If I buy the N900, I would buy it for both. I mean, why include any features at all, if it's just about the platform and the applications that will come later? I think the camera is pretty basic and they could have done more, from what I've read.

Okay, I absolutely never said that programs could just by copy and pasted. I know what Maemo is, alright. It's a big part of what I like about the N900. But what I said in my post is that Nokia knows how to do camera applications. The common ground is Nokia and the N series. It's knowing how to do the design that counts, far more than having to rewrite it for another OS. Nokia knows what features people like and have come to expect in an N series device. And being one of the the best camera's you can get in a phone is one of those things. It's not rocket science, because Nokia's already figured out the design questions.

In fact, if it's such a big deal to develop the same features for Maemo as were already in Symbian, then why did Nokia include so much and leave a few things out? It makes no sense for Nokia to decide to put a lot of work into a camera application, but leave it a little incomplete, because maybe the community will fix it for them later. And in the end, if Maemo is such a break from Symbian, then why call it an N series phone? Why deliberately provoke all the expectations that come with that? Why not make up some new series name?

It seems to me, that if people want to maintain that not having more than two resolutions available for images and no self-timer nor contrast controls, has come to pass for the N900, because it's Maemo and not Symbian, then people have to give a reason why these things were deliberately left out. Otherwise, they were left out simply because Nokia didn't get around to it. And for $600 and a phone that Nokia wants to call an N series phone, that's a little shoddy.