Thread: New Phone Help... I can't do it any longer...
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dylanemcgregor is offline dylanemcgregor
2012-04-25 , 18:29
Posts: 225 | Thanked: 81 times | Joined on Apr 2008
#108
Originally Posted by Larswad View Post
I have several times ended up in the following, first I try some application on the prime, doesn't really do what I want so I try the droid browser which is also kind of limited phonestyle browser, so I end up by turning to my N900 or my laptop.
Can't help it, but my view on it is that the N900 is far away from being outdated, because it still do some things better than what newer phones do these days. Don't forget: The n900 was primarily designed to be an internet tablet rather than a typical smartphone. It simply does things better because it is more like a regular computer with a more desktop like OS in the bottom rather than a typical sandboxed "single process at a time" smartphone OS.
I don't disagree with you at all. I haven't been able to bite the bullet and get a smartphone precisely because I can't stand how limited the OSes are compared to something like Maemo. I also am not a fan of creating dedicated apps for each and everything, especially when it is something that could be done just as well in the browser. Case in point all the fast food restaurant apps that let you order food via the app, so you need to have an app for every restaurant you want to order from, rather than just going to their website and doing it there.

But there are other apps that take advantage of specific phone hardware that is not accessible via the browser (at least not yet). I've mentioned a couple above that are quite useful to me (I don't like getting paper checks, but since I get 3-4 a month it is nice not to have to go to the bank for them or fill out any forms). Most of the other apps I think could be pretty useful are also ones that take advantage of the camera, translating road signs into your native language, or taking a picture of a business card and having it automatically added to your contacts, etc... I'm sure other people have favorite apps that take advantage of the gyroscope, or NFC, or GPS. These kinds of features are genuinely useful (maybe not to you, but to a fairly large section of the population).

Now my dream mobile would have a form that was a cross between the N800 and the N810 (keep the dual card slots of the N800 and the keyboard from the N810), make the screen a bit bigger, and the bezel a bit smaller (but keep the physical buttons). Update the insides with modern hardware...and most importantly keep the Maemo OS pretty much just like it was/is. Add on the ability to run Android apps and I think I'd be pretty satisfied. I obviously know this isn't going to happen, yet I still keep waiting/hoping that something will get kind of close enough for me to say OK. (In retrospect, buying an N800 might have been the worst tech purchase I made, just because it means I'll never be satisfied with anything that comes after it.)