In the iPhone 4 thread, I pointed out that Apple is suddenly making resolution a big deal after having the worst for years and now only marginally improving on the competition. They've also apparently invented video calling.

Rather than being bitter, it's worth realizing that the MeeGo device is going to need similar talking points. We can take it as a given that the hardware and UI are going to be excellent, but normal advertising isn't going to cut it, and neither is ranting about free software.

Nokia needs to clearly show specific uses that the iPhone can't accomplish. The easiest way to do it is to go where Apple won't go, instead of just talking about everything you COULD be missing out on.

Off the top of my head, one such thing could be zeroconf-loaded, sandboxed applications.

Imagine taking photos on your MeeGo phone and coming home. Your desktop computer automatically notices the new photos, downloads them, does face recognition and tries to guess album boundaries using GPS and timestamps.

When it's done indexing, the magic part follows. Your photo software exports some of its features as a Qt binary on the network, and your MeeGo tablet beeps with the message "Your pictures are ready for review". Swiping through the images, you confirm or adjust the program's guesses, name the albums, and mark the best shots to be shared online.

Naturally, the photo software will export a viewer app to your MeeGo TV that tracks the active pic on your tablet, so your family can follow along. Furthermore, your desktop automatically detected similar successive pictures and showed them side by side on the tablet without prompting, using a playoff system if there are more than two. When you're done, an exported and customized slideshow app starts running on your tv.

All without installing anything or requiring the intervention of Nokia, although if they're smart, they're going to implement this particular functionality on their own (with subscription-based backups on Ovi). This was just an example - I'm pretty sure the digiKam people could code it in a heartbeat if given the chance.

The real "big thing" could be using such a system for highly functional location-based apps, in stores, airports, etc. (with HTML5-support for less powerful apps, naturally)

But I repeat, the most important aspect is the advertising message. The feature would need a cool name etc. What else could Nokia rub in Apple's face?