There's a conflct within your premise there. Communities overrated and yet can't be ignored.

I go with the latter.

Another conflict.

I go with the former: focus on geeks. We are more critical, more demanding, and more likely to help a company shake out bugs early. Look at what this community of geeks did (and could have done had Nokia listened better) for Maemo.

Make geeks (prosumers, early adopters, et al) happy, and we/they will be your strongest free sales force. Modern Marketing 101.

I agree some part of your rant and share some of your feelings about "half-done right" product but still I´m thinking that do (I´m not pointing at you) people realize that they have full power to brake basic functionalities just by installing 3rd party software. Almost every single part of maemo OS is vulnerable to crappy 3rd party coding (especially widgets that depend on python seem to take system to knees after couple of days). Sad thing is that spotting problems is really really hard. You can´t just run "process explorer" a´la Windows and spot issues just by looking nice GUI with neatly grouped statistics and say "ahaa. You crappy widget, daemon, app etc. you are eating all my memory".

and about multitasking. I rarely multitask with this phone. I would like to keep e-mail client on always, but well, it´s incarnation of Belzebub and it is just horrific blast from past. (btw. is it possible to completely unload modest without braking anything?). Normally I have Notes always open and sometimes browser. I would say that 3-4 programs open at most when multitasking.

Thanks for helping clearing this up.
It should be
Communities are overrated but can't be ignored.

There is a lot of research about this now going on. That is important. Yes, you point right according to Rogers early adopters. The new paradigm is called Open Innovation an that is fine but very work intensive. You need community managers who get the ideas from communities and bringing them to the mass. Both Apple and Google did this in a very bad taste.
By the open workhorse metaphor I was seeking for a good compromise, a so called bull**** bingo win-win situation.
The multitasking issue is an excellent point to look behind. We want to have the control over the devices we payed for. I didn't went for iPhone or Android because I don't want Steve Jobs deciding it for me, how I have to use my handset. Or Google not giving me the chance to run five applications at same time, wow, thats very noble Google, thanks.
A workhorse shouldn't limit the user by patronizing him. A perfect work horse should do a good job on the stuff needed like PIM synchronization and so on. Then it should give the user the possibility to fulfill his needs on his own, if the company can't do that and there are these individualistic needs out there in a complex IT world. At the other side there are some experiences making the not so well skilled user becoming a bad costumer. That is why Apple and Google are patronizing their users. They want to avoid things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1tRWpFqRqU
(No, thats not me )
So, the challenge is to find a way to satisfy both types of users. The Anti-geek without IT-Skills and the IT-Professional.
I don't have a solution to this topic. Maybe a default preset for the standard user, which warns a user after the fifth opened app that going further "multitasking" could maybe cause delays when calls incoming. At the same time the IT-Professional should have the possibility if he knows what he is doing and maybe needs three ssh sessions, one ftp session and so on while working in his servers while listening to music and chatting with his colleagues.
The Meego should be a device with all the nice PIM and navigation abilities from Symbian and where users like the one on the video would never know about the Linux behind. But it should allow the skilled user to have choice over how many apps he want to run at the same time and also develop applications for his needs, when there is no one who can provide such application.

Back on topic kind of sort of...

What is needed in my typical use case is a dedicated key or an execution command that allows switching between active windows without first dropping to a dashboard or other collection of minimized windows. 3 or 4 is about the limit of my tasks but information is often required from all of them at some point to complete the job.

An example would be the job of getting to a destination (as a passenger of course ). A nav app is open showing the way, a media player is open providing entertainment, and a browser window is open with destination search results or traffic cams and info.

Another common job is replying to a question that is asked. An email app is open to compose a message or to search for past correspondence on the subject, a pdf viewer may be open viewing an attachment or saved file for reference, a calender app open for schedule availability, and again a browser window open for something else.

Perhaps the thing to identify is the kinds of "jobs" that are expected to be done with the device. A sequence of these jobs will give you the number of "tasks" each requires.

My productivity increases when I can perform some of those tasks concurrently, or as it is now referred to as multi-tasking. Time is lost when I must drop down to a dashboard in order to bring 1 of those tasks into focus.

Even though a dashboard allows the selection of a specific task, cycling through them at full screen on a small device has some advantages over scanning and then picking the correct minimized window.

At least the option should be there, IMHO.

EDIT: Oh and everyone please vote... not because you agree or disagree with the raging OT debate that seems to occur when ever something is asked of us...

...vote because it will reinforce the notion that we as a community continue to provide value to Nokia.

» Vote now!



Link: Original article.

I agree. But since you could do that in Diablo, and it was dropped in Fremantle, I don't anticipate it coming back.

If we can somehow pause unnecessary multitasking processes then I am sure this will benefiting the N900 as well.

Music, GPS, Browser can run live even in the back ground, anything else can be Pause for the sake of Saving RAM and Smoothen the camera recording, also increase the productivity of the N900 as well.

This way we can get our device optimise. Or otherwise have an option to enable full multitasking via setting and turn it off if the user wanted to.

What do you think?
Hot switching Multitasking in the setting as an option. Some people would love to run as few tasks at a time.

i never seen multi-tasking like one on the n900.

usually, phone that multi-task pauses the app while you minimize, the n900 (just like a PC) still runs the app (some of them) even if minimized.

like just one experience of mine having 3 web browser windows open, transition app and bounce, i was to beat my high score then my mom called, i minimized the game and rush to my mom, when i get back on, and restore bounce, it was a game over.

I agree and I disagree. Yes, we need to follow mainstream mass market with appropriate digital marketing. Globally, conversations.nokia.com is our means as outreach for the wider mass but we also have an very active team that engages, invites, and provides devices for the top social media in various markets. We also follow and occasionally sponsor folks on Facebook like the gentleman with the N900 fanclub. BUT, the Maemo Community is bleeding edge when it comes to stretching our products to the limits. Maemo Community on talk.maemo.org also provides deep insight and sometimes even solution suggestion to existing challenges. And if you want to get feedback from what I call "technology enthusiasts" then talk.maemo.org is my preferred choice.

this was covered already when they invented the 5 step program to maemo evolution.....

QFT
(and some extra characters. Who wants to be a character in my post?)