TBH, I would skip Pidgin and just install its extra protocols directly into the native Conversations app.. I know Pidgin is a great IM client, but IMO having everything integrated is where its at.

Numpty Physics is pretty amazing, and I don't think that's available on the other devices.

Frankly, I think the fact that you're probably going to be able to do just about everything 'sysadminy' from your phone (and thus more importantly: from the pub) is going to be more than enough to have them tearing up

If they are sysadmins worth their salt (ie. Linux users), popping a root xterm should be sufficient.

Otherwise, the following are things I personally think differentiates the N900 from the rest:
Dosbox
Fricken' nmap
Irssi
Quake III

That was when the penny dropped for me, when I saw the xterm without any hacking or whatever.

To a normal user, not an admin type... almost absolutely nothing listed in this thread will make an iPhone user drool with envy. Not a single one.

Want to make an impression? An all black screen with tiny white text that you can basically sudo, rm, ls and what not will not make sense to the average iPhone user. In fact, they'll not even begin to grasp what you're talking about because they have no reason to be in those areas on their desktop machines.

Trust me. I'm an N810 owner and I'm an iPhone user - but I'm not part of the Cult of iPhone/Cult of Mac type despite also being an OS X user too. The N900 is a powerful piece of kit. The Skype integration, as well as the IM integration is top notch. Multi-tasking, TRUE multi-tasking... is top notch. The home screen alerts... beats the snot out of the "push" alerts on the iPhone.

Bounce would be a great game to show the iPhone users that love games. Angry Birds is also on the iPhone, but show them that.

Want to really show off? Play a real movie in the N900. The screen just absolutely kills the iPhones. Even optimized movies (to me) have ghosting on the iPhone to a point where I do not watch any movies on the iPhone.

Then the browser. That was what had people shocked the most. Forget forcing websites to display a mobile version of a site. You get to see the full, flash enabled site in its full glory.

But I'm addressing the "average" iPhone user though... not the savvy ones. And be careful, some semi-savvy people know of VNC on the iPhone, as well as jailbroken iPhones (which is a hack) that have SSH and Terminal... but then you're no longer dealing with a typical iPhone user.

Oh... and final thing. A camera with a flash. Yeah... that kills what the iPhone has. Easily.

But terminal stuff... heh. I mean it's exciting to the geeks that use it and know what the heck it is; however to most laymen it's nothing more than an over-glorified DOS prompt.

But I will say that the N900 is already strong enough to make most people go wow anyway. And if they don't... they're hiding it from you anyway

Good luck with your endeavors. You'll probably field more questions from iPhone users than most others.

WorldTV99 looks like a great prog too.

install the flashlight app and use your phone as flashlight in the dark?

Anyway, I will not compare N900 and iPhone, they're apple and orange to me. And even though I use N900 as my mobile phone, any dumbphone might be better than it.

nope, i'd say apples and pears!

i would just stream some lost episode from megavideo.

The One Ring. While Apple refuses to even allow a GV app on the iPhone, Nokia builds on an open infrastructure that allows the development of GV into the IM and Phone system.

Note its only in extras-devel for now.

i tried to download the shows on iplayer bet says i cant find out how could you help please im a little green