Friends, comrades, fellow N900 users and owners!

This has turned into an iPhone vs N900 debate, that was not my intention never was.


I am very critical of my iPhone; the lack of an LED light is most likely my largest complaint, I miss the vibration from the N900 when a call was connected, actual multitasking, the amount of customization, I could go on for a while... but those are the major ones.

With my iPhone I can walk down the street and pay rent in under 1 min (while walking), that's just not something you could do with the N900. I have never had the need to

On the go, not once, and if I did have that need it wouldn't be done from a 600MHz single core device with a 3.5" display.

I am big into mobile computing... real big

History:

- Philips VELO 500 (Google it if you don't know what it is)
- Handful of Palm devices
- Samsung Q1U UMPC
- Nokia N900
- iPhone 4S

I am not going to include other "smart phones" that I have owned because they were simply not able to get the job done.

One thing you guys like to talk about is "I can do this" - in theory yes, it is possible. You can accomplish those tasks while on the go. I can read an eBook on my iPhone 4S, but let's be honest - no one who valued their eyesight would dare such an endeavor.

I have not had one crash on my [jailbroken] iPhone 4S, not one reboot, not one SQL malfunction with SMS messages (you Maemo 5 guys know what I'm talking about!), I never had to reboot it.

To make the argument "The iPhone is best for 99% of the population but not us" is kind of silly, if you do online banking, PayPal, have a GoogleVoice account, eBay, etc. the iPhone 4S would be more practical for you. But we (I am including myself in this) like the openness of Maemo, the fact that we are running Linux gives us a big fat chubby. We can "play" (if you wish to call it that) OpenArena (Quake) - but lets be realistic, those games aren't really playable - and even if they were, they drain the battery in under an hour.

So the list of things that the iPhone can't do (I am taking your word on it, I am not going to check for myself) vs the things the N900 can [theoretically] do from this thread are the following:

- Edit files in vim running in a shell
- Control a TV using IR (but not a Google TV, which I happen to own and have posted here about, a while back - which the iPhone can)
- LED Notification (I actually think that is one of the largest drawbacks of the iPhone from personal use)
- Running chrooted Linux (like Easy Debian)
- Compiling with gcc/g++
- FMTransmitter, which I know from personal experience doesn't work all that great.


As far as N9 (no experience with the N9):
- It runs firefox. The only browser that allows JavaScript menus and flash. Considering that nearly every single webpage is now optimized for iOS, that point is pretty mute.
- Automatically connects me to my cars bluetooth with the scan of a tag - I don't understand the tag part, but my iPhone does the same
- Lets me Shake my phone to answer calls - What that a serious comment?

One cannot take those arguments seriously. They can't. The ability to proficiently do social networking, play media, online banking, the list can really go on and on for a long time can't possibly be compared to the practicality of the above argument for N900.

The reason I created this thread is to look back, Maemo 5 kicks butt IMO, iOS 5.1.1 (I haven't tried 6, but I hear it is not much different, besides the obvious mapping problem) - I think it is drastically outdated and should take a hint from Maemo 5.

I owned the first iPhone and got kicked out of the store when I tired to return it 4 days later. I highly suggest to be educated on the subject of mobile technology and where it is heading - pick up an iPhone 4S, use iOS 5.1.1, jail break it, use it at your primary device for 30 days, if you feel like the pros of the iPhone 4S don't replace the N900, return it. That's what I was planning on doing it... I didn't return it. I am actually eligible for an upgrade for an iPhone 5 but I like my 4S on 5.1.1 jailbroken.

And for anyone who says, "I messed around with NITDroid on my N900 - I know what it's like" - give me a break, that's like going into a wind tunnel and saying, "I've been in a wind tunnel, I know what sky diving is like"

I don't wish to have a pissing contents about what is better, I just want to discuss mobile technology and the future of it from different points of view that aren't biased. You're mobile device does not define you as a person, it is not your religion, it is something we should scrutinize.

Any app you love/run i can do so on nitdroid.

However, today i got a link to a youtube video of a live performance of a certain artist. I ripped the audio from the video and stuck it into my music collection. Because i wanted to.

And that's the point: My phone does what I want. You have to do what your phone wants.

If I want to run any iphone type apps I can via nitdroid.

If I want to do Xyz i can.

Nitdroid , btw, is the stake in the heart of your apps argument. sorry.

Why don't you upgrade?
The 0.5in size makes a big difference, the materials are much nicer and its more futureproof. Especially the new port.

Sure, there may not be a jailbreak for iPhone 5 now (maybe there is, haven't checked) but in the near future it's likely to get one. Apple seems to pity the "hackers" and actually leave some obvious vulnerabilities because it doesn't affect their market share/ecosystem. So they don't get busy making a few fans frustrated... which can't be said for Motorola etc etc.

And for anyone who says, "I messed around with NITDroid on my N900 - I know what it's like" - give me a break, that's like going into a wind tunnel and saying, "I've been in a wind tunnel, I know what sky diving is like"

I don't wish to have a pissing contents about what is better, I just want to discuss mobile technology and the future of it from different points of view that aren't biased. You're mobile device does not define you as a person, it is not your religion, it is something we should scrutinize.

I'm not interested in this debate but if web pages are optimized for iOS hence making it so useful then well my n9 runs the iOS UA and i get the same experience as you would so no big thing there...


In short, different phones are for different people...Use what is suitable for you...Its fair enough to have a discussion of you know I use this phone and these are its merits...Even to say my phone is better than yours for me is okay but to say my phone is better than what you are using for YOU is not worth it...Everyone has different use case scenarios so just use what suits you...

first off i had 5 things, you only listed 3.
and regarding your rebuttal,
1. mobile pages aside (n9 displays them equal or better mynokiablog.com/2011/06/29/nokia-n9-browser-html5-tests-score-outperforming-ipad-2-sgsii-and-some-desktop-browsers/ ) Safari on IOS just doesn't do what firefox can as normal web 2.0 pages are concerned.
2. i forgot to mention turn your bluetooth off and have it connect to your car automatically. oh also do it without ever pairing it before.
3. not a joke, i wear gloves and just becuase iphone cant do it unless you jailbreak it.
4. while n9 helps me get rid of ads, and prevent inter process data stealing, iphone likes to make it more accessible for ads by targeting them just for you by helping track your intimate details about how you bank with Bofa and like to pay your rent on the train and how much time you spend on facebook etc etc.
5. i dont need Lord itunes for doing smallest things. can you download a mixtape , unrar or unzip it and listen to it, delete the songs you dont like without getting close to a computer? can you get OTA update?

OK, I honestly did not know you can have a shell account on the iphone and access it remontely. That is really huge benefit, so I am surprised nobody ever mentioned it to me...

So, what shell does it run? Do you get all the usual bsd utilities and command line tools with it? What scripting tools are available, and can you access normal phone functions from command line? Can you run chroot on it? Is it possible to compile binaries on scratchbox or similar cross-compiling environment for it on an external computer? (I guess it propably needs MAC developers toolchains to compile and link programs..?)

One thing I forgot to mention, using online banking on iphone... What's the big deal with online banking? I have accounts on 2 different banks and I regularily use those with N9, no problem?

lol, it's now apparent that it's pointless. I'm out of this thread, peace out!

Ok, I'll make one more comment:

I do take those arguments seriously. The N900 plays all the media I want -- every bit of music, every podcast, every video. (If you must complain that it doesn't run HD video, let me ask why would you want to force the poor thing to run video at resolutions beyond what it can display? I personally re-encode videos to the native size of the devices I use to display them. I did that for my 1st gen iPhone, and I still do for my N900...) And yes, there are endless endless apps of every stripe and color for the iPhone; but can I ask, can you do your social networking or banking tasks from a regular desktop browser? Because the N900 can handle regular desktop webpages.

But in any case, yeah, I guess I don't do much appy stuff on my N900. I like to place phone calls, listen to podcasts, and edit files. These tasks don't require the latest hardware. And so, for someone like me, the N900 still beats the iPhone.

EDIT: BTW, the Google TV remote control is RF-based, but some of the devices can also accept IR input. In particular, many of the Google TVs manufactured by Sony will also support the use of a Sony remote control. For these, the "Sony TV Keyset 1" setting in Pierogi should work for you.

OP, don't forget that the N900 is still progressing and getting better and better with every CSS update : )