As michaelalanjones observed: "You know, that's the thing about embedded devices ... they continue to work". The 770 does what Nokia designed it to do very very well. Any additional apps and functionality that the community contributes are strictly 'bonus' material, provided for free.

It is easy to lose sight of the fact that the userbase and hence developer base for the device is a tiny fraction of that for x86 linux PCs. It's easy to forget that for most of computing and open-source history, unpolished UIs and incomplete implementations were normal, especially when the given userbase was below a million.

Maemo and the scratchbox environment make porting and writing applications really easy and fun (otherwise i wouldn't have gotten anywhere), but few real programmers are going to approach development for these devices with a professional focus, especially when Maemo hasn't yet taken off as a cross-platform tablet OS.

This is not to discount Hedgecore's lamentations; I too would like to see good developers flock to the Nokia, and i'm somewhat surprised at how many people (even in the linux community) haven't heard of the products. But let's not lose sight of the fact that these are pioneering products - a lot of people haven't woken up to the possibilities they open-up at this price point.

For me the greatest thing about these devices is that they are PDAs for which even 'bears of little brain' like myself can actually write and port usable programs. I'm someone who hasn't managed to release or port any* software in his whole life, yet the N770 has inspired me to do so -- it's been more fun, and easy, than I could have imagined.

Thanks, Nokia!