and more importantly, its a feature phone, not a smartphone (iirc)...

No, I don't expect Apple to use OMAP3, since they're using Samsung at the moment, and it's gonna be out in late 2009, then it's gonna be behind the N900.

I'm not sure what your argument here is, anyway, but, for good measure:

Benson,

I have a Nokia 3555 too and, if you are still interested, I installed Opera Mini from here.

I agree with you that this phone only works as a modem.

Amen.

This being said, the N800/N810 is bloody good hardware. Maybe we should concentrate on making what we have really useful. It would not take that much effort to polish the present software to quite decent levels.

I don't know what the aim of the tablets is. I only know what I need and what I'm willing to spend money on: a tiny laptop-replacement.

Sometimes I feel there's not only a languages barrier here... It really feels we have two incompatible types of brains. I may understand your words, but I don't understand the way you think so it's difficult for me to answer.

What fails? We have desktop apps on the NITs and they work perfectly. I don't see the desktop paradigm failing.

I have to admit I don't consider myself a general user. I made the experience that what I want is usually a niche product. Actually, I was prepared for the 770 to be a one time only so I'm still somewhat surprised the did the N800 and the N810...

Anyway: My job is not to do market research about the general user (I couldn't care less). Also, I don't think there such a thing as "the point of mobile devices." - I carry several kinds of mobile devices, and I would be very upset if my tablet would be like my phone or my phone would be like my music player. (And I guess my mother would be more than upset if her phone would be like mine...)
There's a point in simplicity when you want it. And there's a point in a rich UI when you need it.

(One more thing about the "general user": It's the market everybody fights for. It might be a wise business decision to concentrate on a few niche markets, too, as long as they're not too small.)

Right, mobile apps can complement the desktop apps in function and extend it that way. That's what I'd expect on my mobile phone.
Then, as an additional device, I have my music player because although my cell phone does play music files, in many situations it's too big as a music player.
And, as a third device, I want a portable computer. I would have a laptop, but it's too big for me. Therefore I chose the 770, now the N800. And the applications on my mobile phone can still complement the desktop applications on my N800-computer.......

Oh, and: The concept might in fact be doomed in a way, at least in the Maemo context. Nokia threatens to introduce a "finger friendly" UI with Maemo 5, which probably means wasted screen estate, less effective UI (more clicks to achieve the same result), less accuracy... This could in fact make it much harder to do anything useful with the tablet.

But until then we'll have quite a lot of alternatives out there and I expect smart people to make it even easier than now to run alternative OSs (like there's Debian etc. already) on both the Nokia tablets and other devices. So in a way, whatever Nokia does to the Maemo UI, as long as they allow people to choose a different OS that better suits my need, I'm fine.

EDIT: One more thing: Even if I'll be using some other OS instead of Maemo 5 - if Nokia really pushes and supports all these upstream projects, chances are that I'll be using most of the core technologies that make people excited about Maemo 5 in, say, Debian on the N900 or in Ubuntu Mobile on whatever esoteric hardware I'll buy. Isn't this world beautiful?

Brontide, what part of increasingly is not registering?

Slow down there buckaroo. Now you're trying to tackle two arguments simultaneously, which I was not.

Let's step back a bit in this dance.

You commented as if Nokia was locked into the typical (for any manufacturer) covert development mode. I pointed out that openness has been (steadily, conservatively) increasing.

That's it. That's all. You want to argue other points and positions, great! Just keep them separate and please don't muddy the waters. The signal-to-noise ratio in this thread has already degenerated into static thanks to the usual provocative and misguided hand grenades tossed in.

EDIT: oh, and I acknowledged the grey shades. See "this is not black and white" statement.

Didn't I aready cover that with my statement

@nilchak: Then let me have it!

Actually the UI is not half bad if you turn off most of the toolbars, put the remaining toolbars on the sides and go fullscreen. Some of us actually do use OOo on the tablet "for a long period of time;" perhaps we are already insane (by your definition), so that is why we are not driven there.

Evolution e-mail's UI, on the other hand, isn't very usable on the tablet. They don't let you change the layout enough.

I do need to say one thing; I know that desktop UI is not very nice on a handheld device. But, given the choice of a full-featured office suite with a desktop UI and a crappy little text editor with a nice mobile UI, I'll probably choose... both. Sometimes you need one, sometimes you need the other.

Seems like every coffee shop around here has as many laptops as there are tables. What's your definition of taking over the world?

I dunno, have you seen the Nokia job boards lately? They're hiring like crazy for maemo. I only wish I could do that stuff. But they don't seem to have any positions available under "annoying know-all gadfly generalist"