I too use the zoom buttons as well as the fit-to-width/on/off features all the time. I _have_ to. As a toddler I could presumably focus at 5 cm (2 inches), but those days are long gone. Now it's multifocals and all the compromises that follow, there is no way I can hold the tablet screen close enough to read small type. Got to zoom. Got to zoom a _lot_, sometimes, and then the fit-to-width feature comes in so that I don't have to scroll sideways.

As for the target group of the tablets.. ok, here goes:

1) So, lots of the folks here are software developers, according to that user survey (which I haven't read, btw). So, that just shows that the device appeals to the needs of software developers, or, as I rather suspect, to the needs of tech users in an information age. Isn't that OK though? What's wrong with supporting the needs of a large group of people? Maybe we're not the biggest demographic group in the world, but if everything on the market should be specifically made for (and only for) the largest majority then it would be a sad world. It would IMO be wrong if tablets were to be transformed to just yet another entertainment device with some minimal networking capabilities. It wouldn't be a tablet anymore, it would at best be another iphone or some such. That's a crowded market which is just going to get more crowded.

2) Instead, why not make the device an even more attractive option for "our" group? The market is large, even though it's of course not even a fraction of the mega-market of a mobile phone. Where I work there are more folks than just me that owns a tablet, but we're still just about 4-5% of the potential market just in this building. We have networking/information age needs (and that mostly doesn't really include entertainment needs).

3) As a software developer, and all-around tech person, I_still_ enjoyed Krisse's tablet school articles. Many of them were useful for me, also with my background. For one thing it got me up to speed on some of the things much faster, because the articles neatly laid out the parts involved so that I could see the underlying elements right away. (And the articles were beatifully written and a joy to read too.)

Software developers aren't a large group of people though.

Nokia just published their results and despite a large drop in sales due to the recession they're still selling 100 million devices per quarter, close to half a billion per year.

For a Nokia product line to be considered remotely worth their time it has to be selling millions a year in total. Even the old generation N-Gage and N-Gage QD managed to sell one million a year, and that was considered a massive sales disaster.

How many tablets have Nokia sold over the past four years? Nokia won't say, and it's the only product line where they won't say. All other Nokia platforms have had sales figures published but the tablets are a black hole.


I totally understand where you're coming from. If this was a low-key low-budget effort like Pandora I'd totally agree with what you're saying.

And if this was entirely about an open source software platform pushed forward by volunteers it wouldn't matter that much about userbase either.

The problem is the hardware, the only people making maemo-compatible hardware are Nokia, and they're not doing it for fun. Sooner or later their shareholders are going to want to see a return on four years of loss-making investment. What will happen if they don't get it?

Four years is a heck of a long time to go without significant sales, it can't go on forever. There has to be some hit product featuring maemo in order to justify all that time and money spent on it.

The smartphone world might be crowded but that's because it is a large market. Nokia just revealed that the 5800 alone shipped three million units in its first three months. I'd be willing to bet that's more than all Nokia tablet shipments in the last four years.

I'm not saying the tablets have to become phones, just that if they want to survive they have to become something that sells in large quantities. Clearly tablets in their current form don't sell well, so they have to change into something else.

I'm excited about the new tablet, and i will buy one straightaway. But if there were no way at all to fit-width-to-view or at least wordwrap text, I would stick with my n800 in perpetuity, or seriously consider competitors.

I would be totally despondent right now if it were not for Tear, which defaults to wordwrapping on text-heavy sites.

@krisse
It sounds to me like you are assuming that Nokia (or rather, their shareholders) will be / are only interested in markets as big as the mobile phone market. But is this true?

In my posting I also tried to say that instead of "software developers" I believe the demographic is "tech people" (as in modern networked tech), which is a larger group. Anyway, I believe we're a rather huge group of people, just not in comparision with the mobile phone market target group (which is larger than just about any other market on Earth).

In any case this all depends on the answer to the first assumption.. and also, Nokia has yet to actually start _marketing_ the tablets, I've never seen them in shops anywhere in Europe and I've never seen a single ad in a magazine.

Ops, I didn't see this one before:
Argh.. are all Nokia developers under 40? I can't _use_ the device without that function, and my vision is actually excellent -- it's just that I can't focus that close anymore. I tell you, when your close range limit starts changing it changes _fast_.

I'm perfectly happy to let Nokia's board worry about the business decisions regarding their lines of business; and as a member of the Maemo community am happy with the level of investment Nokia are making.

Nokia must be happy with the returns they are getting, or there must be a convincing business plan which neither you nor I are aware of.

As you say, sales figures aren't published - and neither do we know what "significant" means for the tablet business-line. We do know that the "success" of the 770 and N800 was a pleasant surprise to Nokia. By that measure, the N800 had "significant" sales - and Maemo continued.

My point is it's all relative.

Anyway, this is massively off-topic for a thread about Tablet Scene which, as has been pointed out, needs a caretaker or an undertaker. As for Tablet School, the articles and user-facing content fit neatly into the discussions about making maemo.org's news feeds less technically intimidating; and having someone of your clarity and passion writing software reviews (for example) would be of great benefit.

Skipping the question of whether the Internet Tablets have seen "significant" sales as we don't know the sales numbers or targets, we've been told since September that Nokia will soon position Maemo devices at the top of their product line, pushing S60 devices down to mid-level. The continued, and even increased, hiring for Maemo during a recession that has forced Nokia to cut jobs in other areas only reinforces the importance of the platform to the company. This is further bolstered by signs that Nokia is preparing to have at least two Maemo 5 devices on the market simultaneously, presumably targeting different market segments.

You may have judged Maemo's success prematurely.

Please open a new thread if you are concerned about the Fremantle browser. Or maybe you don't need it if you think that selecting font size and zooming should solve your problems.

I just posted about this in another thread...

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=28327

Nokia did rather well today on Wall Street after releasing its quarterly results.

I have been reading this thread about putting Tablet Scene to rest for a while now. I would hope it would continue because it is very useful to "newbies". I read everything on it in an attempt to learn without having to ask so many question. I found it very helpful. I would use it again if more tutorials were added.

There have been some very helpful people here to reply to some of my questions and I thank you for that. And please don't see my comments here as criticism but more of a reminder that there are a lot of us that are not geeks. We need help in simple layman's language.

I am one of those people who some of you think should not even own a Tablet because of my ignorance of the operating system and the software and applications. This is my first experience with any OS but Windows.

I use my Tablet to check my email and do a little web surfing, listen to music, play games, view my photos, etc. I also use Pigeon with my Yahoo to chat. I admit I do not know how to do most of the things talked about on this site. Many I would never have a use for. I add software using the Application Manager.

I have had my N800 for about two years and I still consider myself a "newbie". I think I will always be a "newbie" in the context that it the term is used here on this site. I am not now nor will I ever be up to you guys level.

I think there are a lot more ordinary people like me that own a Internet Tablet than the survey mentioned reflects. I know I never took the survey.
Internet School and Tablet Scene are places a "newbie" can ask question and be sure to get a simple layman's answer. The tutorials are easy to understand.

There are a lot of nice people on this site that try to help us "newbies" but often the replies are still over our heads, too technical. Possible it is assumed we already know things we do not know or abbreviations are used and I for one do not always know what they stands for.

I see a lot of people being told to "SEARCH". I always search first and there have been many times nothing comes us on the topic I am interested in when I search. I keep trying by entering different words and phrases. At times it will be a topic that I have read about on here in the past but when I search to find it again I can not find it. So although search is a wonderful tool if you are not entering the right words it brings no results or the wrong results. So please don't assume a person has not done the search when they ask a question. Possibly they have.

There are some things I would like to add to my Tablet like maps, Nintendo DS games and movies but I still do not feel confident that I understand what I have read on here about how to do these things.

I have learned a lot of things by reading these forums and I have received help on these forums but there is still a huge need for Tablet Scene and Internet Tablet School.
So I thank those of you that take the time to help "Newbies" like me. Please don't stop!
Thanks, Kat