exactly, nokia are playing a dangerous game; the more i use my n900 the more i like it; and cant wait to see how it matures, but now were hearing rumors of maemo 6 on a N86 or something similar, we need nokias full attention with maemo 5 to push it to its full potential otherwise potential developers are just gonna keep waiting until nokia decides on what OS there gonna settle on; until then were gonna have this whole Apple/Android is better discussion..

if theres any potential N900 buyers reading these forums as research; dont be put off maemo and the N900 are fantastic and the maemo community is the best there is...

edit: lol NVM

This is absolutely HILARIOUS. I won't respond to any single Nokia defending comment, but a general response.

Now, I'll preface this by saying I've been a fan of Maemo for a few years. I haven't been that worried because the tablets I've had I didn't need to depend on for day-to-day important activities. I pre-ordered the N900 like many of you. I was excited about the specs, videos and rumor mill. I was hoping it would be a nice replacement for the N810 I had (and I still own 3 tablets - 800, 810, 810 wimax). I still have to carry my N810 as the N900 wasn't quite there. I have been a fan of and loyal to Nokia as well as Maemo. What I've seen with the N900, how bugs/enhancement requests are handled, the inferences I can make on roadmap and the fact that we were given dated hardware on a 2010 flagship phone (even HTC/Google released 1GHz/512MB RAM already), I've been very disappointed in Nokia by what appears to be the company that I thought "got it" finally, still doesn't "get it."

1) First, I must say I have been humored by the over-rationalization trying to get this square phone to fit in a round hole. I see this EVERYWHERE. Does it do this or that questions are met with "yes it does" and give the odd workarounds and far stretches. I really like "does it rotate like iphone or [android]" with the response an emphatic "YES! (show customer portrait mode)". Hi Def videos? Wow - at 25fps, Hollywood only needs to carry these things and save a semi-full of equipment. Seamlessly integrate your phone and email and PIM contacts across blah blah? Huh? I never thought I'd say this, but from the N900 have risen serious fanboys - even delusional. Man. Yes, it'll even cook your dinner, shine your shoes and give you a happy ending when done with the lawn. But, will it marry me? Why, yes, it certainly will; here's the perl script, or there is an app in devels, but be careful with that because it sometimes screams "I hate you" and Maemo says it's too complex to fix that particular bug. I like the N900, Maemo and Nokia, but at least I haven't stepped into the nethers.

2) Nokia has been losing market share faster than anyone, even Nokia imagined (which they've admitted). In the smartphone category, which is now the fastest growing phone category, they have gone from mid-30% GLOBAL market share to under 15% in just 12-months (it's been all over the news so I'm surprised that no one knows either of these facts). Last I checked, Apple's iPhone has nearly reached 20% global smartphone market share and it still isn't rolled out in every country with China and Korea just opening up for them: two of the hottest spots for smartphones. Apple is AHEAD of Nokia in smartphone market share - period.

3) What does shareholder from a stock/bond/derivative perspective have anything to do with this? You buy a Nokia-anything, you are the customer. You are the number one stakeholder that all the debt and equity shareholders DEPEND on. Lose customers, you have a big problem all around. Economics and business 101. I held some Nokia ADRs a few years ago and I'm glad I dumped them. Bought because I loved their product and saw Nokia everywhere. Dumped because their market share was starting to slip. So I've been both and who cares.

4) You only care about having "hackable" Linux. Cool, cool, cool *eye roll* - Apple and Android are showing everyone that the other 99% of people out there don't care one bit about that. They care about a phone that does what they need, which is make calls, lasts, handles email, handles SMS, handles MMS (2.71% of all messages sent, but Apple/AT&T learned the hard way it is still a big deal), has a great UIX, plays movie/music, great PIM that syncs right, corp use, games - hmmm, I don't see Linux anything in there. In fact, most reviews whether CNET, engadget and others never do anything but mention the OS and do so in its relevance of the review.

3) Multi-tasking? Oh, that great, great word I see has been perpetually misused so much that now everyone calls the ability to run more than one app "multi-tasking" - good grief. Running multi-apps depend on and use multi-tasking and allows people to multi-task (kind of - but not really on a 3.5" screen and itsy keyboard), but itself is not multi-tasking (DOS had no native cooperative or preemptive multitasking, but you could certainly switch between apps). Yes, even the iphone uses multi-tasking - it wouldn't run w/out it. Running multiple apps is different. Know what? 20% of the world's smartphone users out there say they DON'T CARE. The 50ish% of smartphone users out there that no one talks about are BB users. What do they care about? Corporate email, phone calls and battery life. Just walk into an airport and you'll see the majority of people have iphones and BBs and I can't ever recall anyone saying "d*manit! why can't I multitask!!! F this thing!" No, they are happily checking email, texting, talking on the phone or play solitaire. So give us all a break with "but it multitasks." Yeah, so did the Dash running WinMo5 that I owned 4-years ago. It also had a terminal program and I could ssh into a linux box - wow.

BB and iPhone = about 70% of global smartphones. The other 30%? Winmo, Android, S60 and the other smattering.

4) It is well-known and accepted that "dumb" phones are pretty much history. This talk about N900 being a tablet that happens to be a phone - give me a break. That convergence started and did take place a few years ago. Aside from easily getting root or using debian Linux (don't get me wrong - a big plus), what exactly does it do that you can't do with Winmo, iphone or android? Seriously? The N900 will allow people to mess it up easier, but c'mon. Anyway, Nokia still has a slippery grip on dumb phones but many are laughing at Nokia as being far behind the curve. They need to get real and wake up or there will be no more Nokia and Maemo will be a nice memory rather than being on the majority of handsets.

Since RIM still is the king of what falls in market research's smartphone category and Apple gained 10% share in 1-year, I kinda think Nokia and some of you need to drop the functional fixedness and watch what the majority wants/needs.

Why should you care? Because, if you love Maemo and Nokia so much, you kinda want both around. It's well known they are bleeding from several orifices. Nokia doesn't do well with the N900 or it's successor (or generally in the smartphone market), by then it'll be too late (I'm talking 12-18 months). iPhone, Android and WinMo7 (don't laugh until you've seen it) will have eatin their breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and probably something else. The N900 doing well? No. $100 price drop in less than 2-months, all the WONTFIXs for basic, basic features like those mentioned above, all the wailing and gnashing of teeth out there, the reviews popping up that are past infatuation stage, the fact it has been rated lower than an N97 on many sites (the tops tend to be iPhone 3GS, DROID, N85, iPhone 3G, ERIS - yes, the good ol' N85 that really grabbed my loyalty - the N97 is usually at the bottom, but somehow, N900 has been pushing it up a notch), Nokia/Maemo who worry about the complexity of doing something so mark WONTFIX rather than what customers want (lost count how much I've seen them use "this is too complex" in a ticket then marked WONTFIX), the poor PIM and EAS client implementation that make it almost unusable for work (well, it is unusable if you need Exch03, which many still do- wth?), no MMS, abysmal battery life, no 802.11n (c'mon, many phones have had this and I had to add back a wifi router just for this thing!), weak/slow GPS - on and on.

Now, I know someone will be tempted to pull something out of context and just tear into my posting. Be my guest, but that means you've missed my meta point. It is the aggregate of everything written that will lead to failure. Nokia's (and Maemo's) publicly visible lack of holistic view of the market and customers will be it's ultimate downfall.

So, yes, this topic is simply restating what many, many have been saying and I absolutely agree: Nokia needs to change something.

You'd think people in this industry would learn from Motorola's record of nearly going belly up three times in 20-years. At least they've changed something - again.

The trick, then, is to get the public to do it without realizing it.

Data please. I am skeptical of your numbers and some of your conclusions.

And just for the record, your post is just as ludicrous and exaggerated at the antiNokia extreme of reality as the idealistic defense at the other end.

Oh crap, guess I missed the metapoint.

Err.... how to say... no. Even something as awful as the N97 (2 million iirc?) has as much as 10% of the total combined units sold of the 3 iPhones (21.7 million).
Of course, some may not consider Symbian a "Smartphone OS". I'm not sure I would disagree.

So, why did you buy the three tablets? What did Nokia do in order to impress you and even get you to buy not one but three! units of the same product series? I would guess they'd prefer people like you instead of 99% idiots who don't care and will base their next phone decision on the greenness of the logo. You mention somewhere something about "2.5% of messages IS a big deal". Please read that aloud again.

Nearly every other smartphone manufacturer (other than Apple -- RIM _wants_ multitasking and in fact recent versions of Blackberry have an alt+tab like dialog) and smartphone user seems to disagree. And that's 80% of the smartphone user base! Ohnoes!

PalmOS has 102% of global smartphone share. I will personally stab to death anyone saying otherwise.

This worries me. Their marketing efforts are clearly not enough, if they even exist, and IMHO the Maemo Devices team seems understaffed and under resourced (note I don't know any internals and this just happens to be an impression which may be caused by the unusual and nice openness they have), specially if someone in Nokia really believes this is going to be the "flagship" phone in any near future, which I still doubt.

... well, come to think of it, getting out something better than Symbian isn't that hard. One has to wonder what the rest of the company works on, though.

Yes Nokia, please base your entire business strategy on copying what the other manufacturers do (where I have seen this before?), instead of trying to dictate what the majority needs like most companies do nowadays.

Well, tablets have been here for more time than the iPhone so far. I guess this indicates something too. Or not. Oh my god why didn't I take a course on economic analysis!

I hope you read the slides about Nokia's target market with this thing, a target market which values the Facebook widget more than Mail for Exchange.

In regards to Starman's comments -

As you know, I work for CPW too, but unlike you, i dont want any of my stupid ***, reject, inbred customers to have an N900, because I swear to god the moment I see a chav with it come in and ask me why there arent loads of games, or why he cant send a MMS of his new bulldog to his 'crew', i'll stick someone real good.

Most of the customers who come in my store could barely spell 'N900', so i'll be damned if im going to let them de-special it for me by owning one too. I've sold a few, to guys who know their stuff, and the kickers seem to be the stella bluray rip of Up i have on there, and of course the browser.

Huh from where are you pulling these smartphone market shares. Last time i checked in Q3 Nokia had 37-43% depending on source.

But who cares people are here because they found something that they like about Maemo. You sound like Nokia exec have punched you personally to face... or just trolling.

I love this thread It's so entertaining

lol if any of you are disappointed in nokia then stop buy/use their products ... go buy an iphone , nexus 1 or w/e you expected to have ... simple as that ... don't buy a nokia or any other brand and expect them to have a million apps for you to use ... it't not gonna happen overnight ... im not defending nokia or being a fanboy but if you don't like it then just simply stop buying their products and complain about it ... nothing is perfect so stop ur b*****ing ... i like the n900 because it fulfill my need ... i don't need a million apps ... most of them are useless anyways ... i enjoy web browsing (the best experience on mobile phone up to date) 32GB of internal memory for music and videos .. make phone calls and text thats all i need ... sure its buggy ... but there will be some fixes coming out in the next firmware ... im just patiently waiting