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allnameswereout's Avatar
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#111
Originally Posted by chlettn View Post
The point is that no carrier would offer something like the OpenMoko in its current state - you basically can't sell it to people who are not totally into tinkering/modding stuff. Can you imagine the return rates among "normal" people?
Yup, I can. EEe with Linux are returned 5 against 1 with XP. Then again, Openmoko never marketed Freerunner for the general public. Neither did Nokia with 770, N800 or N810.
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danramos's Avatar
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#112
Originally Posted by chlettn View Post
The point is that no carrier would offer something like the OpenMoko in its current state - you basically can't sell it to people who are not totally into tinkering/modding stuff. Can you imagine the return rates among "normal" people?

"Openness" isn't marketable to the broad masses, since they simply don't care about it. If anything, the iPhone shows that pretty clearly at the moment.
Meanwhile, everyone that has seen me enjoy my N800 has either gone out and bought one as well or has been asking if whether they should wait for the next new one.

As recently as a couple of days ago, a friend out of Boston was asking me whether he should get an N810, an iPod Touch or wait for the next thing from Nokia. I can't, in honesty, recommend an iPod Touch--either get an iPod or an iPhone. touch.. ugh. But then there's the N810.. or the next thing. How can I, in all good conscience, tell him that he should wait on the next Nokia device? How can I recommend the N810, seeing as how we're already being led out to pasture now?

He's not a geek but he likes technology. He wasn't interested in the openness, necessarily.. he just wanted to have what he's seen me have--a pretty good experience. I'm also very likely to be the person he'll call for support and with questions. Then there's my very ungeeky sister (doesn't want to hack at all) who now has the N800 and she seems to love it despite the limitations that I feel it has.

If you take a good, open and hackable product and just use it (ie: you're not a geeky hacker) , you can still have a very useful product so long as it's also designed well for someone to just pick it up and use it. Being open just means that people like me can recommend or even write really great apps for people like them. iPhone and iPod is only evidence of marketing genious (think: Cabbage Patch Kids back in 1984) and word-of-mouth (think Commodore 64 back in 1984), not of the success or lack of openness (think: Apple back in 1984).
 

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#113
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
Everytime I see 'fixed in Freemantle', I get the distinct feeling that this translates to, 'WON'T FIX', since it sounds like I won't be seeing it on my Nokia N800 and, given my experience so far, I'm pretty willing to let another brand convince me that they might be better at supporting their own product and being more open.
Nokia believes OMAP2 support for Maemo 5 on the community level is more viable than providing official support, and having learned a thing or two about Nokia's structure and methodology, and having seen what's in store for Maemo 5, I agree with them.

To this end, Nokia is providing the community with (rather unprecedented) support in through stuff like binary relicensing and active developer assistance (among other things).

Originally Posted by danramos View Post
I'm not sure I understand why it would be unrealistic.
Nokia always has (and still is) pushing very hard for more open hardware, but it's not a battle you win overnight, and not one, unfortunately, that they can freely publicize.
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Last edited by GeneralAntilles; 2009-01-09 at 23:38.
 

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#114
Originally Posted by allnameswereout View Post
Yup, I can. EEe with Linux are returned 5 against 1 with XP. Then again, Openmoko never marketed Freerunner for the general public. Neither did Nokia with 770, N800 or N810.
How many of those people returned it because they couldn't run their copy of some Windows applications on it? I'm not sure that it relates very well to the mobile phone market and Internet tablet market as well as you might think.
 
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#115
Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles View Post
Nokia always has (and still is) pushing very hard for more open hardware, but it's not a battle you win overnight, and not one, unfortunately, that they can freely publicize.
I agree, but it's also a battle they can sidestep, given their reputation and weight in the mobile market, with the decision to shop around for component manufacturers who were willing to join them in making a much more open Internet Tablet platform. I'm not saying it would be any easier, I'm just saying that it's not unrealistic.
 
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#116
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
Everytime I see 'fixed in Freemantle', I get the distinct feeling that this translates to, 'WON'T FIX', since it sounds like I won't be seeing it on my Nokia N800 and, given my experience so far, I'm pretty willing to let another brand convince me that they might be better at supporting their own product and being more open.
Does such a mobile device exist? Do they provide an OS image for your N800?

Ignoring the "your N800 won't get any worse when RX-51 and Fremantle are released" arguments; elements of Fremantle are already being backported onto an Ubuntu + Diablo base to give Mer. This is true community ownership, and a promising future for N800 and N810 owners.

Besides, you could always try and get your karma up and hope there'll be a Device Discount Programme ;-)
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#117
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
I agree, but it's also a battle they can sidestep, given their reputation and weight in the mobile market, with the decision to shop around for component manufacturers who were willing to join them in making a much more open Internet Tablet platform.
It's also a battle that has already borne fruit. Texas Instruments has greatly increased openness and become very active in the Linux development for OMAP3. ST-NXP Wireless released the specs for the WiFi chips in the N800 and N810, which resulted in an open source WiFi driver.

No, we're not there yet, but you can hardly accuse Nokia of neglecting this issue.

Originally Posted by danramos View Post
I'm not saying it would be any easier, I'm just saying that it's not unrealistic.
Nothing's totally unrealistic, but you have to balance getting a product to market and making money (which gives you more leverage in the future to push the open agenda) and sticking to your guns, never actually shipping anything and helping nobody.

Idealism is all well and good, but this is the real world we live in where everything can't be black and white. Would you really rather there had been no tablets at all if the hardware hadn't been 100% open?
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#118
Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles View Post
It's also a battle that has already borne fruit. Texas Instruments has greatly increased openness and become very active in the Linux development for OMAP3. ST-NXP Wireless released the specs for the WiFi chips in the N800 and N810, which resulted in an open source WiFi driver.

No, we're not there yet, but you can hardly accuse Nokia of neglecting this issue.
True enough, credit to them for that.. but I can't help this nagging sense that I still won't see these mystical improevments. Like I said about the WiMax roll-outs, "I'll believe it when I see it." I hear there are people with WiMax.. but I still haven't seen it. It might as well not exist, for all the coverage it's rolled out so far. I'm getting this same sense here. I really hope I'll be proven wrong. Be ready to tell me you told me so if I end up being satisfied after all.

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles View Post
Idealism is all well and good, but this is the real world we live in where everything can't be black and white. Would you really rather there had been no tablets at all if the hardware hadn't been 100% open?
Certainly not--but it doesn't stop me from whining just the same as the end-user that just wants to actually and finally OWN the product I'd bought.
 

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#119
times back to top -

Will the new N900 wait until after the presentation (Rollout) of N97 ????

And that means - earlier in Q4/2009 a N900 ???

http://www.mobile-review.com/article...anssi-en.shtml

Does the launch of touch-based phones spell the end for Nokia’s Internet tables?

A.V. Definitely not. We know the Touch technology inside out because we introduced the first product of this kind back in 2004 (Nokia 7710) and if you look at the Internet tablet segment, it’s not dying at all, on the contrary – it’s our future. I remember saying at some launch even that it would take five generations of the Internet tablet devices to really make them mass consumer products – so far, we have launched only three generations and the fourth is in the making at this very moment, based on the Maemo software that is written for touch-based products, so it’s a very important asset for us.

Last edited by frank.wagner; 2009-01-10 at 03:06.
 
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#120
Originally Posted by allnameswereout View Post
Yup, I can. EEe with Linux are returned 5 against 1 with XP.
In relative terms? Asus say that the return rate is similar, so if the above figure is correct it means they sell 5 times as many Linux eees as XP ones.

Then again, most pre-installed Linux distros on netbooks I've seen deserve to be returned :-|
 
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