(allnameswereout: I wonder why I can't Thank you for that post? Odd.)

Agreed (on Apple and Nokia and liberality) - I guess what I'm saying is less on the liberal front and more on the acknowledging the experience front, but you're absolutely right.

To refocus... and to help you understand where I'm coming from: I've never had an iphone, or even a smartphone - the phone I have is in fact a Nokia 2125i, which I got because it has a flashlight on it, and it makes calls - not a phone power user at all ) I'm going to get an N900 because it's a computer, not because it's a phone. I may, on the off chance, activate the phone features to stop having to carry 2 things around though)

Using the iphone as a source of comparison is natural, but it's not what I wanted to do.

The N900 is so much more than the iphone ever will be and it's fair to think about the computer aspect of the beastie (and I hope and think Nokia are seeing a computer at least as much as they are a phone).

That's where I am trying to come from - in 1984 (or even before) and for several years after, Apple did a great job of bringing user-oriented thinking to the *design* phase of a piece of software. I'm happy to say, Nokia has, in what I've seen recently, had that (user) orientation.

Good for them, and good for us.

(I still enjoy using my Mac, though... )

Because:

Offtopic forum, does not allow Thanks.

Partly I understand, but partly your lack of experience with smartphones may result in a whole new, different experience for you whereas for others its a more evolutionary experience and compares with previous products (such as Nokia N8x0, Apple iPhone, Nokia N95/N97/E71/E90). It is also a matter of learning to use the device to become a power user. For example, you do need to learn shortcuts on a Mac. The same is true on a S60 (Symbian) device. Meanwhile, I still haven't figured out copy/paste on Apple iPod touch with iPhone OS 3, and I'm not going to read a manual to learn it.

Each have their + and -. What iPhone OS does very well is a very good HIG, while not allowing non-HIG conforming software. So instead of for example Qt and GTK and some applications from Linux desktop and some applications for stylus you only have one choice, and there is hegemony between the UIs. Stuff works the same way. If you're a Mac user, just imagine that different shortcuts on PC or Windows/*NIX lead to different results depending on application being used while its quite comfortable to know Ctrl+c simply copies. Ofcourse such hegemony can be inconvenient as well. Personally, I'm a proponent of it, but wish to allow 3rd parties to make exception if they see fit (its their device), but on the same time, we must not make developers lazy, and motivate them instead. Difficult...

Well, far less DRM there...

I was told by a CEO once that stockholders were the ultimate customer.

That line of thinking wound up cutting the company stock value in half in just a few years.

The problem with making stockholders your ultimate customer is that most stockholders want immediate returns rather then growth over the long term.

I think it's all about the time frame of said logic..

In the end, if you're trying to please all parties included, you'd have to do everyone of them right (shareholders and customers and suppliers and employees) over long periods of time..

Any short term tactics that tilts the favors to any of the parties will have detrimental effect to the balance of your enterprise.

I think that it's probably true that focusing on one section is detrimental to others.

However, consider that bad user interfaces can often do a lot more than annoy people. Think in car devices, think medical devices, think Third Mile Island. There are plenty of examples. At the very least, inefficient or bad designs and design decisions can really get in the way of an otherwise good system (with the attendant results of, well, failure).

Even ostensibly sensible, informed decisions regarding interfaces can affect the way people think about experience. Why doesn't Off Topic allow Thanks? More to the point, why can't I tell that it doesn't (and why) just by looking? The interface is almost exactly the same (the Thanks button is gone, that's all - could I have inadvertently logged out?!) It doesn't because the decision was made not to. Then silly old me comes along, and tries to think why and gets peeved. Silly, but a trivial example of the fact that even trivial things can affect people's outlook.

Lots of companies (I won't mention the A word, it seems to be a red rag) realise this and produce guidelines. Nokia is doing the same (e.g. http://www.forum.nokia.com/Tools_Doc...idelines.xhtml) This is to the good.

What makes it different (it's subjective) is the inherent focus on experience that I've started to see wrt Maemo, and the excitement around such a focus. Hence, the passing of the torch.

If there was one rule of thumb anyone putting an app onto Maemo/N900 should follow, it would be: think user, think user, think user. Then, think about how to achieve what you want, and have a happy person at the other end (who, additionally, is both still alive and hasn't killed anyone else - and I am most serious).

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