To be honest - and let's keep this between just me and you, ok? (sssh) - I'd love for Maemo/MeeGo to become a mainstream success because then it would mean Android (not as open), iPhone (so damn closed), RIM (closed but enterprise level) and WinMo 7 (it's MS, you know it's closed) have a newer, more open and readily available option for those of us that like having a true option that also my favorite vendors would continue to support.

Some, but not all of my favorite tools still come from big companies and not the community.

Can't fault me for hoping

@gerbick
Jeez, just when I thought you were just a big bowl of negativity, you come out and make a semi-positive post.

Hey, no reading my secret message to wmarone!!!!!!!!!!!1

Naw man, I seriously have wanted the N900 to offer me what the heck I need. True, I'm a designer by day, but at night, I'm a Linux/AIX admin.

I know your biggest hang up (that I've read) is the flash 10.1 thing to stop you from buying.

And I do understand that, of course, being that Flash pays your bills.

But I mean really gerbick - with the Harmattan CE thread, and MeeGo images for the N900 - you really don't think the N900 will get Flash in some way by the time it lands on all the major players as well?

I know Nokia has said no official support for it.. but meh. I suspect we'll see it. That's the reason I've always liked Maemo and NIT devices.

I will say I was let down by the Mer project; but I was impressed by how far they got with what was available to them - but MeeGo and the Harmattan CE show a lot more promise; especially since there are full builds of MeeGo for the N900 as a dev platform. (And Harmattan's device will be very similar in hardware to the N900).

This is what I know:
The iPhone would be useless to me without Jailbreaking (and even then... not much.)
My android phone was useless to me until I rooted it, and flashed Super-D's enhanced ROM.

Both of those are unsupported by their respective companies.

The N900 is useful to me now; as useful at least, if not more, than the Android Super-D ROM was - and it's still supported.

When the next big thing hits and MeeGo is stable: MeeGo will likely be the road I go - and at that point: it's still no different than the other two!

So, the N900 is good for now and is still supported. Once Flash 10.1 gets big and anything else on the N900 ceases to function right, or support ends - Then MeeGo will give me what I'm missing.. and I'm no worse off at that point than either the iPhone or Android.. as they will all be running unofficial builds of the software in order to function for me.

The biggest difference at that point is: I can trust the source of my MeeGo builds since they come right from Nokia (even if they are unsupported).. with the iPhone you download an app from God knows who to root it, and on Android you download freeware from random filesharing sites. I still like the alternative that Nokia provides to these other two.

Sorry fatalsaint... but my faith in Nokia has been eroded to zero. 770, N810... and the non-communication by them today does not make for a well-informed (they won't talk) decision that I will enjoy (they don't care) and above all, if I have questions... they won't listen.

I have no room for a company like that - I already have Apple in my life. Dare I replace predetermined destiny by a black turtleneck wearing egomaniac with predetermined destiny by a non-communicative group of stoics?

I can't trust any of it. My 770 got left behind. The Hacker Editions just plain sucked and didn't include the Flash player. The N810 has already seen a "lifetime license" for the GPS portion get relegated to simple e-mails being sent back to long-term users of "Sorry, that's your problem." already - and without warning.

And now, the one thing that I'd rather enjoy - besides Flash - is a contingent update schedule to ensure that down the road, my grievances at my level will be professionally taken care of via an update on a rather imperfect OS.

I've been twice bitten. Want to see me thrice bitten? I say no to that.

I might be the only person to see it like this... but MeeGo is nothing more than OS2008 to the 770 owner in me. It was delivered in such a half-assed way that I felt force to upgrade machines.

MeeGo is nothing more than Fremantle to the N810 owner in me. It appeared in parts, Mer was the biggest ****ing disappointment ever - and yes, I put faith in that, look what it got me.

And now MeeGo is "the future"... just like OS2008, just like Fremantle... and it's not going to be company supported... like the first two.

Hell no. Call me when the dust settles, it works like it's supposed to and all of the wrinkles are ironed out enough to the point I wouldn't feel like I'm being thrice abandoned by Nokia. At this moment, nobody can make that guarantee and I really am not willing to gamble that with a $600+ dollar piece of hardware that would mean I'd change cellphone companies, port my number, pull in my mother's cellphone (I pay for her number on my AT&T family account, so the move doesn't affect just me) and I would lose certain niceties that I am already accustomed to...

all to just get zero support from the people I purchased that hardware from in mere months?

**** no.

If it's that much of a non-gamble, send me a phone and if I'm wrong in a year, I'll send you $700.00.

I think I missed it:

What phone do you have? And is it an un-jailbroken or unrooted iphone/android phone?

(this was asked in sincerity, not a jack-assish tone..)

Jailbroken iPhone 3GS. And I'll continue with what you might not care to know but since we're chatting... I'm wholly unhappy with it outside of a few games and a few other apps that have yet to be (as smoothly) deployed on the N900.

Twitter (official app)
Dunnit! App
Air Sharing (I paid $2.99, Joikuspot is $11.15 on special)
Compass (son is a Boy Scout)
iAnalytics (Google Analytics app at a touch)
Bento 3
Epicurious (I like putting it down in the kitchen)
Adobe Ideas (MyPaint could easily replace this)
TiltShiftGen (there's a member working on something like this now actually for the N900)
Angry Birds (I have all of the levels)
The Deep & Jungle Style (pinball... I love it)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Bloomberg (stock app)
Where (I cannot live without this app)

I've removed the rest of the crap I use on my iPhone because having a full browser does add options. And I know a few of the aforementioned apps have similar apps - some lesser in maturity - but just to give you an idea of what kind of stuff would have to exist beyond my Flash Player 10.1 (and support of the hardware) lust.

I do use SSH, have root access (and changed password), I do use my iPhone to VNC into certain servers.

But as it stands, I'm also an Adobe Flex Dev... so I can't view my own work on my own phone.

And I didn't pick up any sarcasm in your tone. I know you're better than that man

I guess this is where I'm confused:

You're angry with Nokia for not providing Flash 10.1, when your current phone doesn't have flash at all: And is not likely to ... ever.

You're angry with Nokia for not offering support for MeeGo or Harmattan.... when using a phone that Apple would rather see you prosecuted for violating their precious OS than let you keep the phone..

Now, apps is one thing that is entirely up to you... I don't know what Where is.. I thought Angry Birds extra levels were available to the N900... and the rest... OK..

But when you are using a unsupported, unofficial, almost illegal phone - how is it you complain about Nokia? They may not support you flashing MeeGo.. but at least they straight up give it to you. That's confusing to me.

(On thing: You'll need to help me with that Air Sharing.. I only took a brief look but I think you got screwed o.o. It talks about mounting your iPhone as a drive to copy files to/from... do you use it for that or wifi-tethering like what joikuspot is? either case: I can already mount my N900 drive in my Ubuntu desktop using nothing more than the free OpenSSH and it mounts just like any other folder.. drag/drop files as needed. As far as wifi tether.. theres kernels we can flash that give the proper NAT modules; and then you can use (in my understanding) the free stuff already available to linux to create a wifi-hotspot? (I see this as no different than Jailbreaking, mind you. You're obviously already willing to do that.) Maybe I missed something... why the hell would anyone pay?)

No one but the niche minority care about how "open" a device is. Functionally maemo isn't on the level with Android or iPhone; it does some things very well, web browsing and multitasking, but apple and google are going to close the gap very quickly. I won't repeat the laundry list of items where google and apple take nokia to school.
Unless MeeGo gets very good, very quickly, and offers something they don't, it will fail because the competition's brands are so strong.

Company gave it to me. It does do flawless MS Exchange synchronization.

No. I'm angry with Nokia for lack of communication and not offering MeeGo in an official manner to the N900. I'd rather have choice, future support and be away from the grip of Steve Jobs.

Nokia's not doing a good job of giving me an option at the moment.

Allow me to say this a bit simpler - I get where you're confused. I'm using the iPhone because it was a company decision. Not one I agreed with. I would replace it at a moment's notice - it would have to come out of my pocket - if it were something that would continue to grow with my needs... something the iPhone didn't do so I had to jailbreak it. I wouldn't need to do that with a N900, but I don't have that ability to continue to grow in terms of support in future OS's from Apple - I have a secondary iPhone that has the iPhone OS 4.0 beta on it which .... sucks to me. So again, I was looking for an option that if I were dump the money on it today, it wouldn't get immediately replaced and dead ended like the prior Maemo iterations.

So with that said... my phone doesn't match what I need at all. But the N900 doesn't either.

I can revert... that's the good thing about the newer jailbreaks. Look into Spirit...

heh, at first look, I would agree. But as it stands, it's a full blown WebDAV server that allows uploads via browsers that I can just shift files to, send e-mails and tweets from, as well as mount if need be in times of need. I also push files over via SSH (now) but in a pinch, in a moment, I can just push the files over http easily.

Easy enough for a dummy (like myself) to use in a pinch and not having to use that clumsy software keyboard.

Jailbreak gave me this for free too.

Air Sharing though, some days I'm not on a machine that supports SSH but does allow browsing. It's a backup in some bad situations that I have to still (contractually) deal with where I can't even use a friggin' USB drive, but I can push files via ftp or http. I run an odd mix of machines for clients and some of them have yet to disallow me to move files in that manner.