Haha that video never gets old. That's how I felt when the iPhone finally got A2DP and I realized it had no AVRCP.

So far, the only strategy that seems to have worked is Apple's, which really pisses me off. They are control freaks but, to their credit, they brought order to the world of smartphones in 2 years. They have an app store, ipod functionality, easy backup via iTUnes etc. Essentially all you have to do is connect the phone to your PC and it's all done...I have not experienced that with ANY Nokia products so far.

Nokia is still stuck in "release new hardware every 6 months with the same crippled software" mode. Why and why should anybody even care? Android is also starting to take off so there are quite a few choices out there. I'm still amazed that 2-3 years later Nokia is still dazed from the iPhone. I am also amazed that I am stuck using a product I don't really like simply because it gets the job done extremely well.

Here's an example

iPhone:

1. Press sturdy button on top, slide finger on glass to unlock....great feeling.
2. Press safari and watch the butter smooth zoom efect while it oppens.
3. Start scrolling through the page looking for stuff...perfectly smooth scrolling.
4. Throw the phone back in my pocket...done.

N900:

1. LOOK for the button on the side and slide it down...or press the button on top.
2. If button on top, slide my finger across the display, watch the choppy animation of the slider...hmmm.
3. Press the browser and wonder what happened to the other 30 frames that were dropped from the zoom effect while it pops up
4. Go to a page and try scrolling while it's loading and watch checkered patterns for a good 5 seconds every time I scroll.
5. Done loading, I can finally find stuff.
6. LOOK for the button on the side to lock the phone and put it back in my pocket.

Open source is great and I love the ability to tinker with my devices to hell and back. Let's face it though...Does anybody here think open source can compete with paid for apps...with possibly dozens or paid programmers working on them? Maybe in a few rare cases...Generally though, open source translates to "it works" but that's about it. This will fall EXTREMELY short of the new standard, which is user experience. There are 20 billion phones out there and they all go online...However, only a few will do it smoothly. Enthusiasm is starting to change to dictatorial demands from consumers because of all these choices. It's my way or after the 20 second review you're out.

I would love to see the open source community step up their game but it hasn't happened in all this time with Linux, what makes you think it will happen with Maemo?