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Posts: 1,589 | Thanked: 720 times | Joined on Aug 2009 @ Arlington (DFW), Texas
#252
Originally Posted by nilchak View Post
Unless Google maps comes to Maemo (and Nokia should pursue this), GPS functionality on Maemo leaves much to be desired.
I'd prefer they bring Ovi Maps up to par with Google Maps, perhaps by allowing free navigation for 18-24 months or life of the device, and improving the interface. Adding voice search could be done easily, I think, but where the results come from is probably not so simple. Yahoo/Bing, maybe?

I don't want Nokia to stop developing Ovi Maps. I like it better than Google because of its offline maps and its Navteq images, which are the best in the world since the latest Worldview-2 satellite deal. If they do, there will only be Google Maps, and that would allow Google to start charging exorbitantly for the service as the lone provider.

And this is where I am a bit sceptical of the Linux open source developers - I have always as a end user wanted apps - consumer apps, but since the Zaurus days I see linux devs "porting" system tools and claiming app counts. Frankly - I am no sys admin - so VNC, curl, SFTP, SSH, and all that matter less to me as "applications" I want apps which will fulfill my end user need like Stocks monitor, portfolio manager, timesheet app, project planning, note taking, reminders and tasks todo's, and all these types.

During the Zaurus days I was very dissapointed in this aspect. With Maemo I am more positive about it - but still the geekiness around me sometimes makes me sceptical a bit.
We have to remember this isn't a smartphone is the classic sense of the word, but a portable desktop device. What apps do you use on your desktop? Aside from the Photoshops, ProTools, and Nuendo apps, most of us use browser based services and apps. This will be the case for the N900 as well. As for IM and social networking, there are built-in features at the platform level. So the development of apps will be focused on real utilities that can revolutionize mobile computing, not just make it easier to do the things we've always done on our PC's on our phones. Maemo will be the sandbox for mobile innovation.
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