Well, it's been fun and an interesting experience.

It's also been amazingly rewarding to hear people say the tutorials helped them, some people even said they bought a tablet because of the Internet Tablet School.

But, it has to come to an end.

The whole point of the Internet Tablet School was to provide a place for casual users as the tablets moved into the mainstream. The trouble is that I don't think the tablets have a mainstream future in their current form, especially in light of recent events.

Okay, here's the controversial bit:

*** (start of controversy)

As you may have seen, I did an editorial on ITS explaining why the tablets have to change, suggesting a way that Maemo could survive:

http://tabletschool.blogspot.com/200...-internet.html

What I'm basically saying is that the incentive for Nokia to carry on with the tablets is ebbing away:

- Nokia tablet sales so far have been relatively small, certainly nowhere near Nokia's phone sales (which are about 400 million units a year)

- Nokia's tablets have continued to be obscure niche items for three years now

- The economy is crumbling, like most companies Nokia will probably have much less spare cash to play with

- Nokia's own touchscreen Symbian phones are hitting the shops in a few months time, with the first model due to launch at a relatively low price (about half that of the iPhone). It seems likely to sell well, with more advanced bigger-screen models due in 2009.

- The market for pocket-sized non-telephony devices is vanishing, and tiny compared to telephony devices

- Making Nokia Maemo touch phones is not the answer because they would be rivals to Nokia Symbian touch phones. Companies try to avoid developing rival product lines, because it duplicates costs while cannibalising sales.

- If Nokia is forced to choose between Maemo phones and Symbian phones, they're very likely to choose Symbian phones because these sell in much larger numbers (about 60 million a year) and have much more operator support.

- Another manufacturer making Maemo phones might work, but no other companies have shown any interest in making Maemo phones (and neither has Nokia really, apart from mobile data)

IMHO the only way Maemo can survive is if it changes radically into something that isn't pocket-sized. My suggestion is explained in the link above.


*** (end of controversy)

Whether or not you agree, I hope you appreciate the tutorials, I'll leave them published so people can continue to use them when needed.

I certainly admre the community spirit in the Maemo world, the help people give, and the enthusiasm and amazing ingenuity in all kinds of projects (the LCARS star trek theme comes to mind for example, that really makes people's jaws drop when they see it). Maemo definitely deserves to succeed in the mainstream, it's just a question of how that will happen.

I'm not a hardcore user, I'm much more happy helping casual users do casual things with computers. So, I'm leaving Maemo until it has a plausible mainstream future.

And if you're annoyed by my opinions (which a lot of people are judging by the thumbs down I've had on maemo.org!) then be happy because you won't be seeing me writing about maemo or the tablets ever again.

Bye bye! :-)

I lately decided that the great thing about tablets is not that they are pocket-sized, but that they are hand-sized, so I agree with you there (updated note: hand-sized means sized to be used while being held in the hand, NOT the size of a hand).

Even though I recently got an eee pc 1000h and even though I use my Centro when I walkaround and don't take my N800 with me, I will continue to use it.

The "ever again" line has a crybaby sound to it.

I never really got into tablet school, but I'm glad the tutorials will remain.

You make good points. Thanks a lot for your efforts, they motivated me to buy a N810.

The Internet Tablet School helped me get started with my N810 and the forum picked up from there. Sounds not you're not really closing down -- just ceasing to update. You should consider turning over the blog account to this community. Your analysis makes assumption about Nokia without the benefit of speaking for them. I won't argue with you but there are market factors that you aren't considering.

Sorry to hear your decision - it is another small bad step for having NIT appeal to casual users. And also sorry you couldn't leave more gracefully

Substantively, it's idiotic IMHO to make it physically similar to a small laptop. I think the occasional suggestions to license maemo are more deserving of consideration.

The 'spirit' of the N8** is the portability combined with connectivity and compatibility -- eg, bluetooth keyboards, various file types, older software. The product is very successful, and there is no reason why 'success' whould be equated with widespread adoption. By that reasoning, John Grisham would be far more successful than, I don't know, Faulkner.

Well, the point is, we all have different notions of what the 'spirit' of N8** is, but I don't think it is Maemo. Again, it is the combination of the form factor and compatibility -- one would have to make some pretty clever points to convince me otherwise. I suppose they could come up with a N900 that is simply a desktop computer, but the spirit would be missing, wouldn't it.

I'm not going to get into the controversy or debate over your reasons for no longer updating the Tablet School. That's for other threads and perhaps has already been discussed ad infinitum in different threads already.

However I'd like to take the opportunity to thank you for all the effort you've taken to help newbies to the Internet Tablets with your simple, clear and straightforward tutorials.

I'm sure it's been greatly appreciated by many.

Thanks for the Internet Tablet School. It was really great for newbies. I hope, you will continue to be useful and helpful with your videos over there though. Cheers,

Just out of curiosity, if the Internet Tablet form factor doesn't have a future, would the same apply to devices such as the Ipod Touch, or Archos multimedia players? I've always considered these three in the same general category, or at least similar with enough overlap.

My biggest thing is that if the n8xx becomes a phone, then the screen would have to shrink down quiet a bit. As it its now, I carry a rather small phone on me, and the n800 rides in my front pocket. I also have to carry a blackberry for work (phone disabled on the blackberry, paging & email only). But on the other hand, I do find myself unable to read the screen a lot of times on the n800, so I can see the case for it becoming a non-pocketable mini laptop.

The other option I can see is having a flip-case with a built in detachable keyboard, so that when the n800 is snapped in it becomes a mini-laptop. And an accessory could be a pair of magnifying spectacles like what jewelers where. Oh, and the keyboard I'd want in this case would be an exact replica of the Apple Newton keyboard -- just barely bigger than the n800, but you can actually touch type on it (unlike some of the other portable bluetooth keyboards out there).

I am deeply saddened by your decision to close ITS. Judged by the postings in the forum, ITS has done a great job! I myself believe in step by step instructions when in a new environment... and I have zero problems with people asking for the second time, the third time, the gazillion times, ... whatever your next endeavor, GOOD LUCK! and I, like the majority of the community, sure going to miss ya.

bun