As a very happy N810 owner, I've been shocked by the mass-shift to the N900. I'm used to long-tail PC support but I'm new to the ultra-mobile world. So, I thought I'd ask a few questions of the people that have been through this before.

So, when the N810 came out, was there this sudden shift to the new device?

How did application development fair?

Is there a problem with updated applications breaking on past-gen devices?

If so, are N800 users building their own repositories that are frozen with known-working packages? Are there other strategies for maintaining access to working apps?

I'm just concerned that I'll need to reflash for some reason and in re-installing I'll get some updated package from the repository that breaks all the stuff I've grown dependent on.

How fairs life with the N800?

Main difference between the N900 and previous launches is the complete break in compatibility between versions.

when the N810 came along, it was OS compatible with the N800, and OS 2008 built on that.

I used a 770 for a while (about 6 mths before I got a N800), and there was "hacker" versions of OS2007, and OS2008 produced by Nokia to provide a fair degree of usablity. OS2008 really pushes the hardware of the 770 to the limit.

With Maemo5, Nokia have left it to the community to try and provide backward compatibility. I do not think there is a single N8x0 user who thinks this was a good idea.

applications in Extras still by and large work as they always have done, but development for the N8x0s has stalled.

Should also add, that I reflashed my N810 this weekend, and that everything I had is still in Extras.

There are a few of us who continue to try and support Maemo 4.1 though.