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Posts: 117 | Thanked: 32 times | Joined on Oct 2009 @ USA
#111
Backwards-compatibility (hardware as well as software) is a two-edged sword. I think that a prominent OS has driven that point home rather well....
I'm personally torn on it; I like the rapid advance but would like to get the new hotness on current hardware.
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Posts: 3,397 | Thanked: 1,212 times | Joined on Jul 2008 @ Netherlands
#112
Originally Posted by solarion View Post
Backwards-compatibility (hardware as well as software) is a two-edged sword. I think that a prominent OS has driven that point home rather well....
Solaris?
Eagle eyes.
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#113
Originally Posted by UCOMM View Post
android/iphone/winmo all offer upgrades(not bug fixes, but actually upgrades) to their software, i wish nokia would do the same

nevertheless i am buying the n900 for what it does NOW
Exactly, I don't believe that there is some hardware limitation that just makes it impossible for Nokia to create a version of Maemo 6 that works on the N900.

It also may well be in Nokia's financial interest to do so. Obviously Maemo, and perhaps especially Maemo 6, is Nokia's answer to the iPhone. One of the things that has made the iPhone so profitable is the app store and iTunes, a source a revenue that extends well beyond the sale of the device itself. So you want to keep people engaged and happy with the device they have, so they keep coming back to purchase the other software based goodies. If people feel like they're being left behind after only a year, on the N900, their next device may well be an iPhone, WinMo phone, Android phone. They won't have as much of a reason to stick with Nokia and Maemo and so Nokia will lose the revenue stream from that customer that would go to the Ovi store, etc. Look at the crazy dedication people have to Apple products. Apple doesn't get there by leaving people behind. But if leaving people behind is what Nokia does with the N900, then it will risk remaining a niche product like the N95 and other high end smart phones of Nokia's past, rather than break out the way the iPhone and Android have.
 

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#114
Originally Posted by cb474 View Post
Exactly, I don't believe that there is some hardware limitation that just makes it impossible for Nokia to create a version of Maemo 6 that works on the N900.

It also may well be in Nokia's financial interest to do so. Obviously Maemo, and perhaps especially Maemo 6, is Nokia's answer to the iPhone. One of the things that has made the iPhone so profitable is the app store and iTunes, a source a revenue that extends well beyond the sale of the device itself. So you want to keep people engaged and happy with the device they have, so they keep coming back to purchase the other software based goodies. If people feel like they're being left behind after only a year, on the N900, their next device may well be an iPhone, WinMo phone, Android phone. They won't have as much of a reason to stick with Nokia and Maemo and so Nokia will lose the revenue stream from that customer that would go to the Ovi store, etc. Look at the crazy dedication people have to Apple products. Apple doesn't get there by leaving people behind. But if leaving people behind is what Nokia does with the N900, then it will risk remaining a niche product like the N95 and other high end smart phones of Nokia's past, rather than break out the way the iPhone and Android have.
+1

Spot on!
 
Posts: 474 | Thanked: 283 times | Joined on Oct 2009 @ Oxford, UK
#115
If I were to guess at the one resource that N900 may not have sufficiently for the next software generation.... it would be RAM.

256MB is a tight squeeze for modern software.

That's less than my 11 years old laptop!

(It had swap space too like the N900, so I think that probably cancels out.)

I've got Firefox 3.5 running on my current laptop (4 years old), and it's using 329MB virtual / 95MB resident memory with just 9 tabs in 4 windows open, none of them heavy (just forums and text articles with usual decoration), and only opened 2 hours ago (Firefox leaks memory over time).

So although I'm expecting the browser to run well on the N900, I'm not expecting to be able to open many windows, unless it uses a lot less memory than Firefox 3.5 per window.

Given the rate at which new software uses more and more memory, I wouldn't be at surprised if Maemo 6 apps need 512MB or 1GB of RAM to run usefully, and struggle with heavy swapping on the N900.

Just, y'know, guessing...
 
GeneralAntilles's Avatar
Posts: 5,478 | Thanked: 5,222 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ St. Petersburg, FL
#116
Originally Posted by jjx View Post
I've got Firefox 3.5 running on my current laptop (4 years old), and it's using 329MB virtual / 95MB resident memory with just 9 tabs in 4 windows open, none of them heavy (just forums and text articles with usual decoration), and only opened 2 hours ago (Firefox leaks memory over time).
Out of interest, what operating system? Most modern operating systems are designed to use as much RAM as available, so using those numbers as a benchmark to determine how capable a machine with less RAM would be.

For example, the WebKit-based browser on my 8GB desktop machine is using 584.5MB of real memory and 1.04GB of virtual memory. So, clearly, WebKit wont run on the 256MB N900, right?
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#117
I don't think that memory will be the primary issue here. Even if Maemo 6 is somewhat more memory intensive, it seems the n900 currently has enough memory that the device would still be usable. That said, I have seen cases where new versions of operating systems decrease memory usage. Happened on my netbook where after replacing hardy with karmic, memory usage at boot went from 200 MB to 150 MB.
 
Posts: 237 | Thanked: 167 times | Joined on Feb 2007 @ Powell, OH
#118
Originally Posted by cb474 View Post
Exactly, I don't believe that there is some hardware limitation that just makes it impossible for Nokia to create a version of Maemo 6 that works on the N900.

It also may well be in Nokia's financial interest to do so. Obviously Maemo, and perhaps especially Maemo 6, is Nokia's answer to the iPhone. One of the things that has made the iPhone so profitable is the app store and iTunes, a source a revenue that extends well beyond the sale of the device itself. So you want to keep people engaged and happy with the device they have, so they keep coming back to purchase the other software based goodies. If people feel like they're being left behind after only a year, on the N900, their next device may well be an iPhone, WinMo phone, Android phone. They won't have as much of a reason to stick with Nokia and Maemo and so Nokia will lose the revenue stream from that customer that would go to the Ovi store, etc. Look at the crazy dedication people have to Apple products. Apple doesn't get there by leaving people behind. But if leaving people behind is what Nokia does with the N900, then it will risk remaining a niche product like the N95 and other high end smart phones of Nokia's past, rather than break out the way the iPhone and Android have.
I think Apple is a bad example because even though their OS runs on all the iPhones the iPhone hasn't changed that much. Faster processor, more storage, camera, but what is really different between the models? The screen resolution is one of the lowest in the smartphone arena, still doesn't run Flash, just got copy and paste, MMS, GPS. Apple innovated with the first iPhone, not much after.

It's easy to support older hardware when you don't change much with the new hardware. Lets see Apple add a 800x480 screen and see how much backwards compatibility is maintained.
 
Posts: 474 | Thanked: 283 times | Joined on Oct 2009 @ Oxford, UK
#119
Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles View Post
Out of interest, what operating system?
Ubuntu 9.10 - Karmic Koala.

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles View Post
Most modern operating systems are designed to use as much RAM as available, so using those numbers as a benchmark to determine how capable a machine with less RAM would be.
It's not really like that. OSes try to use all the available RAM for caching files and other things, but applications running on the OS don't try to use all the available RAM :-) And I was measuring the RAM used by Firefox.

However, Firefox (and other web browsers) may be a rare example of applications which do use more RAM depending on the amount you have, because browsing is so cache dependent, and it might also use more RAM when you have a larger screen.

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles View Post
For example, the WebKit-based browser on my 8GB desktop machine is using 584.5MB of real memory and 1.04GB of virtual memory. So, clearly, WebKit wont run on the 256MB N900, right?
:-) Well, seriously, how many tabs/windows can you open on your N900 (if you have one) to random typical web pages?

I agree, Gecko != Firefox too. Sorry, mention of Firefox may have been a distraction.

More to the point, a laptop with 256MB cannot run very much these days, with any current major desktop OS. (Yes, ones which are optimised for small memory will work). That means the mobile OS is somewhat different in architecture as well as different usage and capabilities, to fit everything into that much.

Which means it's quite possible Maemo 6 may need more, just from wanting to do different things with it.

Of course it might use less if Qt is as good as I've heard ;-)
 
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Posts: 38 | Thanked: 10 times | Joined on Nov 2009 @ DUBAI , UAE
#120
Originally Posted by cb474 View Post
Exactly, I don't believe that there is some hardware limitation that just makes it impossible for Nokia to create a version of Maemo 6 that works on the N900.

It also may well be in Nokia's financial interest to do so. Obviously Maemo, and perhaps especially Maemo 6, is Nokia's answer to the iPhone. One of the things that has made the iPhone so profitable is the app store and iTunes, a source a revenue that extends well beyond the sale of the device itself. So you want to keep people engaged and happy with the device they have, so they keep coming back to purchase the other software based goodies. If people feel like they're being left behind after only a year, on the N900, their next device may well be an iPhone, WinMo phone, Android phone. They won't have as much of a reason to stick with Nokia and Maemo and so Nokia will lose the revenue stream from that customer that would go to the Ovi store, etc. Look at the crazy dedication people have to Apple products. Apple doesn't get there by leaving people behind. But if leaving people behind is what Nokia does with the N900, then it will risk remaining a niche product like the N95 and other high end smart phones of Nokia's past, rather than break out the way the iPhone and Android have.
Exactly
1++
 
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