Once Nokia are no longer a contender in the smartphone market because they were late with the comprehensive end-to-end services, the compelling content and the great end user experience they can content themselves shifting Symbian based budget phones by the boat load in less affluent markets.

That is, until Android makes a play at the bottom end.

Obviously I hope this doesn't happen, but unless the quality, services and partners improve sooner than later I can't see any other alternative. Nokia seem to be turning into the next Microsoft - they had it all, and through lack of investment and innovation have lost so much ground now it may be impossible to make it up in time.

Whatever.

I wonder if the n900 browser was written by outside software contractors hired by Nokia? The quality/usability gap between the browser and the rest of the software is very noticeable.

Or maybe Nokia only have very few decent developers and the rest are college grads?

Sometimes a dedicated app will give a better end user experience than a website (particularly on a fairly low powered device)*. Content providers may prefer to offer an application over a web site for various reasons, not least control and/or financial. If they offer a tailor made iPad application they can design it for touch control, pinching etc.

I'm not suggesting it's what I would want, but it's where this may be heading.

* I personally wish Ovi Store was a dedicated Maemo application rather than being browser based. Navigating Ovi Store is a pain - sometimes there is no way to navigate back up through the hierarchy which is just bad design - but it's also very slow, and I don't think it will scale well as more apps are added.

From what I remember of old presentations, the core of each tablet was always the browser. So it has heritage behind it.

In some cases it is useful to remember that, depending on your production processes, adding more developers will not accelerate the launch of a product.

I am disappointed, but I knew I probably would be. When the initial rumours started I thought it might be a 6" slate, but the rumours converged on 10"

I had hoped for a tablet, a true handheld, a relatively general purpose computer but in a portable form factor, what an n800 would be with the n900's innards but maybe even a bit bigger. And less locked down than the iphone maybe.

I even thought they might take a macbook pro or Air and miniaturise it, a bit like the axiotron modbook:
http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook

What they have is a badly implemented convertible like the lenovo ideapad U1:
http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/...book01_300.jpg
But the ipad isn't dockable as such, the keyboard isn't even a matching accessory, the lenovo is much nicer idea - I could imagine buying a U1.

The ipad won't make phone calls, with no webcam it won't do skype or video calling, no expansion ports of any kind, no multitasking which ruins much of the point of a larger more powerful device. No FM radio as far as I can tell. It probably has A2DP bluetooth so maybe you could feed audio to remote speakers, but then the NexusOne can do that.

So, yes, it's a big ipod touch with a data modem, managed in the same way, tied to a computer running itunes.

It's a media consumption device, not for media creation, not a general purpose computer - you can only manage it through itunes, just like an ipod or iphone! It's not a games console - I don't think is has HDMI. It's basically a focussed appliance for accessing itunes-sourced material.

Whilst I wouldn't buy one as it doesn't fit any use for me, I also don't think there are even many apple fans who wouldn't think that they might as well get a macbook for the money instead... unless apple manage to sign exclusive deals with Big Media in such a way that there really isn't much choice. However, the music industry has admitted that their exclusive deals with itunes gave apple far too much power and was a mistake as noone else is even close to catching up!


BTW, Milhouse, yeah, we get the message. But you know what, if we wanted to embrace the apple mindset, where apple know what's best for us, and if apple don't do it it's not worth doing, and itunes is the source of everything good and great, and DRM is OK and Steve loves us really... then we'd buy a freakin' ipod or iphone.
Instead we're enthusiasts, willing to put a bit of effort into our devices, to understand them customise them, adapt them, and not be a prisoner to some DRM that might vapourise leaving us with useless media (think "plays for sure", yahoo's magic vanishing music store etc). The only boundary is the raw performance of the devices and the efforts of the community and nokia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFNQE_TzQNI


haha

FINALLY! An iPod Touch that fits in my BACKPACK!

at $DAYTIMEJOB, our website offers optimised iphone interface and we also have a dedicated app. ignoring the bottleneck trying to get the app approved by Apple, then yes, the dedicated App can be much more fulfilling than the web interface even with lots of Ajax

why do you need an app for the iphone? because it doesn't support flash. we could do pretty much all our iphone app in flash and it'd work just as well and be much more platform agnostic, much like the website works without too much tweaking of CSS for iphone/ipod, nokia phone and android.

apple have pulled off a very cunning stunt: persuading their fan base that flash is not necessary, that DRM and locking down of apps is essential to maintain quality (so what happened to the admob premium rate phone dialler eh?) and thus creating a market that they alone control.

if apple made cars, they'd run only on apple-approved iGas, could only be repaired by apple iMechanics (I am trying to get a mac mini repaired out of warranty, so I know how bad it is), and would require you have a special iGarage at home in order to park it, and the radio would have no CD only tune to approved apple radio stations.

Milhouse has been around since OS2005 and is pretty much on the money here. The RSS app's only visible changes are making the toolbar finger friendly compared with the OS2005 version (AFAICT). Yes, lots of bugs have been fixed, but it's still a fairly painful experience (and loves to try and connect to the Internet if your always-on connection isn't; e.g. London Underground).

Yes, Maemo 5 is a step-change compared with OS2008; but the OS only goes so far. As I said back in April 2008, if Nokia's out-of-the-box apps don't raise the bar for developers, developers won't step up to the challenge.

Having a whizzy OS, a decent browser and an adequate music player doesn't make up for a shitty RSS reader, sub-optimal email client and crappy (but, yay, actually improving) development tools.

iPhone, iPod Touch, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3Gs, iPad. Ah, so Apple are a step ahead? ;-)

Apple - as a company - is more focused on these products than Nokia are. They've invested more heavily and are reaping the rewards. Nokia's "take it slowly" approach hasn't been enough to overcome the "we're not as cool as Apple" barrier.

I cant blame. Good business is always good business. I would by device that fits my needs and with spare money buy apple's stocks and watch how people go grazy and stock keeps pumping up.