There's few direct features you can just rant off the top of your head for Android vs Maemo. iPhone is pretty easy - though that **** about copy and paste is just wrong - they didn't have copy and paste for a while, but they eventually learned.

Anyway, iPhone just horribly limits everything. Want to completely shut of your device? Chances are you'll have to link it to your iTunes running computer before you can use it again. Want to just move files from it to your computer and back? No can do, iTunes insists of Syncing, and unless you force it not to, it'll be a complete ***** about it.

Want to interface with a computer? Better hope you have the proper cable. Can't send files over bluetooth. I don't even know all of the limitations of the iPhone off the top of my head, but I know I find the UI horrendously not intuitive. (Just like I find trying to use a mouse with only one button horribly not intuitive after using computers that have more than one. Etc.)

But it's extremely insecure (psst, every single iPhone had the root password "Alpine" as of recently), there's the lack of flash (and anyone who brings up HTML5, I point you to the fact that the two are almost unrelated, are only seen as completely mutually replacing courtesy of apple propaganda, and it won't be finished as a standard for like a decade). Because it hides so much from you, when something DOES go wrong, you can't fix it at all. Basically, there's hundreds of limitations - which you won't really notice or think about, until you find yourself running into walls.

Though the iPhone has other advantages, namely plenty of mindless entertainment, some actually good entertainment, and a decent batch of high quality apps that aren't really available on the N900. But it depends on what you want from your device.

Android is similar, but the nuances and blocks are less noticeable at cursory observation. A lot of things look similar on paper, but you do hit walls. It's also very much like a lottery - unless you're willing to wait until the device isn't too new, and then you can research it's carrier/manufacturer -imposed limits.

Because Android is what it is, carriers and to a lesser extent manufacturers can put whatever they want on the device (if there's one thing I respect Apple for, is not letting AT&T stick a bunch of **** on their phones - it may be a shiny yet utterly restrictive prison, but damn it, at least only Apple decides where your walls are and which doors are locked). Google didn't mean to leave any doors closed, but they didn't make the Android setup and interfaces as freedom-permitting as Maemo. And carriers are more than happy to close all the doors they can.

To say Android has overclocking/rooting harder is an understatement. Nokia never fought your ability to root. People ***** and moan on here about Nokia, but have you ever had to wait for Qwerty or someone else to patch Rootsh for you to be able to sudo gainroot after a firmware update? No. On all Android phones I know of, rooting is an until-firmware-update thing. When that happens ,you have to wait until the next firmware update rom is cooked up.

And now phones like the Droid X come with bootloaders that directly TRY to brick your phone if you're experimenting with rooting it. Which means if a reliable method exists you can root it, but it probably will never exist because the people who are working on figuring out how to root it would probably have to go through multiple copies of the same phone before they succeed. And they probably won't make that investment.