Originally Posted by tschak909

I am a developer who has had the N950 since the first wave were released to developers back in July.

Some things I can say after months of constantly using and developing for the phone:

* The combination of C++ and QML has allowed me to develop an app that not only interfaces to a large existing code base (LinuxMCE), but also gives us a next generation UI that we are crossing over to on-screen displays, tablets, and handsets across Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Fremantle, Harmattan, MeeGo, and Android, currently.

* The pre-release software has some bugs, yes. But they did not impact my day to day use of the phone, nor did they impede my ability to write applications. I have hit the power button a grand total of 4 times in the months since I first got the N950, 3 of those were to deal with the dialer UI disappearing (was not able to hang up a call), 1 was to deal with a race condition in my app that was causing hell. I call this very stable for development hardware, the most stable I've ever used.

* This _is_ the best operating system Nokia has ever built, period. It suffers from none of the scalability problems and restrictions of Symbian, and it is fast and responsive.

* The usability, performance, and feature issues I had with Fremantle, were not only dealt with in Harmattan, but were vastly surpassed.

* Remember guys, this phone could very well have become vapourware, but it isn't. The phone hardware exists, is being mass produced, and can be bought. Yes, it is the last one of the line, but I applaud that the entire Nokia Internet Tablet experiment HAPPENED, and that PRODUCTION units were made of not one, but SIX different units (I do count the N950 in this list, because the N950 IS production tooled.)

I _am_ depressed about the fact that I am developing software for a phone that very few people will see, but with my combination of ANSI STL based C++, Qt based C++, and QML, my code is both reasonably portable (it does run just fine as a JNI under the Android NDK, and faster than the equivalent Dalvik app!), and performs very well, and will continue to do so, as I move it to other platforms. (C/C++ will always have to be an option because of commercial game developers who _INSIST_ on having the OPTION to write native code!)

While I do understand the long term frustrations of many on the various threads throughout the years on T.M.O. ... it really could have been worse. I've witnessed far worse happening to superior platforms over the last 25 some odd years...

We need to understand that ultimately, most victories are small, they move progress in tiny steps. Maemo, Moblin, and MeeGo, and even Android have set precedent for an open operating system environment (please, no pedantism! A little open, is better than completely closed, because being open is very much like a crack in the dam, eventually more water gets through, and the dam collapses.), we need to stop acting like little children who want our cake "now", and be both productive and patient, working towards a future where as time goes on, more and more of what is created by both the community, and companies with community interests are open.

-Thom Cherryhomes
Core Developer - LinuxMCE
http://www.linuxmce.org/