IMO, that's not it at all. I've seriously considered getting them, but the thing is, they're stuck with last-year's tech. I don't want to take a sidegrade or even downgrade in hardware for the sake of another Maemo device. And people who don't already have a Maemo device from Nokia (and thus might want to jump in with a cheaper model) mainly don't know a (presumably quite hackable) Chaemo is any different from the dozens of units with similar hardware and much more limiting software.

Potentially, but that situation hasn't happened (though it came close during the long wait for the N900), and won't happen if Nokia keeps a decent time between releases. Nokia leads in hardware -- nobody else is making the same hardware for half the price, and certainly not beating Nokia to market with it.

To me, a phone with the full software (or even a version behind), running on last years hardware, at half the price, just isn't competition. It's the whole "chasing taillights" thing. Which, again to me, emphasizes that openness is good, not bad, for Nokia -- even with a wholesale pirated copy of Maemo 5, not the Maemo 4 remix the Chinese devices use, it'd be tough to compete.

Of course, parts of Nokia (most likely the ones that paid good money for a good OS (Symbian), spent more good money continuing to develop it, and made good money licensing it to their competitors in the hardware market) don't see it that way at all, and seemingly can't come to terms with a situation where they have to rely on hardware and marketing to beat everyone else. So Maemo remains second-class.

Maybe, with MeeGo, the fact that other manufacturers (instead of individual hackers) are contributing will make it feel less like "Why are we giving away our work for free?" and more like "If we pool resources, we can all come out ahead, and compete on our strengths, mainly hardware."; maybe this will be the final step in getting Nokia to throw their weight behind it. Maybe not. I do understand that each time so far, there's been some new reason for hope, and it hasn't paid off like we hoped it would; maybe this is no different. But as long as I don't see anyone else in the market coming anywhere close with both hardware and openness*, I just have a hard time being all that pessimistic about it.

*Palm came the closest with the WebOS phones. HP theoretically has a chance to catch up now, but I predict they'll seriously blow it, because that's what HP does.

With regard to decisions made over supporting legacy hardware with subsequent OS evolutions:

I began using Maemo the day OS2008 was released. From what I have seen so far potential sales have had very little to do with these types of decisions. Open vs. closed source hasn't either.

Hardware has.

Nokia sells hardware. As long as the OS can support the latest hardware I believe Nokia would ride that OS horse to its death. Maemo devices have always had the best combination of the most current hardware, period. End of report.

With each new Maemo device more capabilities and much better hardware was introduced. We lost sight of that when the bogus debate over touch screen technology began to appear. I say bogus because to me it seemed like one camp was desperately trying to rationalize why an inferior screen technology was chosen over the one used by Maemo. That dang pinch to zoom straw man overshadowed how exceptionally well Maemo 5 handled the much brighter, more distinct, and via some elegant code, more precise and responsive touch screen that the N900 did use. The improvement over the N800/10 is astonishing. The biggest fear most users of the previous Maemo devices had over switching to the n900 was the smaller screen. Remember all the threads back then?

“Nokia abandoned the “real” tablet users.”, “How come they are taking a step backward?” ..And so on.

In actual use the truth is no one I know would trade the responsiveness and precision that the N900 offers for the larger and slower to respond screens of the previous models. All those screen size threads seemed to disappear overnight once people got the device into their hands. Just as the Nokia/Maemo team predicted they would.

I suspect an improved chip design as well as firm/software that exploits this newer architecture had something to do with it and if that is the case, I doubt that the same user experience could be replicated using the N800/10’s hardware. Yet we allowed that preemptive argument from that other camp to overshadow these details. And speaking of straw men… We may never know how crappy “Full Flash” may have looked in the resolution that the other screen technology offered at the time and how that may have figured into the decisions that both sides made.

(I pulled an all nighter in order to provide phone support to a crew that was working in another time zone early this AM, EDST. Please forgive me if I am rambling a bit. I’m a little loopy and may drift from time to time. )

The point that I’m trying to make is that it appears to me that Nokia switching horses mid-stream has very little to do with sales or head to head competition with any other device, rather it may have more to do with the rapidly improving hardware that becomes available at the given lead time required by production and, a desire to provide the user with the best possible experience.

OS2008-9 could have supported the 770 if there was duplication and bloat. The facts I suspect may be that chip technology and device architecture at the time the production trigger was pulled didn't have room for this bloat or that effective layered approach that was suggested earlier. The same could pro'ly be said for Maemo5 running on an N800/10 and with that you would also have to factor in GPU management, or lack there of... I also suspect that any improvements in the user experience that MeeGo brings will not translate fully with the N900’s slower CPU. These realities with regard to mobile hardware pro’ly won’t change very soon as we may still be at the same stage in mobile CPU evolution that the 8086 was in during the Desktop CPU’s evolution.

Given all that^ (Yeeesh ), the N900 is the best mobile device I have ever owned.

Nothing else in the marketplace comes even close to satisfying my needs. And those needs incidentally, I would have not have been fully aware of had I not owned this dang thing in the first place.
The N900 has raised my expectations for all mobile devices… Score one for Nokia.

Drifting back now to the focus of GA’s thread…

Since I can’t argue with having the best hardware available in my hand at the time I will always be in favor of the OS changing in order to support it rather than settling on “good enough” hardware in order for the OS to be able to support legacy devices.

My criticism of Nokia’s handling of Maemo specific to the N900 is the apparent out sourcing of the marketing message via the Blogger appreciation program. Who were these people and where are they now? Nokia may have appreciated them but most of “them” didn’t appreciate Maemo. This goes hand in hand with criticism of Nokia’s apparent out sourcing of Maemo customer support to maemo.org.

Not only did this place an enormous burden on our membership it robbed development time from a limited pool.

Helpful members had no control over the “message” that was previously out sourced to a group that many of whom seemed only concerned with where they were going to get their next “free” device.

Nokia should also be able to provide timely answers to legitimate technical questions from maemo.org like: “How come the CPU’s clock is throttled back?” I’m sure there is a very sound rational that was used to make this decision but once the OC genie was let out of the bottle, many users would have liked to have known that rational in order to make the most informed decision regarding overclocking their device . I’m not talking about a statement that condones it or even recognizing that it can be done for that matter. Just a simple statement why Nokia Engineers felt that frequency “X” was found to be best for condition “Y”. That’s all.

As long as we are on this subject, maemo.org itself should also get a few slices of this criticism pie. (Besides, it has been awhile since I have had the opportunity to rile up GA in one of my posts. )

The reliance on Linux based instruction and development tools places an unnecessary obstacle in the path of a very high percentage of potential new developers. Much of this potential may come from different desktop environments. To some it is like giving stage directions in English while reading a French script.

I came into this organization very much a student and expect to remain one as long as I’m here. For many others however, they opened the door, looked inside, turned around, and walked out. We needed to put as much emphasis on other desktop operating systems as we did on Linux based ones.

Good night all. Things will be better in the morning.

I started off with a Palm TX. Good, but just wasn't quite the Great device it could have been. Quickly found out that the Offical Palm forums were worthless, hardly anyone there. Why, because Palm didn't read/answer/communicate in them. They were too busy tweaking the OS for the next new device, leaving the old devices without updates.

Fortunately, I found the forums at Brighthand. Great community where I found lots of help working through all the TX's/Palm's little quirks. Does this sound sorta familiar? Not to say that Nokia's offical forums are as bad as Palm's was.

Now look around here, I think Nokia under-estimated the appeal of the N900. I respectfully disagree with woot. Judging by the threads around here lately, it seems quite a lot of people bought a shiny new OS without doing a lot of research. I also bet some of them complained through the official channels and were ignored or misunderstood. Then they found their way here, only to be called trolls, sell it, buy an iphone, etc. And they stayed here, why, because at least here somebody is listening and responding.

By remaining silent on any number of issues Nokia has shifted PR support to the community as well as having the community do software development. This is driving people away from the platform.

In particular, Texrat has probably done more support / PR work than all of Nokia combined regarding the "loose usb port" issue. This is another thing that Nokia has really screwed up. There were reports of broken ports. Texrat identified a poor design. Quim proclaimed it had been "fixed". Looking at that tread there are new reports at least weekly of broken / loose ports. Clearly it wasn't fixed, tweaked maybe. Nokia forums announced warranty work wouldn't be a problem. Lookingb at that thread, it still seems hit and miss for repairs. If not for Texrat's continual optimism and pleas to remain calm, I think this could have very easily gotten out of hand for Nokia. The best fix shouldn't be a recomendation from community members to file prongs off your cords. Nokia should be addressing this far better.

Having said that, I agree with just about what the majority here have been saying with regards to Nokia's mistakes and squandered goodwill. If I buy MeeGo phone, it likely won't be a Nokia MeeGo phone.

edit - ummm ya, yodude said it a bit better than I did.

Thanks ndi. I had already started making some of the changes you suggest; that version just hasn't been posted up yet and the presentation structure is still somewhat fluid. I've moved some things around, broken up slides and what-not. I want it to be informative, organic, high-level and broad. Yes, parts will come across as Dilbertesque marketing ammo but I have to punctuate with factoids so that there's a basis in reality and solid rationale for the forecasting.

But no matter what, I will not use the word "compelling". If you have to use it, then it isn't.

Thanks for the kudos lemmy. FYI, I didn't include the usb issue because I'm still planning to make it a trilogy with a post mortem. So hard to make time these days...

I think you're fishing for Thanks using my bait.

/me makes plans to avoid IRC for a while... longer.

All I know is that I have owned a lot of Nokia phones. I never looked into Maemo or the tablets, but when I heard that they were making a Maemo phone, I thought that Nokia was actually making a move to compete with the other smartphone platforms in a big way. I did my research, found that it did lack some features I wanted, but every single review I read mentioned that these things (app store and portrait mode mostly) were promised to come in future updates. So with all that information and optimism I made the plunge.

Months later I learn that Nokia had no intention of being competitive with the n900, and everything I read blew the device up to be much more than it was. I feel cheated out of my money, but I understand it is my own fault for making an assumption. As much as I have had loyalty to Nokia in the past, I really can't see myself buying another device unless they radically change something about their business model. I am optimistic for MeeGo, but I am afraid it will suffer the same fate at Maemo.

Just my views as a customer and end-user.

Wow, do people still use the maemo bugtracker?
I thought it was plastered with "fixed in meego" by now
I admire your perseverance, I completely lost faith in nokia's claims regarding opennes right after the "fixed in fremantle" fiasco.

I thought this thread was inspiring -- must have been like the emails exchanged just before the Declaration of Independence was signed.

(Someone should do an email edition of The Federalist Papers so the current generation could better understand the deliberations that went on then!)

Gerbick, this says it all:

That is why I'm happy to see Intel in MeeGo, too.