I don't work at Nokia, but I believe that Maemo, as a whole, was started to become the next high-end OS for their phones and that the pieces of hardware and releases of Maemo were pretty much just meant to be public betas for what Maemo was to become. When that five-step plan for Maemo was shown by... I think Ari, I was sure of it.

The tablets probably were never expected to do anything except cultivate a developer community and improvements to Maemo before the real target hardware (Fremantle) is released.

As for why Apple's stuff matured faster than the iPhone... I don't know if it has or not. Only someone that's been on the inside at Apple can really say. A fanatical userbase is definitely part of it.

I think another reason why Maemo hasn't matured as fast is because the tablets, to this point, are specialized pieces of hardware. They're branded as internet tablets, not as phones. Developers are less interested in something like that. That's why I believe that once we'll have Maemo running on a more attractive piece of hardware, a phone, we'll start seeing a lot more interest (though I would be lying if I said the interest would be up to Apple's levels). People need phones... they can do without internet tablets. Android is on a phone, so pretty much automatically you've got a lot more people interested in something like that.

Again, I could be all wrong here... that's just my theory and viewpoint on it. Let's see what Fremantle brings.