I really, really want the ITs to be PDAs. Now!

(Better?)

I could see from N800reviews that this would open up a whole new way, some of which I could l envisage, much I could not but I had to jump in to find out and it is a blast.

However I also have a Zaurus which is crammed with indispensible apps that I don’t want to be without. There is no reason why those same or similar apps can’t reside in the N800. Apart, that is, from Nokia’s stubbornness in maintaining its restrictive vision for the device.

This is why I periodically check on the progress of the Intel MID’s. By the time these are available it will be clear whether or not Nokia is prepared to allow the internet tablet form factor to achieve its full potential. If Nokia won’t do it then maybe Intel (or someone else) will.

Frankly I am bored with pedantic arguments over Internet Tablet’s vs PDA’s, I really couldn’t care less. Due to developers for Nokia and Zaurus in trying to give us flying cars (thanks Tex), I know what I want my handheld device to do and slavish adherence to these labels just gets in the way.

Besides, you can just imagine the forum discussions at Henry Ford - “Think of it as a horse with wheels” .“What I want is a car with legs, you know where you stand with legs.”

While I am here, thanks to all who contribute to this amazing thread. It is my best read of the day by far.

Your recent involvement in this forum has been a much needed breath of fresh air...

Have a safe journey and enjoy.

Milhouse, please don't think that I wouldn't be aware what Apple is doing. I am very much aware what they are doing.

Apple is running things from a quite different perspective: they have a basically closed system (for instance in the iPod or iPhone), where they control the overall user experience, what gets in the product and how it is presented there. (Well and you don't see Skype or Gizmo there.)

The Maemo platform is an open system, for better or for worse. (Yes, once again, this split is not black and white, but it does have quite much implications.) If you look at desktop operating systems, they are open. Which leads to the issue that it is generally hard(er) to achieve those kinds of integrated experiences - at least initially - but on the other hand it is more appealing to create and bring those features to such a platform.

In these cases, I don't think that's really a matter of convincing developers to use the system. I don't think it has anything to do with the developers, really. The question is not which one is easier to develop. It's about controlling the user experience of using that particular service or feature. On some levels there is a conflict of interest between an invidual feature/service provider and then us as the general UI framework design providers. Company A doesn't want to see service A next to competing service B. However, it's an evolving field, and we see what we can do about this.

"When other tablet companies do UI right" - if it only would be so simple.

No, but Apple also creates Mac OS X which is an "open" system, i.e. there are plenty of third party applications. But there is an expectation that the applications will work to the vision presented by the vendor, because it is "best" and the users expect integration and consistency.

How this is achieved is an interesting question (and arguably one for you to work out ;-)) - probably some combination of documentation and setting the bar high - but dismissing Apple's polished UIs as "well, they've got a closed system, they can do it how they like and we can't" misses the point.

However, I expect the real reason is that Nokia have had to bend over backwards to get Skype on the N800, not the other way round. Therefore Nokia won't do anything to piss them off.

Cheers,

Andrew

And if true, that boggles my mind.

When eBay bought Skype, so many pundits (self included) blasted the poor fit. WTF? An online auction house? A VOIP client???

Later it became obvious what was going on: ebay wants to own and expand the entire purchasing experience-- and that includes not just emails and built-in text messaging but voice contacts as well. Imagine you're looking at an auction item and want to speak to the item owner verbally, immediately. A link to his/her Skype account provides that opportunity-- and EBay owns it. In that context suddenly it was a very good fit!

Which leads me to why Skype needed Nokia at least as much as Nokia needed Skype. People aren't enslaved to their desktops. They crave mobility. The N800 expands their options. I've already bid on ebay items via my N800-- now I can contact and be contacted by auction runners via Skype. This opens up ebay's options, too. It's in their best interest to support their client getting onto as many mobile devices as possible.

Which is why I think it should be possible and even helpful (to not just us but Skype/ebay) to enforce a common contacts database on the N800. I won't speculate too deeply on what may or may not have happened in any negotiations there, but it still doesn't make sense to this programmer/designer/N800 user/auction follower. Something is missing from the explanations-- and in this case I don't expect Qgil or ragnar to expound much further. Odds are there are details not fit for public consumption.

And on a final note, consider this: when I installed Skype on my Laptop running Windows XP, one of the first things it did was sync with my Outlook contacts. That fact alone causes me great puzzlement over Qgil's remarks.

Indeed. As to PIM: At work we push the corporate contact list to everybody's devices, by bluetooth or whatever the device works with. I've got the list on my corporate phone. How on earth can it make sense that I then shouldn't need the (full, all fields) list on my N800? Even more now, when the phone numbers could be looked up by Skype. (Edit: Skype uses a central contacts database, that doesn't interfere with using another, local DB for phone numbers. They wouldn't normally be in the central database anyway.)

As for more PIM: Give me a good calendar, please. And make it possible to set the calendar to start the FM radio, in external speaker mode (and internet radio, obvioiusly). And make it possible to do something so simple as specifying a bi-weekly event, something that GPE calendar can't. For more, look at how flexible the PalmOS calendar is. (Would fix it myself if feasible, but it gets difficult to warp an already complete design like GPE. I'll keep looking though.)

Good PIM can only enhance the functionality of the N800 (ref. above: Making it into a clock radio: The N800 becomes an even more useful travel companion).

(Apologies if I'm just duplicating points already made, I'm trying to read the whole thread in one go.)

To my mind I would rather see Nokia spend effort on infrastructure, development platforms/tools and documentation rather than the "killer"apps. Since they obviously have thought of this as a platform I don't see why they should have to write all the apps. I think its our job here to come up with what we want and somehow have some means of communicating that to the development community at large, rather than putting it all on Nokia's shoulders.

I think Nokia has done a very good job with the development environment, it seems light years ahead of what has to be dealt with on other handheld "platforms" . We need to make use of that and figure out a good interaction model with the non-Nokia developers to get the applications we want. I think that is the critial piece to this puzzle. This frees up Nokia to work on what only they can do (like getting OpenGL drivers ).

One thing that I think would help a lot is an easy to use simple script packager so you don't have to be a full fledged maemo developer to write a script for the IT. This would take a script (say shell or python) and package it up so it can be installed with the application manager and run from the application launcher (setuid capability would also be nice, but that gets a little tricky).

A case in point: accessing windows shares. This is doable on the IT, the CIFS kernel module exists and documentation for use also exists. BUT its a pain in the neck to use, especially for non-linux hackers. First you have to get xterm, then figure which of 16 ways to get root access you are going to use, figure out how to use the command line to get around (ls, cd etc), understand the difference between user space file structure and linux file structure, then properly run all the commands. Even if you write a script for this you still have to start xterm and become root to run it. We need some way that this simple thing can get scripted up and used just like another tool. You shouldn't have to learn to be a full fledged maemo developer to do this.

This one simple thing I think would greatly accelerate the spread of usefull little applets amongst the user community. Take for example the schedular mentioned previously. A simple schedular could be written in 20 lines of python, it wouldn't be terribly powerful, it would provide some utility and would be easy to write. Someone else could come up with ideas for enhancement, tweak it a bit and an even better version would exist. If a lot of people really like it and use it a development group could take over. I've seen this happen in many other environments. I don't see that happening here, primarily I think because its so difficult to use such scripts.

Well thats enough for now, I have more to say, but I'll save that for later.

John S.

Having finally read the whole thread, some random stuff:

My own use case:

1) I for one carry the N800 everywhere (inside my jacket pocket), except to the beach - the screen isn't really usable in sunlight. I notice that some don't, they keep it at home. I differ.

2) The N800 _is_ my main device, the phone is the secondary device. My eyes are getting too old to use the small screens of phones, I don't read the screen much these days, SMS'es excepted. Even smartphones have too small screens, while at the same time being too large (sometimes I need to be able to keep it in a small pocket, where no other device would be possible to carry). And smartphones are expensive. And not very flexible when it comes to functionality.

3) Thus, my interest in phones is as a cheap, small, efficient communication companion to the N800. B/W screen, BT, Edge/3G is all I need. No multimedia functions or anything else that increases the price. My N800 can do all of that (and my small camera the rest).

4) Getting Skype helped a lot. I travel, and in some countries the cost of using my (corporate) cellphone is so outrageous that the company financial manager would get a hearth attack if I use it much (I remember once the bill for a month of limited cellphone use was way above the lease costs for my car. Manager not happy.).

5) The N800 reduces the need for my laptop, which can be quite tiring to carry around, and too bothersome to boot up in those inconvenient arenas. Thus, some of my use cases for the N800 can be derived from this fact (even though I'm not one of those that particularly needs Word.)

6) Some missing functionality makes it necessary for me to keep carrying my old Palm PDA. Getting an equally good calendar, for example, would be great. It would even be more useful on an N800 than on the PDA (see previous posting, re. clock radio).

7) Even for the "PIM" stuff (for me that's limited to calendar and contacts) I don't particulary need synch functionality, as in being able to merge changes forth and back. I always used my Palm as the central calendar and to-do database, that's the single point where I updated it. Using the N800 the same way is what I want. Simple export- and import functionality is what I would use. (My point is that it could be useful for many people even without e.g. syncML support.)

About the software platform:

There's been a lot of smaller or bigger complaints about bugs/annoyances or missing features in the built-in applications. I think a lot/most of that could have been avoided if it could be fixed by end users (er, developers. I'm both): If it had been possible to simply check out all the source and rebuild the whole, complete system, built-in apps and all, then this could have been done, IMO. I'm not talking about rebuilding the proprietary parts: The binary wi-fi driver could still be binary, Opera and Skype are simply applications that can be installed with the application manager. But it should be possible to rebuild the rest, including the home applets.

1) osso-email has some silly problems. At one stage I tried hard to collect all components necessary to rebuild from source. After a lot of work I found that this isn't meant to be possible. Thus, no way to fix problems. Instead bug reports are set to 'wontfix' etc. and we're stuck. As the built-in client is integrated I still end up using it instead of 3party apps. like claws-mail, so bugs or not, I use osso-email still.

2) Built-in home applets can't be freely reduced in size (unlike e.g. the 3party excellent "simple launcher"). With the limited real estate, and overlapping not allowed, this creates serious space problems. For example, I use the clock applet in digital mode, thus most of the space is wasted but I can't reduce the size. Again, if it was a simple case of checking out, modify and rebuild then this could be fixed (and as it's the original stuff it could then simply be incorporated by Nokia in the next release, if the fixes/improvements are good. Good for all parties.) Can the applets be recompiled? I can't find source for them in the repository source dir, at least.

3) The BT status bar thingy wasn't fixed in the last release (I didn't care much before because it starts up if you start something BT on the N800, but now that I've got a BT keyboard it annoys me that I have to dive down in the control panel to start it).

.. and so on. It all boils down to the same.. make it easy to rebuild from source (and this wouldn't really conflict with any of the truly proprietary stuff, e.g. Opera, Skype, wi-fi driver, and maybe the DSP code). This would make it easier for all parties: Less work for Nokia, less platform/application fragmentation for users, faster progress.

I'm re-reading the roadmap just now, I believe I saw something like this described in the wishlist somewhen back. Hmm, I see 'Compilable sources' under Developement, Tools. Maybe that'll cover it (and it's in the roadmap department. Good, if it covers my wishes above! :-))

In the Wishlist there's another item related to the above: "APIs for extending built-in applications". I'm not sure what exactly this implies, but I'm hoping it means to provide enough of a documented API that it would be possible for a 3party developer to e.g. seamlessly integrate OpenVPN in the N800 networking setup. And write or port codecs for the media player, for example. I'm a developer, but I spend almost all available development time on our corporate projects, but there's a month of holidays coming up and I wish I could've spend some of that time hacking on some of the things I've mentioned above.. I always have some private project going during holidays.

The roadmap/wishlist looks pretty good to me now (if I read it correctly..), it's been a while since last I checked it. BTW, Flash9 and >2GB (it says Gb but that'll be a typo I bet) support is in now, so you could update the roadmap and move it to a 'Done' section!

Finally, I cherish my N800. It's one of the best investments I've made, and it can only get better. During my travels it also gets a lot of very positive interest when I dig it up at meetings, in the corridor, lunchroom or anywhere. The kind of people I meet in my job seem to instinctively see the potential for it, so just make sure not to disappoint those potential customers.. (And no, I don't have to explain that often that "it's not a phone!")

Okay Qim, here's a few more for the road :-)
I understand that the notion of "winning argument " is heavily dependent on corporate culture, but the strategy of the ostrich can be a dangerous one. If the number of "User X" is significant compared to the sales target, and "feature YYY" follows a very clustered distribution around two or three recurring topics, then it certainly could pay to pay attention.
Though ITT is certainly *the* focal point for this community, I closely follow four more sites (another in English and three in French) where the tablets are either a central topic or one frequently discussed. My feedback in this thread about PIM issues is not based on personal pet peeves, but on statistical-if-unscientific observations there. For instance, I myself could care less about opening Word/Excel files on my own tablet (I would gladly trade that for a sync'ed calendar :-), but the topic is clearly a recurring one, and one that hurts sales. Benny1967 here bought the tablet despite *perceived* limitations, and later was glad he did. But so many more didn't even give it a chance.
Okay, I misread that one, sorry. Hope there'll be good news after the holidays :-)
"cheap" is of course relative. There is of course an added cost in helping an OSS project achieve the level of functionality, integration and user-readiness required here. These costs are real, but probably marginal compared to doing those same projects from scratch, in-house, like Psion did. I suppose the Opera licenses for the 770 and N800 have cost real money. I suppose the development of the much-maligned osso-email-client, the sometimes-finicky RSS reader, the not-very-useful Notes app, and the format-sensitive media-player all incurred the sort of costs you speak of, too.
When I see what single developers, working on-and-off to tie in existing OSS projects with Maemo/Hildon, were able to do with Minimo, Claws, Pan, MPlayer, SciTe and other stuff... I have to wonder whether the same amount of money and developer time, spent on these projects by the maemo team with its insider knowledge of Hildon, with outside people familiar with each project's code, wouldn't have given better results.
It may be a pipe dream of course, and sorry if this ruffles a few feathers in Helsinki, but it's possible there has been some sort of NIH syndrome at work here, at least initially.
PS: Actually you don't even have to bundle the PIM features with the tablets. Just make them readily available on Tableteer or somewhere, as "unsupported addons" -- as long as lazy reviewers can tick off the items from their check list, and user X can be told by user Z that yes, feature YYY is available, you're out of the woods :-)
Thanks for popping in and for a lively discussion. Take care, & hope to see you back soon !