For along time desktop PC's were that it just wasn't as easy for Manufacturers to lock them down. Until Ms-dos, Unix, and the Commodore Amiga arrived personal computers were appliances like anything else. For example the Os that ran on the Commodore 64 only ran on the Commodore 64 and if you wanted 65k of ram or 128k well you have to buy a Commodore 65 or Commodore 128. Commodore adopted the the 68k (Ironically made by Motorola) standard and moved to Powerpc however there was no special protections that prevented Amiga OS from running on regular Powerpc machines and there was no protection preventing MS-Dos from booting on non-IBM PCS. Android was one of the first steps towards separating the OS from the manufacturer. I hope MeeGo will separate the device and the Operating system entirely, but I doubt that will happen and I'm sure manufacturers will screw with it and put proprietary interfaces and bootloaders on top, and it will probably be a repeat of what happened with Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm Os, and Android. sadface
People like Tivo like devices because they just work and generally don't require a lot of technical knowledge, compared to computer which has steep learning curve, can get viruses, slow downs, instabilities, will take a long time to boot, and can suffer various other bugs.

I think it's pretty interesting how developers in FOSS communities are rather out of touch with the market, compared to commercial developers who has to constantly try to stay in touch with their target customers.

This is just fine and dandy when you deal with software, but when we're dealing with hardware platforms and ecosystem, the paradigm has to shift. We require the masses' (financial) support to continue to exist;

In many situations i find the opposite to be true, comercial software and hardware developers don't really fullfill the customer desires, but for lack of alternatives and/or undue hype people buy the products anyway, while where there are free opensource alternatives often there are variations that much better satisfy user demands.

What you talking about? N900 is my toy, hope you dont think your phone is your life.

And that's all it'll ever be, then... a toy. Meanwhile, the Android, iOS and Blackberry people have phones and mobile computers--which was originally what we were supposed to have been promised with the N900. Instead, it's become a cell-phone radio equipped Commodore 64-in-a-joystick that you can hook up to a standard definition TV. Nice.

Engadget has another look at the Atrix showing a "Bluemaemo"-like interface when in multimedia mode and a little more in depth at the capabilities. This really is the Meego dream, plug into tablet select Tablet UI, plug into Nettop select Netbook UI.
I hope the N9 can deliver.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/09/m...er-look-video/

Off-Topic: I've been using a Nook color rooted as an Android Tablet for a few weeks now and really want a good Meego Tablet.

Pretty much everybody (Android, Blackberry, iOS, etc) actually has a TANGIBLE and good to beautiful looking tablet out there. Where are those Nokia tablets? heh.. heheh... Nokia. Man, I wish there was a real, consumer purchasable MeeGo product out so we can do more than just talk about how awesome it'll be when it comes out. :P

There's WeTab. It runs a version of MeeGo.

Wow. That's pretty damn sad reading that after I typed it. MeeGo was announced in February of 2010. Even the QNX based Blackberry Playbook that was announced in September of 2010 has professional videos from the company of origin and has no delays as of yet. WTF indeed.

The TV-Out is deeply frustrating. The first time I plugged it in I thought I had developed cataracts!


I managed to get my Logitech blutooth keyboard+trackpad and use Easy Debian (mainly for web development stuff) and using it on a decent 32-inch flatscreen tv just about works.

The image is about as stable as a middle eastern country but then again it looks really authentic when I play commodore 64 and zx spectrum games!


What I find really "interesting" is that nokia kickstarted the *tablet computing market back in 2005 with the N770 and they were making steady progress.

With all the stuff they should have learned you would have thought they would have been dominant in that sector today!

Then Apple bring out the iPad with shiney multi-touch goodness, the retina display (teeny-weeny pixels) and "multi-tasking is for losers".


Ta-da! and for my next trick I Nokia will screw-up the smartphone market and reverse time by 1 year by abandoning maemo and re-starting everything again with MeeGo. We don't need no steenking TARDIS.


* I know Apple were developing their tablet device but Nokia was the first to really offer a viable commercial tablet device!

Yeah.. I remember people going all "SEE!" when the WeTab was announced... once again, where is it?

Check it!
April of 2010 this was posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBq66fEVYzo
September of 2010 this was posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EdNBTwHxWk

Are we STILL waiting? It seems like it has useful potential but a little pokey (slow) to me despite the guy saying 'it responds very fast.' Maybe I've been spoiled by Android running on my Galaxy Tab but it seemed like some of the scrolling and launching was rife with latency and delay. Regardless, it's not out yet--so I can't even believe that that's a final product yet anyway. Both the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the WeTab showed up at the IFA in September of 2010, but only the Galaxy Tab came out and was purchasable in the store two months later.

Anyone got a link to a store where it can be bought? Is it even going to be sold or supported in North America? heh