I just hope for two things..

1) None of this "fixed in freemantle" business when it comes to things you could implement into the older OS. One of my friends who ironically got the n800 before me (I wouldn't even consider it till a year later when I was looking for an mp3 player that could do more then just mp3s) is holding off on the n900 simply for the reason they haven't fixed I think WPA certificates or something along those lines.

2) That they don't alienate the buyers and developers too much (unless Nokia plans on giving a nWhatever to each major developer to have them make applications for the new NWhatever).

Already I can tell that a focus on a complete finger touch UI is going to be problematic in the future. For the simple reason that the nWhatever and Nokia is not the iPhone and Apple. Not unless Nokia wants to have control like Apple. Then not to mention the problem of if a developer wants to maintain software on both devices assuming he/she has access to both.

Right now we have stylus. Precision is sometimes useful for backwards compatibility apps, interaction with remote desktop, or apps where its only way of usage. If next devices go capacitive this feature is lost, but it depends on what the gains are of such sacrifice. If some device is still resistive but not hold stylus you're still free to use stylus with it.

Why is complete finger touch UI somehow magically requiring control like Apple? Nokia can define HIG just like Apple, and have high quality assurance for application before admitted to Ovi. And much better integration with social networks, tagging (metadata/context) to find the right software for the right job.

Maemo community or anyone who wishes to is free to add repositories. Including software which isn't for finger touch UI. I don't think such software will be preferred by the masses though, especially since finger touch UI software will be more and more available around that time.

Given there is no DRM in APT repositories, nor some kind of system-wide jail, Nokia cannot and won't follow the path of Apple. Maybe we'll see some DRM on games or some software or services, but not on every application, like on iPhone.

Just because Apple has to jail its users, with many escaping that jail and doing some nifty work, doesn't mean Maemo users running Nokia products for finger touch UI must suffer the same faith just because Apple iPhone also is finger touch UI only.

Learn from the good and bad things of your competitor, but don't copy the bad ones, work around them instead, using rich heritage as your weapon. Together, you not become as good, you become better. Much better.

Hmm or else I guess the hardware keyboard was a mistake. Because Apple iPhone doesn't have it either.. and so forth..

My point regarding Apple is more the HIG standards. Not because they have it or they don't have it, etc..They can assure no problems using software because of their standards. True Nokia can set the HIG standards for Ovi and indeed most of the masses will be using only Ovi (and maybe Extras?) so it won't be a problem. But for people who use other software from other sources a finger touch UI is going be problematic if the UI doesn't follow HIG standards. Well until they make that precise capacitative touch screen stylus cheap enough. Though given the imprecision of a capacitative touch screen (the target has to be bigger due to the size of the finger) I wonder how a stylus would work anyway...

Edit: Shame there's no way to get the benefits of both types of screens. The ease and finger use of a capacitative with the precision of resisitive. It seems no matter what you choose you will lose something else (noticed that when going from my n800 to my cousin's iPhone 3G and back).

Yes, we agree, except I don't see the problem.

For users it is not a problem because of Nokia but because they're used to HIG. The more you used to HIG the more it pisses off when sth doesn't follow HIG.

For power users and hackers they are free because no jailbreak. About the only limit is the hardware. E.g. no digital compass on N900, no dual SD on N900, no capacitive touchscreen on N900, no quad core x86-64 with 100W TDP or 4 GB RAM . IOW, the hardware is also precisely the strong point of the device. That some people insist on constantly keeping to use the Maemo device as PC desktop, well, I find it masochistic, but they're free to do so.

Only thing is, that the defaults (which may indeed involve hardware) will be more atuned to what the average, normal user wants instead of the power user or hacker/developer.

My concern is more what you stated in the later of your post. I guess it's more because I'm concerned that as we move towards the capacitative and future then we'll be forced to choose between a device that no longer has the ability to do what its predecessors did (e.g. run Debian, KDE, ported Linux software) for the sake of being too consumer friendly. I was hoping there would be a way to have both (naive I know). But maybe have the Nokia + Ovi side + software people create that's user friendly be for those who just want to use the Maemo devices as a smartphone. And have the hacking community here + interesting software that we're use to here. And for those of us who are interesting in using the device in these ways, the move to hardware such as that puts a constraint on those activities since it'll be hard to re-write an entire interface!

It's more interesting now because of the fact of things like TV out, bluetooth mouse support, etc.. Imagine taking the n900 that runs something like Easy Debian and just plugging in the inputs and mouse and using it as a portable computer. As long as you had a display you could jack into!

But then again I guess the argument could be..

Well use the more precise technical side when everything is setup then.

Or if they implemented that browser mouse on an OS level then that would work too! (HINT: IDEA)

May or may not be possible, depends more on hardware than software. Case in point: USB host mode. Software is there. Its a hardware issue.

Point is, that the need to run a desktop on your mobile device becomes less and less because the mobile device provides slowly but surely a better alternative because hardware is powerful enough and applications are optimized for it (the size, amount of resources, special hardware for on the move like accelerometer, GPS, 3G, finger UI touchscreen). This happens as the quantity and quality of finger touch UI applications improves.

If I want a full Linux desktop I either use a laptop/PC or whatever or a mobile device with remote desktop, with resuming (and much more..), and plenty of resources. With a N900 thats easier cause it has 3G. Heck, remote desktop over 3G with output on screen is possible too. Although you'd still need a mouse too. Or a Wiimote.

On an iPhone, there is LogMeIn Ignition. In portrait mode its quite nifty once you get the gestures, and multi touch is indeed useful in such case. Cannot compare it with the browser plugin for Maemo. Is it perfect? No way. Does it get the job done? Yup.

Ah, but remote desktoping requires you to leave your computer on at home.. which is quite the electricity bill generator. I tend to shut down my electronics (outside of portables). Especially if I'm on vacation (I tend to turn off the power to the house too to prevent any possible fires). Though if there was a way to boot up and login to a PC from far away..(no automated password entry)

And I don't think there could ever be complete better alternatives for desktop software. Decent alternatives? Yes. Even the iPhone with its head start and developers haven't shown that yet. Even the most feature packed applications like graphic manipulation and creation on the iPhone still have some issues due to the screen's sensitivity. Though they do come close (though I would rather have the ability to have a full graphics suite with precise pin point control.

Edit: It just seems like to me, the farther they move away from its tablet's roots the possibilities for some uses decrease, while others increase. But as the others increase, the more homogenous it becomes to other devices (and we all know popular hardware and OS features will be copied to other platforms too and vice versa). So then it becomes an issue of why bother owning this particular device if it's not that different from the others in hardware, and capabilties?

True, but differs per computer. Obviously not your 1 kW/h game rig. There are some very low power desktop ones nowadays. Maybe the machines run on work, or you host some desktops for several folks. You can make a low power server. Some modems can even be hacked to run additional software, taking over functions of a PC. You can use WOL to send a magic packet to your PC's NIC, and if that beast runs Windows you don't have to log in local first, you can just use RDP (preferably over SSH) provided you enabled RDP server.

Exactly, neither is perfect, but you use whatever best applies to situation. In the situation of the properties of the Nokia N900 while on vacation in Sicily thats different than having your laptop on your toilet or your PC in your office room. The goals of device are different, the hardware is different. It might be same person, but situations are very different.

Yes, this was also discussed in co creation thread. Sometimes, you just want the full Photoshop package. Sometimes not, then the mobile application is good enough (and in some situations, better than desktop software). Matters on case by case (location, purpose, person, connectivity, weight ability carry, size ability carry, what you have with you, ...). Having the choice is good.

If you don't want to sell volume, don't want to grow, then you can keep focusing on a bunch of geeks/nerds/power_users. But that isn't Nokia's goal. And, even then, OpenMoko did not stay sharp on one toolkit, did not provide stable GSM, did not provide 3G. OpenPandora, hmm, well, lots of talk, little walk.

Meanwhile, Maemo is still Maemo. It is very different from competitors yet it has evolved IOW does not remain static. Luckily not! It supports (and Nokia has developed!) Freedesktop standards. Apple not. Apple doesn't use X11. Apple doesn't use PulseAudio. The only standard they gave to the open source community is I think zeroconf/bonjour (yes they do support CUPS and WebKit thats not the point), and they won't implement PulseAudio.

If you want to support standards and things which are common you need to get rid of weird stuff, while if you want to stay unique one of those ways are to frighten your competitors with patents, while you keep non-standard compliant and obfuscate attempts, like Microsoft did with Windows (AD, CIFS, MSIE, DirectX, ...). So meanwhile UI designers from e.g. Palm, Google, Nokia aren't frightened and implement alternatives (or standard-compliant), sometimes even becoming better, while doing uttermost best not copying the bad things, the rotten apples so to say.

And then there is corporate/ethnic profile. Finnish Nokia just isn't Californian Apple. But is it wrong for a UI designer to appreciate the work a UI designer from a competitor has done? I find it rather logic such happens because the UI designer knows how hard the task was, and if expressed in natural and honest I put my hat off. You can look at people running marathon, and you may be able to empathize, but if you ran a marathon yourself, its different level of empathizing.

Going back to the precise point of this thread. One line of feedback is that such canvas full of widgets might be "confusing". Well, it indeed can be if the first day you get your device you turn it on and you find all that!

But on your first day the canvas will be that: basically a canvas. With some basic functionality proposed in the pre-configuration but then the ability to edit and add as much as you wish.

Some users will leave it more or less as it came from the factory, others will keep it simple, others will put a lot of stuff, others will put a lot of stuff the second day and then go back to simple, others will add slowly widgets until having something complex they are totally familiar with...

Nothing new actually since this is what happens to PC desktops and probably will happen to the Maemo 5 canvas as well.

I am wondering is there by a chance there is a possibility to allow the user to pick his interface? Like changing the default DE (desktop environment) , Window manger , etc ...
And by meaning "Changing" it, I mean setting it into the same way of how maemo5 acts now.

The current way looks more crowded then it should.
For the god sake of user mentality. No one can stare to more than 15 things at the same time for a long period of time without having a headache.

I am not asking here about adding it into brainstorming ,but I am asking for chances of getting this happening.

Well, just a reminder: if it ain't broken don't fix it.