What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

We are all pissed with how Nokia has treated Maemo, and then Meego with the recent partnership announcement with Microsoft. However, we also know that Nokia has been in trouble for quite a long time and I think we all know that Symbian was really heading towards a dead end.

What do you think Nokia should have done instead?

I wrote what I think in blogform (finally something to get me started on my blog lol). Its quite long, so I'm going to link to it and quote my summary.

http://hawkstah.com/technology/what-...th-maemomeego/
DIscuss :)

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

I cant say what they should have done since I haven't really seen it for myself.

What they should do since they already dumped it, is to release is as an open-source package so we can still actually get it on our phones ;)

Ofcourse I know due a lot of reasons they won't but still, Let a man dream :P!

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

it simply is a question of live or die. it is that simple, unfortunately. Meego does not have to die though. it is open source. were everybody waiting for intel and nokia to do all the work. Arena still is open. I'm still wating for a Meego tablet from nokia this year

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

I think you've overlooked the advantages of apps and appstores.

btw, were you talking about n900 when you were saying:

'if the phone function of your smartphone is deemed inferior?'

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

I know the advantages, I'm saying for Nokia to fight, the apps ecosystem does not need to be the focus, its a battle they can't win. They can innovate and fight where others are not and actually make a come back from that position.

You don't have to fight all battles head on.

The n900 is unpolished, but even in its unpolised state, as a phone (a tool for communication), I've not seen a rival. Personally, I've been so spoilt with how the n900 handles SMS and IMs, not to mention phone calls and skype, that when I try to use iOS or Android, I feel that they're not getting it right.

Its like using an iphone when it first came out, then trying to use another smartphone, the difference in experience is huge. That's how I feel with the n900, its unpolished, but even in its unpolished state, it provides a superior user experience.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

The real question is how are e getting someone else than Nokia to do it for and _with_ us? What are our next steps? Ranting doesn't change anything, we need to do something!

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

Nokia had another project program after the N900 called columbus. From my understanding it was the next generation for maemo, however they canned it suggesting that they wanted to focus on the N900; of course we now realise that was a load of **** and the deal to kill maemo and produce meego had already been done. If Nokia had any sisku they could pull out a rework of the N900 - ie. Fix the rough edges, put in 1G of ram, sort the swap organisation. But they won't as they have nuked the bridges with TI.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

That's absolutely true, and this is the same that I feel. In many other things, the n900 just cannot even fight, such as maps, dictionaries, etc. But when you use your phone for what it is really important (at least for me), this is web browsing, skype/gtalk talks, when I go to the iphone it's just going back in time.

So now, I am thinking that perhaps Android (the current versions) provides a similar experience. I don't know, but the tablet videos look amazing. I guess I am a future user of android then ...

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

MeeGo is still alive. Nokia will ship a MeeGo device this year for christ sake. They will continue to do that, one each year or so. But it will only be for enthusiasts.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

What CAN we do?

We do have a few developers working on the n900, providing some patches/fix and apps to both maemo/meego, but there's no leadership and focus. You have the sailors, you have the boat, but you don't have a ship captain,

I know ranting won't change anything, but it does voice out our grief. There is a business opportunity here, and I'm keeping my eye out for a chance to capitalise on it, but for now all I can do is rant and discuss possible actions which Nokia could have taken and perhaps build a strategy around that.

It will not be supported and focus will not be on it. The partnership with Microsoft is in conflict with the development and advancement of Meego.

So while we can expect a Meego device from Nokia, we really can't rely on it in the long term.

I've used Android, and it provides a similar experience to the iphone. Its still not as good as the n900. The only one that is giving me hope is the WebOS, will have to see how that one turns out.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

Source?

They've stated they're releasing a product (a slate, it seems?) this year, and continuing Meego development, but I hadn't heard anything about further products.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

They should have been competent. They should have made phones with modern hardware. They should have used one, fully featured and scalable OS on all of their phones.

Lots of shoulds, but the management were still far too delusional from the Nokia glory of the past.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

In answer to the OP i know what they should NOT have done and that is bring out the N900 based on Maemo software knowingly tricking us with promises and updates that never happened because the crew working on Maemo were obviously not good enough and not working as a team.

Quim told us how fantastic this Maemo was going to be and it did not work out and it was NOT his fault, blame that on the grasshoppers that just failed in there work on Maemo leaving Quim in the air feeling somewhat let down to say the least !.

Nokia then should NOT have promised us Meego and then dump that within a few month and i bet you this was also because of lacking software engineers who did not do there job.

I would like some answers from Nokia for sure because i just do not see the logic in the way they portayed this N900 FLAGSHIP and the resulting practically non exsistant backup for the Maemo OS.

Whoever thought out the Maemo concept in theory was good but without the support of the OS team it should never have been released.

When the N900 was released it had far too many flaws and very little in the way of apps going for it and it now appears Nokia could not sustain the OS and instead eventually gave up on the idea... ask yourself why ok.

When prototypes are tested they are supposed to be field tested thoroughly for any flaws, this was clearly not the case for the OS of the N900.

I would also like to know what and how Maemo.org came about, was it to support the OS or was it to give hobbiest programmers the opportunity to write for the Maemo OS.

For Maemo.org members to even be capable of writing OS software and apps it could not have done so without the relevent data sheets on every device on the m/b of the N900, you simple cannot write software and address unknown components, it is absurd to even suggest.

Many questions here but i can tell you from my own experiance and watching now after over a years performance that Nokia clearly did not do the background proggramming that was needed prior to release as the OS itself was very meager for the want of a better phrase.

Had i been in charge of the N900 development , it would never have left the factory without reasonable apps and fully field tested for flaws.

Nokia have now shown to me at least that they are very cumbersome and slap happy in there design and badly lack software engineers capable of the job.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

What they should have done is have more than 3 developers in all of Nokia working on it.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

They had much more than 3 devs working on it.

I just wished that things would have been released in a finished form, not unfinished as we've gotten accustomed to.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

No. Just... no.

Meego is a large project, started as a partnership between Intel (their entire Moblin team) and Nokia (part of their Maemo team; since Maemo was a shipping product, part of them stuck around for "support", such as it is). Intel's not going anywhere, and they have slightly more than three people. There's also other corporate partners contributing now, and I can name at least three non-Nokia members of the Maemo community who are actively contributing to Meego, and there's also plenty of community involvement from the Moblin side, as well as some newcomers...

Then within Nokia, there's all the people making contributions to Meego itself -- I don't really know how many. These guys make all the stuff that's common across Meego devices, or is specific to Nokia devices (e.g. hardware drivers) but not a competitive advantage.

Then finally, there's the group working on Nokia's UI customization to Meego -- Nokia's special sauce that differentiates a Nokia Meego device from, say, an HTC Meego device; THIS team is three people. Which, frankly, is not necessarily a bad thing or undercommitment; mythical man-month and all that.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

Nokia's new definition for the MeeGo platform devices is to use it as a test platform for "future disruptions". This means they will innovate with it to find out and learn new trends, such as they should've done for touch screens with Symbian for example.

With MeeGo being the high-end of the old Nokia, I think Nokia can't release too many MeeGo devices because it might end up confusing their strategy to analysts etc. Besides, I think the biggest fear is that MeeGo will direct attention away from WP7 devices.

Personally I feel that Elop isn't interested in making Nokia successful nor is he interested in truly innovating the mobile space. He is in it for Microsoft to make a better buck on mobile devices. This has become clear with him being among the biggest shareholders of Microsoft and his hiring of former Microsoftians into Nokia. I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing a fusion of Mic n Nok in the very near future.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

That quote was a little funny to me as I understood it as the people contributing from Nokia side to MeeGo Handset UX reference applications, ie, the open source ones. Handset UX apps - Which was primarily Intel's responsibility. Rest of Handset UX stack (compositor, toolkit, etc) was Nokia doing that.

I think those 'three' might actually have been from our Nokia N900 hardware adaptation team as we did contribute and help where we could, to move things faster ahead.

Keep in mind MeeGo Handset UX != Nokia's differentiation

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

Ah, I could be misunderstanding it. That would make sense with it being an "external" team, too.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

I agree wholeheartedly, though I'm glad they brought the n900 out to the market anyway, it showed us something different. And if i recall, the n900 wasn't really meant for the masses, it was an experimental phone.

Something like a prototype for devs to get used writing apps for, but it got alot more popular than expected. They unfortunately didn't polish the OS enough even with the increased demand, and didnt come out with any additional devices geared for the masses.

I wouldn't blame their technical team, I would blame their management. Nokia has the talent and skills, it just wasn't managed properly. There was no proper vision for maemo (and later meego), and they didn't push it as hard as they could have.

Look at HP, when they bought over Palm to get webOS, they dedicated resources to making sure it works. From the way they presented a few days ago, it just shows how much thought was put into the product.

Its not just about a great idea, its also about how the idea is executed, nokia had the great idea, they didn't have the proper execution.

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

here's to hoping intel is able to pull developers into meego after being backstabbed by nokia. hopefully independent developers back meego.. lotsa hopes there...

Re: What Nokia should have done with maemo/meego
 

They should have released 2 meego handset in may or June of this year 1 midrange 1 highend both with quad band gsm and cdma variants. They should have began marketing meego this month after announcing the devices at MWC this includes a few magazine and newspaper ads and 1 or 2 commercials. They should have offered incentives for North American carriers to carry the phones, not an ongoing thing but something to get them in stores and into consumer hands to start building a brand here. They should have released 2 additional devices around November this year another highend and midrange device. They should have worked to broker a deal with hp/palm to bring ovi maps and services as well as QT to WebOS in exchange for manufacturing WebOS phones and use that as a possible migration strategy for symbian, remember Palm was huge for mobile devices not long ago and still has a good developer following. This would have allowed them to begin scalling back symbian development and increase meego development, all the while bringing third party development to another platform increasing it's developer community.