations of the n770/n800 may be vastly different from the next persons; who may have even more different expectations than the next person.

The price of this freedom is organic development. Which means that the software I would like to see developed might happen very slowly but the software you want happens quickly - for example I have no interest in Canola! (It does sound like a pasta dish to me).

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Despite what others may think, I do actually applaud Nokia for what they have achieved so far :) Which is all the more reason why I'm so aggrieved when they let down the excellent hardware with such mediocre software offerings such as the email client, RSS news reader, media player etc. Sure, these applications can all be replaced by free, open source alternatives but should it be necessary, as it currently is? The device should be supplied with tip-top applications, open source or closed, that work well together and give a very positive user experience. The unfortunate truth is, the standard applications fail by a wide margin to give a positive user experience.

It's the rough edges that are present in the built-in applications (and still present in the N800, which is essentially a v2 product ) that let the device down, and which need addressing in the long term, whether by rewriting or replacing with OSS alternatives.

My view is - and in the last couple of posts, this is mainly where I'm coming from - that the future Internet Tablets should be usable by people like my Dad who know absolutely nothing about OSS alternatives. Within reason, the out-of-box Internet Tablet experience should not require a new user to consider OSS alternatives to replace or augment the default applications. Unfortunately, OSS is currently an absolute necessity for new users. I only hope that by v3 (the "N900") Nokia will be closer to the holy grail. :)

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

There are some good points interspersed amongst the tension-laden remarks. ;)

IMO the linux community at large (Mozilla particularly) should be behind the 770 and N800 full force, as was stated in the recent inquirer review. So to to that extent, let's all do our part by redirecting the energy expended into debate here toward lobbying that community to step up and embrace the devices that best exemplify their goals. I'm gonna ramp up my own efforts.

Let's go!

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Great comment Texrat!

I don't know what others think but perhaps the simplest thing that could be done that would have an immediate impact on usability and configurability would be a single repository. I know that is what I have spent (invested, wasted!, learnt) most time trying to figure out. How to get the right repositories to install the great bit of software I have just read about on here!

In terms of getting "our" dads, mums, grans using internet tablets and to give them with something that the out of the box feel then a single place where you can see and install all the software would be great!

On another note! as a user I would like to thank everyone who has spent time and effort porting or writing applications for the n770/n800. There are some very talented and generous people out there making alot of other people's tablets better!

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

I'd also like to see consolidated repositories. I hope there are some people in the Maemo community who have experience with managing debian repositories, and the technical and political issues that go along with them.

Also, the recent firmware update solved a lot of the stability issues that I was having. I love this device.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Seperate repositories are necessary to differentiate between classes of apps. Nokia vs 3rd party, tightly integrated vs add-ons.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Hey thanks for the response Milhouse,

I spent some time reviewing your oevre of posts to these forums, so I now have some background on your considerable user experience.

I don't spend much time with those apps, so I confess that my question was born out of ignorance. My apologies. Exposure to bugs depends on usage patterns, and ours clearly differ.

a. Email clients are a waste of time for me; I use web-mail.
b. RSS is newsspam. No thanks.
c. Media Player is decent, for a bundled app, but uninteresting to me because
i. mplayer is highly mature, powerful and now uses dsp acceleration
ii. PDAs/Tablets aren't hi-fi and music libraries are a waste of mmc space.

I found it informative to discover a 2005 post of yours claiming that your 640x480 Windows PDA was left gathering dust since your acquisition of the 770. So a brand-new niche OS and application suite beat the world leading portable OS? Why did you prefer it if "The quality of the applications on Internet Tablets is very, very poor"?

Ok. I see now that those apps are frequently criticised by others.

I'll grant you these as well, with the reservation that I've had less problems with Nokias Opera than with the majority of browsers i've ever used.

Modern browsers have to contend with a cancerously bloated set of technologies served-up in part by broken or evil websites. Flash is monstrously inefficient technology and nobody who understands it should expect it to run well on ARM.
(edit) so... Your web browsing experience is largely determined by what kind of sites you visit.


Thanks for the hint. http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/n800/
That's a very educational read, and he makes several valid points. But a good deal of his critique is based on the fact that maemo isn't designed from the ground-up as a PDA OS. I could make a similar comparison between my Psion Netbook and the 770, but that would be ignoring the fact that maemo is built on linux - a desktop OS.

I'm not a heavy user of the Nokia applications. I bought it because it was great hardware with the best ever display, ran linux and could run ports of my favorite geeky apps.

I read the reviews and learned what i was buying before I plunked down my money. Nearly every reviewer pointed out that the device did not compete with PDAs out-of-the box. This is kind of unfortunate, because a higly sophisticated PIM suite could have opened up new markets for these devices. But to be fair and realistic, the 770/800 are dirt cheap compared to tablet competitors, and for Nokia to develop best-of-breed apps in-house, from the ground up, at this price point would have required a heavy financial committment for an OS that only runs on their product. I expect they took a serious look at Apple's Newton and Psion's market failures before setting their level of investment and exposure on this venture.

Fair enough, but no thanks.

Fair enough. If they promised a case they should deliver one.

I search bugzilla when I encounter a bug, and that's been a pleasantly rare experience. I admit to being generally uninformed about what others are saying here, but that's probably because i've spent too many years reading other forums dominated by user whining.

And that class of users will buy a non-free, tightly controlled and integrated tablet from Apple, when they get around to releasing one.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Wow, where have I heard these similar discussion points about platforms, OS, and software?

I know, this very forum. http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ead.php?t=4953

Not to open old wounds or issue out: "I told you so's", the current status can use a bit of improvement that will appeal to the mass market. By taking the advice of a few here, I realized that I was expecting too much from the N800 and was maybe trying to get it to do things it was not designed to do right now. By adding some available software, the new GAIM as an example, and Canola, I have a pretty good mobility device that meets most of my needs. Do I need more? Of course. Hopefully between Nokia and the various communities involved, new and exciting applications will be developed that will appeal to the masses, and pure user base.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Glad to see this thread getting over the ruffled feathers and back onto productive discourse... for the most part anyway. I hate to see 2 of my favorite posters in a pissing contest. :p

So... has anyone else started spamming other linux venues yet? I've hit a couple. And anyone have Mr. Torvald's email address? We need some big time champions to elevate the awareness (and hence support) of the tablets! Hmmm... wonder if Larry Ellision needs another quixotic quest...

EDIT: back to my original subject-- new 770 user opportunity occurs tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on a certain ops manager. Brace for impact! :D

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

How many units are we talking about?

(edit) I talk to everybody I know about the 770 and I take it with me. Everybody assumes it's a phone cause of the Nokia name :|

As far as publicity goes, what about giving out leftover 770s to well known people in exchange for a 'celebrity endorsement'?

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Offhand I know of at least 35, because I prepped those myself. Maybe more. And of course there's always the possibility few or none are sold...

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

I prefer the Internet Tablet to my iPAQ because I prefer to browse the web on an 800x480 screen - having browsed on the iPAQ 640x480 screen I quickly realised it was unsatisfactory (even using Minimo) due to the feeling of being cramped. These days I would never recommend a screen size less than 800x4800 for any device with serious web surfing aspirations.

The Windows Mobile devices are more polished in look & feel than the Internet Tablets - the apps that Microsoft ships with the devices generally work quite well, within their limitations. Some of the Nokia apps simply don't work, which is not acceptable. The Nokia software QA is simply not up to scratch. Email doesn't work, and certain new features on the N800 RSS news reader have rendered it worthless, and that's before we get onto the other serious bugs in that app (such as deleting entire feed settings for no apparent reason).

"Rough edges" is what I'm talking about, the Internet Tablet software offering has too many of them.

I do find it perplexing that Nokia have gone with a closed source browser when Nokia already offer their own browser on Symbian (S60 browser based on WebKit, apparently very good) and have financially funded the development of Minimo to the tune of several million dollars. The focus of the Internet Tablets is web browsing, yet Nokia have given responsibility for this critical application to a third party and Nokia seem to have no direct control over the browser and it's flaws due to licensing issues. This seems a risky and bizarre approach given the alternatives they could have pursued (maybe they will in future - lets hope so).

I agree about Flash, maybe the situation will improve with Flash 9 but OSS alternatives to Flash aren't quite as advanced as the browsers so there is no real choice but to go with a Adobe implementation. Maybe in a couple more years OSS will be in better shape. :)

I'm not sure if Linux has anything to do with the UI discrepencaies that Sean Luke is highlighting - the UI is based on Hildon which Nokia have developed, admittedly on top of Linux but it could just as easily have been on top of any other OS, it's just the UI layer. With tighter control and better UI guidelines the UI could/should be more consistent across applications (certainly the Nokia provided applications). It's not as consistent as it could be, and can be improved.

But there's no reason why they shouldn't consider a Nokia Internet Tablet when they want something that "just works, and works well". With some effort spent smoothing out the rough edges, the Internet Tablets can be made to be just as user friendly as an Apple tablet would be without sacrificing the geek factor for those who still want it. We know Apple have achieved this already for Unix on the desktop and if Apple turn their attention to tablets with a similar form factor to the Nokia, my complaints about poor software quality won't simply have been a user whining, they will have been a user prophecising! :)

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Tada: http://www.axiotron.com/

The ModBook or TableMac

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

It's funny how the Nokia brand has probably done as much harm as good in terms of this product - a huge phone company produces a non-phone product, and confusion ensues among the simple minded. I've lost count of the conversations I've had that went as follows...

"Hey, look at this!"
"Ah, Nokia - you've got yourself a new phone"
"No, it's not a phone. It's an internet tablet"
"A what?"
"An internet tablet, for surfing the web using your phone or WiFi. But it's not a phone"
"So why isn't it a phone? I'd like it more if it were a phone"
"It doesn't need to be a phone - you have Bluetooth for that"
"But it's made by Nokia. They make phones. And this isn't a phone. I don't get it"
"Oh for Gods sake!" :)
etc.

Perhaps Nokia should have created a new brand and distanced themselves from this device. :)

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

That would have been ideal IMO.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

That is true, but there's still a Right Way and a Wrong Way. The Right Way (aka the Debian Way) is that if you create a repository to put your application in, then any dependencies are to be resolved by either
a) keeping the dependencies in the same repo (i.e. anything in the repo that needs some library will find the library in the same repo).
or
b) dependencies can be resolved by packages in the "core" repositories, which for the N800 would be the Nokia catalogue repos, and would in practice probably also have to include repository.maemo.org, but then that repo should have been in the default list on an N800 fresh from the box.

The N800 (and 770) repos are unfortunately to some extent set up the Wrong Way, that is, dependencies have to be resolved by hunting down an awful lot of repositories until you find the obscure one that has what some application in another obscure repo needs. This situation should be easy to clean up.

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

I'm in agreement with TA-t3. There are still a few issues preventing the N800 from going mainstream, and the current repository fiasco is a big one, and one that is easily rectified. Talk about low-hanging fruit, and bang for the buck! I'm surprised the situation has been allowed to persist this long...

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

There is a Finnish brand of tyres called "Nokian".. I'll swear they used to be "Nokia tyres" in the past. [Just googled a bit] Yep, that seems to be right.. it was the same company up until 2003, but they rebranded the tyres from Nokia to Nokian somewhen between 1967 and 1988. In the eighties is my guess.

"Nokia wheels: Connecting people.."

Re: Heads up: new users may be coming
 

Nokia was in the rubber business for a long time. Paper business too. ;)