It's still alive and kicking... just waiting for the other shoe to drop :-)

"realizing that the end game is some form of convergence device" and "wishing for a new NIT" are not mutually exclusive. Nor is the former anything that happened quickly. THAT should have been understood the first time the 5 step plan was mentioned.

It's a big "if". Don't make the mistake you commonly see on Slashdot: just because different people make different points at different times doesn't indicate a shift in the community.

johnkzin's polls showed that there was little consensus to begin with.

Not me. I'm not going quietly into the dang night.

I don't understand how a market that wasn't even identified 2 or 3 years ago and has yet to be defined can be called a niche. Some of the uses of a NIT could be called niche but the concept not so much.

One use (or niche) of the the NIT's in the North American cell phone markets is as a supplemental internet client that tethers via Bluetooth to a cell phones connection.

Most people don't need to carry an iT or heavy/large/all-in-one cell phone everywhere they go. Having a NIT close by is relatively easy and being able to quickly connect to the net when you retrieve it from your bag, glove box, or brief case is a definite plus.
Most people still need to be connected via a plain ol' cell phone though and a small pocketable one with BT suites that and the tablets connection needs. Requiring both to be under contract with perhaps different providers is pretty foolish if ya ask me.

Just as foolish as requiring a customer to choose the device, technology, and predict the amount of use and storage capacity they will need for the next two years is. But that is what North American providers have conditioned their customers to do... .

Providing another means of connection for a new device formerly known as an NIT, particularly one that can be pre-paid and could change providers month to month would make a lot of sense though.

I am hoping Nokia understands that getting into North American pockets pre-convergence in large numbers would be a way to break into the N/A market and change purchasing/marketing habits.

n900 has we know it now from what is being reveal, IMO=fail. When nokia could have improve on the n810, bump up specs, tweak the design a little and make sleeker, continued support, etc, instead they chickened out and give up. There are already a lot of smartphones out there, many nokia already make. So I wanted a smartphone, I would have gotten one already.

You don't know that they've given up on the Tablet concept/platform. Even if we assume that this N900 leak is true, there are two devices coming out -- we don't know what the OTHER device will be. It could very well be the continuation of the N810 platform (we just know that it wont be called an "Internet Tablet" -- it could, instead, be called a MID, for example).

I couldn't disagree more. Nokia doesn't make a phone (smart or otherwise) that I'd want, right now ... because they all run Symbian, and I have no interest in Symbian. A maemo phone would definitely interest me.

I will finish with an ulcer force wait the N900

Thanks Nokia

Intel and Nokia announce strategic relationship to shape next era of Mobile Computing innovation
June 23, 2009
http://www.nokia.com/press/press-rel...newsid=1324456

But no new info for the N900

I don't especially want a smartphone -- I want a modern UNIX-like system in my pocket. The best machines I've been able to find so far aren't phones, but if at some point the best one happens to be a phone, that doesn't bother me. While I'm not entirely pleased with the compromises made in the name of micropocketability (having full-sized pockets and no aversion to various holsters, pouches, etc.), it still sounds like it would adequately serve the function I'm looking at; even if I don't fall in love with the UI, the bundled apps, etc., it's standard under the hood, and I can ignore or even rip out as much as I like, and replace it with stuff I like better. None of the smartphones I could have gotten already can do that; there's really only two options that come even close.

The closest hardware would be a massively hacked iPhone or iPod Touch. However, while iPhone OS X has UNIX code, the system as-shipped is the antithesis of UNIX-like, and while it's hacked enough to be a possibility, I've seen practically no effort in the jailbreak community to build a UNIX platform on it. I don't have the time to waste doing that solo, and besides, as soon as you start trying to port standard desktop apps to it, you see WVGA >> HVGA. I've used X11 with normal apps and window managers (GNOME 1.2, fvwm1, et al.) on a full VGA screen (with a mouse, so no fat-finger woes!), and it works, barely. Thanks to a lot of work from Nokia, standard apps can be very usable on a WVGA touchscreen, even if it is a little cramped at times. But even reusing Hildon, 30% of the screen space isn't much to work with -- and the iPhone fanboys brag about that resolution next to all the QVGA phones; one more reason almost all of them couldn't work, even if their OSes weren't in the way. Oh, and performance? about the same as an N8x0; the only reason to switch would be the integrated connection.

A close second on hardware is the Neo FreeRunner, with a rather nice screen (2.8" VGA, about the same dot-pitch as the N900, although only 80% the space), and way ahead in software -- I've heard reports that slackware (armedSlack) runs on it, and Debian, Mer and a host of others are known, but while it's got that near-useless (to me) voice call capability, it doesn't even have EDGE for data, let alone HSPA ala N900. I'd end up using it like a smaller, awkwarder N800, tethered to my phone for decent data access. Performance is poor again; last year's phones use last year's processors, and while I could have gone for them last year, there's really no way I can see it as better than the N800 I did get.

The N900 should fit nicely in the role my N800s and N810 have filled: same lovely pixel-count, with improved dot-pitch, fits in the same pocket (even if it rattles a bit), runs similar software. I gain: ditching my current mobile (I can use the same data plan direct on the device), less battery waste (no bluetooth radios used), more performance (you always need that, right?), FM transceiver, and even a (probably decent, for what it is) p&s camera. Even if I don't like all the changes, it's clearly another option that is in many ways unmatched by any smartphone out there; for my use, the N810 is its only real competition, and I can't see the smaller screen being annoying enough (to me) to override all the ways it's a step up from the N810.


I think this is where a substantial minority of the complacency comes from -- people whose need is better approximated as "pocket Linux box" than "internet tablet", even though many of us would agree that the smartphone design involves bad usability compromises, it's still a world apart from any of those other smartphones, which simply can't do it. That and people who are waiting and seeing about the second (and further) device(s) -- I predict a massive resurgence of vitriol if the second device turns out to be a slick feature-phone!