I don't care what version it says it is, but I would expect it to be feature-for-feature equivalent or better than S60 OVI Maps 3.0. Where is the 3d routing? Where is our turn-by-turn (paid or otherwise)? Where is our offline loading of maps?

While i'm *****ing...
FIX YOUR EMAIL CLIENT. FIX EXCHANGE. RELEASE NOKIA PC/MAC SYNC CLIENTS (how about listing the n900 as supported on your site??).

You guys are saying don't ask for miracles, but features that were promised are catastrophically bugged. I love the phone, but I thought Maemo was supposed to be an evolution of a mature OS. Bugs that I'm seeing are ridiculous to see in v5. People are talking about getting Maemo6 early next year? Finish Maemo5.

Maybe step 5/5 is fxing bugs in a mobile strategy.

Hey dude, u are.like mindreader or sumthing
(See and vote: http://maemo.org/community/brainstor..._packages-002/ )

As I wrote elsewhere, I think current release model can be traced back to days when full firmware flashing was done in store backroom. Hell, you didn't want to update as then you had to reinstall and configure everything. Then you wanted one big package with everything. Now in the era of "Over The Air" updates, this is no longer the case. Updates can come whenever.

That is often the case. I think its always favourable to be light on the image pre-processing.

The image can be captured and saved quicker. This allows more shots per minute and saves battery power. Also when you snap the picture you want it saved NOW so you can instantly take another, not a few seconds later. So processing will always be primitive (meaning less precise and lower quality) compared to what you can do in GIMP, Photoshop, etc, where it doesn't matter if it takes 30 seconds or minutes to process.

Also its far better being able to undo if the processing makes the image look worse, so doing as little processing as possible is ideal. In many cases you might take an excellent photo but the mandatory processing will actually cause a poor result. This is why professional cameras do RAW mode with no processing whatsoever.

That said, as we are dealing with Linux here I would expect third-party software to offer less or no processing, whereas the stock software to be a "happy medium" trying to get the best perceived quality the majority of the time, so average joe can upload straight to flickr.

And this is exactly what I am talking about. The paradigm of monolithic months-apart big patches should be replaced by a constant stream of small OTA patches (use the feature!).

Maemo 5 is very mature in many areas, however, the whole PIM section is quite new, and hence, full of bugs.

It seems like most of the complaining comes from end-users (myself included) who aren't used to an evolving mobile OS. The Maemo platform allows for constant development, somewhat alleviating the complaints about an operating system, and also potentially tending to the major bugs with quick updates that most OS leave unaddressed or only address in periodic big-fixes.

Unfortunately, Nokia decided to release this device before so many of these bugs to the major functions were fixed. And once a device is on the market, it is definitely fair to scrutinize it. Bugs and updates can only be addressed so quickly, so it was really in Nokia's best interest to just hold off on releasing it until it was ready to go.

I think people will always be more forgiving of a delay if the result is a more stable and functional product. There may be some gripes regarding a delay, but those would disappear shortly after release if the phone lives up to expectations.

I know the maemo 5 interface is great, but releasing it with bugs and undergoing a "fix-as-we-go" mentality just because the OS supports it isn't the best idea. If Nokia truly wanted to earn some of its smartphone users back, it would have released the N900 when it was ready to compete in those applications and functions that are most important to smartphone users. How many smartphone users do you think are salivating at the idea of addressing OS bugs themselves? Most just want their email and messaging to work.

Personally, the N900 early distribution breakdown (ahem!) combined with the lack of relatively common phone features and major function bugs has forced me to seriously reconsider picking the N900 up until later in the spring. By then, the price would've dropped to the price that it would have been if my preorder had been fulfilled while my rebate was valid (!), most of the bugs to the major functions would've been addressed (presumably), and the basic phone functions that are absent (mms, customized ringtones/alerts, intuitive BT functionality) should be present.

Absolutely. Push out feature packs every now and again when you deem them worthy. Bug fixes should roll out after a fast QA verification. I have seen ZERO core updates so far.

Nokia could absolutely not afford to release Maemo 5 late. With Symbian ^3 and ^4 far ahead yet, they needed something this year to keep their "street credibility" as being a top player, and that was the N900. Their stock even went up when it was released!

It is sad that people confuse pretty UI with advanced capabilities, but such is the state of things, and the only device with a top notch UI was the N900. Consider also how much time had passed since the N810 release, that there was no Elephantia version of the OS after Diablo (Elephantia features got integrated into Fremantle); this forum itself was becoming a wasteland before the announcement, and people were screaming bloody murder after the delay...

Yeah, they couldn't release it later.

See, defects are funny things. They tend to appear once the product is in the wild

I know it may sound facetious but to repeat myself, no piece of complex technology is ever released free of them. It is a question of what code/feature coverage can be done in the time/money/miscellaneous resources available. None of those are infinite. And having been on the other side of this, I can tell you that signing off on something knowing that it was impossible to catch everything and hoping that the test plans and coverage you assembled caught the critical issues with a reasonable degree of confidence is, well... harrowing. Exciting but harrowing

Yes, I many times have been in the situation where I had to make a judgment call on what to test and what to skip on a very tight schedule. Sometimes, that gamble would backfire.

In any event, being on the bleeding edge of a new platform (or semi-new) can be exciting but certainly is not for everyone! I can certainly understand if some people would rather wait out the first release of Maemo 5. For most people, I'd say that step 5 is the right one, not step 4 (at least if I understand correctly what Nokia's announced plans are).

These days expectations are too high and patience too short.

Maybe, maybe not. It'll just get more demanding when this goes more towards the consumer market. I see this part of the issue which hasn't really been addressed in last four years, before there was talks of how closed the process is - it is just one manifestation of closed monolithic release cycles. Changelogs, anybody? Constant update roll makes consumers more satisfied as the progress can be noticed. It is not so difficult to make changelogs for "nerds" then either. Nokia should switch to this operating mode now, not when the next device for consumers is out, as then it is too late to practice.

This is one reason why large monolithic updates are bad. As they tend to have these issues which are not found and which will not be addressed until next release. This create a lot of criticism, discussion and bad words. "Waiting sucks".

"Time for change" http://maemo.org/community/brainstor..._packages-002/