What I have gathered from internet it appears that the hardware might not be anything special by todays standards (meaning CPU, GPU), there are no credible rumours that would suggest that HW would have been redesigned during all these delays. So I expect it to be "A N900 but slightly better" (maybe without keyboard).

UI has been apparently redesigned at least twice (one UI concept was presented at Maemo conference 2009, then there was a leaked video of different looking UI) so it can look anything.

The community seems to be really stubborn so I have high hopes that it is not going anywhere some time soon. I just hope that Nokia does not have any nasty surprises left for Maemo people...

Interesting times.

yeah i dotn agree with tissot, something is not giving alot of support. but even n900 had 3 updates and at least make it usable.
n950 have to be more complete or more open than n900 is today.

complete usable to grow a userbase to support itself, but seriously now the memo that its going to be drop support in june 2012 who is going to buy it now?

unless its complete open source i dont see it life after it gets drop.
i though n950 was gotta be my last nokia phone, but it looks like may be n8 succesor with symbian. :/

It's pretty obvious N950 is not a good option.
Given the previous history (I own 770, N810), it is highly unlikely this will be finished product when it get released.

I bought 770 because it was revolutionary.

Afterwards N810 came because there was no ready competitor at the moment.

When N900 appeared It was very well known it is dead, and there were already readily available competitors, so I've ignored it completely.

The community story is a nonsense, you can have a platform which is 99% open source, but 1% is more than enough to keep it closed completely. When you have a closed product, there is no effective community that can leave on its own.

As for the latest announcements, the picture was clear even before Elop announced the integration with Microsoft. The first sign to run away from Nokia was when Ari left the company.

Since I am not an insider I can only speculate. I would expect that the inner circle (of maemo project, not nokia as a whole) has recognized the situation much earlier than Ari's transfer. I think any reasonable person(within maemo) should have scrambled to find the position in other company after one of the leads have left uncompleted project.

In February it was already impossible to hide the truth, so the latest announcement is a gradual awakening for the rest of the crowd who is oblivious to the fate of this project/program. It's much like the boiling frog story. The poison is administrated in small doses.

Regarding the latest interview:
All those talks about ecosystem when comparing to Apple is ridiculous. Apple may have one major phone model at a time, but please bear in mind that latest iOS versions (I am talking about Major.Minor) are available for at least 2-3 previous models. That is the ecosystem, because major releases don't left out earlier models. Nokia has failed to understand that today the main game is not about selling the phones themselves - it is about keeping your customers to your platform (even the obsolete devices) so you can continue to deliver content.

From the Apple's point it makes more sense to keep the customer happy with the older product, than allow to switch to competition (now-days only Android).

So in a sense we can say that Apple is evil, uses fascists management methods towards developers and users, but at end it's them who are more "loyal" to the customer - they kept their crowd close together.

Well, there is the community SSU for the N8x0 and the N900. And MeeGo was supposed to solve the problem you mention. But perhaps it's all water under the bridge now.

Nokia will have their own marketplace for apps outside och microsofts shop.

I dont see how this should work. Development for just nokia microsoft phones. The users won't like to be forced to keep buying nokia phones to keep their apps and What will the rest of the venders do about this? I think nokia will be the only MS vendor very soon...

I use Nokia phones since about 10 yrs, almost entirely thanks to opensource OS, so far I had 6 models (currently N900 + N6-01) and a half dozen purchased Nokia phones for friends.

If Nokia moves to proprietary OS Microsoft windows for its phones, then that definitely would be the end for my Nokia loyalty at once. I would never trust any Microsoft product whatsoever for any important communication.

A life without phone is possible - I enjoyed that for more than a year just for fun - a mobile substitute for the N900 (future Microsoft version) would be any small laptop or netbook Linux compatible.

Quite an interesting read about Elop and Nokia:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...2056703101.htm

Bit more info reguarding the merger


http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/N...p_live_from_D9

Unfortunately at 1:09 he admits what we already know, Nokia are just another OEM!!!

Here is some speculation on the subject from Tommi Ahonen: http://bit.ly/m2JiRG
It is worth the reading.