I've no illusion that your position isn't overwhelmingly more common, but as one of those rare dwellers of that tiny island at the opposing pole, it was comforting for a time thinking a company as large as Nokia finally wanted to serve my niche. I wouldn't be holding an N900 right now were it not for those previous, "pocket Linux computer that's not a phone" devices. I wouldn't have a cellular phone at all.

The first Engadget posting about the 770 was the most exciting electronic device news I've ever read. I had printouts of the press photos pinned up all around my office. But were it not for joining the Maemo community to celebrate those early devices, I wouldn't have read more than the first line of any Engadget post regarding the N900. Just another phone.

At the most recent summit, Ari explained away the confusion. Nokia hadn't set out to make companion devices for cellular phones, and of course they hadn't set out to make my dream not-a-phone pocket Linux computer. Instead, they'd started the Maemo project to prepare for what was then a widely predicted future, one that never came. In that future, ubiquitous municipal WiFi networks made cellular networks and phones near-obsolete, and it might have been the Cisco iPhone that was making a grab for Nokia's lunch.

Of course, once the telecom companies spread enough money and lawyers around to kill what was to be Maemo's original playground, Nokia had to pull the project back into the conventional, cellular fold in order to drive it toward widespread acceptance and use. The move is very reasonable, quite understandable, and guaranteed to bring a wider audience. At the same time, it leaves some of us who grabbed on early as Maemo rocketed past our strange little niches slightly bewildered as to where we're going and whether it's safe for us to keep holding on.