they have not announced there will be no new versions of symbian.
what they announced was they have dropped Symbian^3 and Symbian^4 names etc.
Symbian will still be enhanced and have its UI developed just that you dont have to wait for new versions of symbian for certain features from the road map b/c it will be a continuous development process Starting with recent S^3 devices.
which is a better model b/c you can buy a device now and be guaranteed to get all future upgrades made to the platform.

Maemo is not licensed. An OS can't be popular if it only can be used on a few Nokia devices, most of which are no longer competitive.

Just for starters, there is only one GSM/phone (computer with phone capabilities) running Maemo out there in the wilderness! Maemo was not to be distributed to other manufacturers. If Maemo had been available to other manufacturers it would have been more popular... if more than android we never get to know. Maemo was a niche OS back at N770 so were the devices even N900. A change in marketing and development was not to become true as it was meant to be learning stages till Maemo6 or now Meego/Harmattan. Nokia did waste more money on research as any other.. if it was a waste? To give up Maemo for Meego was a good step forward you might think! If it really was, the future will tell only. If and only if Meego will become a successful distribution, it will rule the consumer market in about 3 years like no other.

Successful in this case means, if all the companies having their money in game now decide to stay there and keep the one-system-to-rule-them-all strategy up. It wont help anybody if BMW's Meego for ICE is getting closed down to BMW only, without any capabilities to sync with your Meego phone or netbook OTG. We will see what happens next in about 5 month.

(Sometimes I'd love to have a "Rubbish!" button next to "Thanks!")

I would also like to argue that Maemo is no more open with its open-source than Android. MeeGo, on the other hand, will hopefully end up being a different story. But that's not addressing why Android is far more popular. As others have pointed out, and I agree, Maemo runs on only one "current" device (which isn't even very current at all anymore and about to be replaced with a whole new device with a whole new OS--leaving everyone to be supported by a half-or-less open OS by the community) while Android is actively being developed, supported and run on a plethora of handsets, tablets and even netbook/desktop devices with no shortage of customizations, kernels and updates to keep even older hardware fresh for those who care to maintain things themselves. Nokia really didn't treat their customers very well, either, even as the single vendor--so people who HAD been customers of the 770/N8x0 devices were far more wary with the N900. I'm sure that counted for something, too. As a phone, the N900 seems to be crippled and performs terribly--but then Maemo was never intended to be a phone OS, and Nokia ended up shoe-horning it into one.

Effectively: Memo sucks as a phone OS, Android shines with this respect. Maemo has no polish, lack of popular applications, effectively no support, open-core (not open-source, thereby lacking a community of support/upgrades, even less so than Android) and an appalling history of abusing its customer base (abandoning support for the N810 and N810WE less than a year out!!!) and a refusal to provide openness/fixes for software that even only belonged to Nokia (i.e. calendar, media player, etc.). Android platform, by comparison, "just works" for most people and keeps getting updates and patches for all the critical apps, despite the OS version (Google Maps, for example, gets updates even if you're still only on 1.6 or 2.2 alike).. when was the last time Wayfinder or Ovi maps for Maemo got updates, fixes and new features? It's just a far better customer experience on Android.

Man it's simple as hell:

First, in maemo if you wish to install an application, then there are no "fart" application in every recomendation/suggestion list like here:





Second: N900 is the only and ONE device available for the mass-market. So if you want to buy a maemo device, you can choose from one, witch is also a high-end device (and therefore expensive too), one design, one etc., one etc...

While if you want to buy an android device, you can choose from various devices starting from 10€ up to 1.000.000€, mid-range, high-range, lot of design, lot of available colour, and so on and so on.

90% of the customers do not gives a s..t about the hardware or the software, they just goes for the design (like: OMGF that phone is pink i wanna it! or: OMG this phone is full-metal i wanna it!) and merges how much money they can waste to the phone, and that's all.

And it's not because "android". 85% of the customers don't give a s..t if android runs on the device or or maemo or hubaluka OS.

So shortly: 1 device vs. hundred of devices. That's why N900 and maemo not popular.


I tried to be damn simple.

Also pub marketting was inexistant for N900, if it was the same case as what they are doing now for the N8, things would be differents, but it was apparently not what they were looking for...

Price is the single most important factor when Mr Joe Average chooses a mobile phone. Android and Symbian are available on devices throughout the price spectrum. Maemo is not.

Simples.

I'm loving the n900.
And I'm loving maemo.

Now I've seen dbus-scripts even more!

With little scripts in Python, Perl, Shell or Dbus you can do nearly everything practical task with very low efford.

With apt-get you are open to the debian world of professional tools (not like android tools, who are like toys).

I use my n900 tablet phone daily
- as my phone
- for emails
- for sms (not daily)
- as browser
- as remote for the TV
- to control vlc on another computer
- to test little programmimg tasks
- for my bible lecture, my prayer and the holy mass
- as contact list
- as list for daily task

I sometimes use it
- for painting
- as music player
- as webradio
- to look webTV
- as ebook reader or for pdf files
- to take photos (Christmas-light photos get very beautiful with "lowlight")

It is perfect for youtube (except flash 10.1)

I like the design and the main applications, which are kept simple but inside they are very powerful.


There are some closed applications. But they can easily be extended by open ones.

The problems are not the applications but the missing will of Nokia to bring them up to date by their programmers.

Nokia is giving away a jewel with maemo.
Maemo is a little, round and beautiful system.
Very practical and efficient.

That's why Nokia will never have success:
They don't take care what they have.
Instead of new things they should support what they have.




(PS.: Now my mother has given to me an iPod nano 6th generation. When my bracelet will be arrived I will use it as my watch. The n900 sends information about sms, email and phone to the iPod display by rds. I've tested it already and it works, Through the radio the iPod can play webradio sent by the n900.

It would be up to nokia to produce such bracelet devices specialised for their own phones. Are they sleeping?)

There were a couple of chinese devices that used maemo. But I believe some of the maemo 5 UI is a closed source module, so i don't know if it can be used by others.

Nokia's biggest problem is that it is moving way to slowly in the high-end smartphone segment. The N900 is a lovely hackable geek toy, that is really innovative in a lot of ways. But is is also very much "out of date" to be a high-end smartphone.
High-end smartphone users currently expect a capacitive touch screen with a fully touch based UI, a slim design, and a fast an vibrant application store. The n900 doesn't have these things or they are very much in beta.

Android is evolving at a really fast pace. the latest 2.3 now also supports SIP calling as a integrated service if I'm not mistaking (something that was unique to Maemo 5 up to this point).

hmmm my old symbian phone has settings for SIP (Nokia e51). I´m not sure if we are talking about same thing here.

.edit
Yep. Integrated SIP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_E51
Probably not even first Nokia Phone with that With Nokia it´s bit same as Opera user. You see "new" stuff re-invented on other browsers and you just keep on thinking...WTF I have been using that feature for years...hmmmm.