And here is where I'm gonna vent a little.

You guys think you're discouraged by the moves you see Nokia make in public-- just imagine the addition of internal madness you never get to see.

But since I won't/can't go too far into that I'll limit my gripe to public fiascos.
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1. N-gage

Okay, the original taco-talk-mode device had some silly aspects. Designing it so that users had to remove the battery to swap games was something a first year industrial design student *might* do. And he'd get an F from the instructor.

Now, a good industrial design team would have processed the negative feedback and plowed it into a next-gen device that blew everyone's socks off. There is no excuse for a company like Nokia to stumble twice.

And yet they did. The next N-gage didn't quite do the trick, although it got close.

So what does Nokia do instead of persevering in creating a new market? They gave up, and so N-gage at this point is nothing more than a gaming layer slapped onto smart phones.

In my opinion, a hybrid gameboy/phone type device still has potential if created and supported properly. And it doesn't have to look much like a gameboy out of the box: as we've discussed here before, create an ecosystem around certain phone forms that support add-ons such as a "gaming sleeve". First cell phone company to market that will have a winner. After all, it's more about the AFTERmarket than the intial offering. Companies sell more razor blades than razors.

2. The Internet tablets

Same thing going on it seems, and just as Matan alluded. The tablets are converging toward the iPhone probably because the iPhone was highly successful. But let's get real. The success of the iPhone was due more to Apple's amazing buzz machine more than anything else. Yes, the iPhone introduced novel concepts that became game-changers-- o wait, no they didn't. They simply built upon and refined advents previously introduced by others... including Nokia (a la 7710).

So rather than persist in cultivating the unique "MID" market, it *looks* like Nokia is giving up. On one hand it's easy to blame the economy because whatever momentum was there a year ago is gone or waning now. But then, I can't see the N900 selling like hotcakes in that same climate.

If the N900 is to mimic the iPhone experience, what's the point? The iPhone is now the Kleenex/Coke/Xerox of the slick phone world. It is the standard. Not because it introduced anything completely new, but because Apple completely and competently managed the entire experience from initial vague rumors to global marketing.

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Okay, okay, I seem to be making rank assumptions here. It's just that while I want to hold out hope that Nokia is not abandoning the current form factor, it's getting harder to do so. If only a high-level platform whitepaper could be published... /me fades off into dreamland

You'd think biometrics would solve the problem a little better...

He's probably had his fingerprints removed to hide his identity in case he is captured on a covert mission. Don't know about his retinas, though ...

You didn't see ST 2: TWOK then. They retina scan Adm. Kirk for access to the Genesis files.

Texrat, this form factor has been around long before the 770, and considering the plethora of competing devices from Pandora (if it's real) to Moses it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

That said, I'm a market segment of one. I have no problem buying a phone and never using it to make calls (at least across the cell antenna).

@Texrat

I wish they would try to recreate the iPhone experience. Then we would actually have a tablet 'cause we wouldn't have that silly hardware keyboard any more. Oh well.

Well, Duh.

Same for your espoused opinions on the topic.

(again, Duh)

My remarks were specific to Nokia. My apologies if I failed to make that clear.

Heh. If you're implying I'm not hardcore enough to deserve being a tablet owner, well then, you're not the first to tell me so.

I believe most of those devices didn't exist in February 2007 when I bought my N800. Other smartphones did, I'm sure, but I've never followed the cell phone market. I make very few phone calls, and almost zero when not at home or at my desk at work, so mobile phones are intrinsically uninteresting.

What has attracted me to the Internet Tablets:

• They have WiFi. I spend probably 95% of my time at work and home, both with WiFi.
• They have full, not mobile, web browsers. I've suffered Palm broswers. No more.
• They have large screens that allow web pages to be viewed in a natural, desktop-like manner. Clever zooming tricks and gestures are attempts to hide inadequacy. I don't zoom.
• They fit easily into a pants pocket. I carry a tablet everywhere.
• They require no hacks or tricks to get to a command line. They even ship with Perl. A readily accessible command line and easy scripting is happiness.
• They run Linux. This raised the chance that when my N800 stopped being officially supported, unofficial patches might be available from someplace.
• They run Linux. This increased the chance that given a problem with my tablet, I might be able to poke around and figure out a solution.
• They run Linux. More open source software. More C. Again, happiness.

They're all too closed, so they're out. Meanwhile, it's too early for me to pass judgment on any upcoming Maemo device. I'll need to at least see an official announcement with further details first.

I hope that a future Maemo device will suit my needs, and if one does, I'll almost certainly buy it. At least, I'll buy it after it has received a few price drops.

No, I caught it. I guess where I was going with it is that Nokia didn't create the IT market, and MID's are popping up everwhere. And if you want to be technical, they aren't competing in the iPhone market...the iPhone is competing in theirs.