Originally Posted by Rocketman

Well, to me the lack of a significant firmware update to date shows a lack of commitment to THIS DEVICE that is worrisome given the pattern of releases on previous Maemo devices. Nokia has tended to release a couple minor firmware updates for each device with a significant drop in the level of support once the next device is on the market. Many major, significant bugs get the "Won't Fix" or "Fixed in next version" treatment, with the end result being that no device ever reaches maturity.

I believe this pattern is one of the reasons there has been little large scale or commercial application development for the Maemo platform ---- because it isn't treated as a platform. Each device is a one-off with a limited window of exploitability before the next product cycle.

I really think that Nokia has to stop thinking in terms of individual retail products and start thinking in terms of a platform that is supported over multiple devices over a MUCH longer time horizon. In the desktop application space, I have applications that were created over a decade ago that I still run on a regular basis, despite having upgraded Windows three or four times. I have been able to run three or more versions of Windows on the same underlying hardware, as well. This sort of experience has become a major expectation of users in the Smart-phone space, with Apple releasing significant new OS releases for older hardware, while maintaining application compatibility, with newer hardware simply being faster and having support for additional new hardware features. Android seems to be adopting this as well, with older devices receiving upgrades to newer versions of the OS (1.6-2.1). The expectation for business applications compatibility on Windows is on the order of a DECADE. I don't claim we need that level for a phone, given how rapidly the mobile space is developing, but I would really like to see Maemo/Meego be a stable, consistent environment that doesn't throw its user & developer base under the bus every 1.5 years to implement some new menu transition effects.