First ever rant:

So I was about to walk out the door to go and play with the N810 tablet from the Nokia Flagship here in Manhattan and began looking up blogs talking about the device on technorati and came across this blog post.
. The authors statement about missed potential really struck a chord with me because the N800 is simply the best gadget that I have ever bought. Its influenced the way I see the software world (coming from a windows software development background) especially community developed projects. It has provided me with countless hours of entertainment through internet radio, rss and regular browsing. I have used it to take notes and record lectures in class without lugging a heavy laptop, I've taken it on vacation and used it to make international calls for free and used it to guide me through strange diverse locations from St Thomas USVI, to Montreal QC. The N810 is here now and I am about to buy it but....

I can't get rid of that nagging feeling of lost potential.

If the N810 had a module like the upcoming UMA/3G protocol which seamlessly switches from 3G to wifi then it would simply be the best pocketable telephony device out there.
If the N810 had an improved contacts system and even a rudimentary integrated PIM with support for iCal, Outlook etc this would be a perfect alternative to Winmo/Symbian/Palm. (Email will be fine once Modest hits).
If they could really get the whole community developed/corporate developed software environment perfected even if it consisted of quiet sponsorship of these cowboy single developer projects there would be probably a lot more stable hildonized apps for the ITOS.

There are all manner of hacks and add ons available which really gives us the consumer choice, but as another poster on this board said there is something to be said about simply being able to use the built in out of the box applications.
I got this way about Symbian S60 (longtime user since 3650) , I was constantly adding software and tinkering and playing to the point of bricking devices now I have only an activesync client added to the stock applications that ship with my N75.

I really want it to be that way with the N810. I want to get it, turn it on, and after setting up easy wizard-based *it just works* account settings I want to be able to send and receive email with attachments, chat on Gtalk with all my different IM accounts MSN, AIM, Yahoo, get video and audio from the internet either downloaded from RSS or from a directory, watch video from sources encoded with "iPod/PSP" format, make phone calls over VOIP or GSM. I want to be able to have a calendar and contacts system available system wide. I want to make video calls to people on PC's who are using iChat or Skype.

I want all this and I want it in a pleasant to use simple UI that my girlfriend can use without asking directions. She was able to navigate immediately with (can't believe I'm saying this ) her friends iPhone.

As far as I know this is ALL possible right now with the present hardware (apart from GSM phone call).
Polish and integrate GPE its a very usable Calendar, integrate Canola (their media player is the same as Mplayer), polish and integrate Modest, Abiword, Gnumeric. With that said keep the devices completely open, as much ridicule as it gets, the Red Pill, Blue Pill option was a neat way of separating the goats from the kids. Finally unify the UI of all the applications coming out of Nokia and above all make them a pleasure to use instead of just useful tools. Please explain if I am wrong.

Thanks for reading this book if you did, thank you community, thank you Nokia good luck with the restructuring next year, I'm off to go check out the N810 and N95-3 .

If you want all that, get to work.

The tablets are going to end up being at the point you want them eventually, but not yet. It takes time to smooth things out. That's kind of the point of what Nokia stated when they said that we were at the 3rd of 5 steps towards having a more mainstream device.

In a few years, a combination of newer hardware, firmware updates, external projects and programmers brought into Nokia (like UKMP's programmer, who I'm not naming out of respect - because I just know I'm going to mess up his name). When that happens, don't worry.. you'll get your sleek little iPhone-like interface that makes people ooooh and ahhhh over your tablet... while I cry over mine due to the same changes.

Well I guess my point is that I already have all of that. I have all my apps installed, I use the excellent Jablet.org for my IM. I have systems to open documents and whatnot, systems to sync my music etc. I had to learn though and it took me about 6 months to truly feel comfortable in this ecosystem.
I am a non partisan tech user, I own and use a macbook pro, ubuntu laptop and XP tablet, s60 symbian phones, N800, iPod 3G and 4G, ipaq winmo PDA. I am not loyal to a single way of doing things as there are always many ways. I just think the best approach would be to simplify how to get all the cool uses out of the tablet as well as keeping the device completely open to anything, but above all make it fun rather than frustrating to do stuff.

I've got a few ideas in my noggin for other things that might help... we'll see, if I have time/energy to work on them.

I think the common theme on most rants of any the IT is how it doesn't fit a person's lifestyle. The IT in its current iteration isn't meant to be a phone, pda, document editor. There are some strides towards that direction, but I don't think its there yet.

I do wish that Nokia put a lot more resources into developing services and apps for the platform, but I see it this way: Nokia might be a phone giant, but their tablet department is a fraction of what Apple's development team for the iPhone. I mean, seriously, if Apple had to work nonstop for 2 years since the first sketches of the iPhone were carved out and then they STILL had to divert people from the OSX10.5 team (and delay Leopard) to launch the iPhone in time...you have to ask how much Apple was betting the farm on the iPhone by diving directly into the deep end. I get the feeling Nokia is just slowly dipping their toe into the pond, and in doing so, is taking a lot longer to bring something that is palpable to the mass market. Are we still using beta products? Absolutely. However, I don't know why everyone wants these little tablets to be able to run as fast and strong as a computer and have the connectivity of a cellphone.

Nokia might be putting money into developing this thing (which is why people keep asking where the cell phone part is) but it is not part of their core business (yet). I don't see anyone b1itching about why the Asus EEE or the Pepper Pad doesn't have UTMS/EVDO/EDGE/HSDPA/WiMax along with WiFi.

The "it just works" approach to design must feel very simplistic to the end user, but if it was that easy to develop such products, we wouldn't wonder why everyone is drinking the Apple kool-aid.

I do wonder how many people does Apple have employed for the iPhone/iPod Touch and how many Nokia has on their staff for Maemo. Btw, the iPhone never was released with a complete set of tools either. A lot of it is still unfinished and needs refinement, but they did seem to know what to focus on and polish when it was time to get it out the door.

I think that's the catch-22.

If I owned a tablet (or my wife did), I might get to work.
But I'm not buying her a tablet because I don't want to spend $400 on something that requires me to get to work.

I like having the option of working.
I don't like being required to work.

The fewer people who buy a tablet, the fewer people there will be to improve them.

I'm not sure Nokia will still be making tablets in a few years.

I appreciate the sense of loss and nostalgia. But I think it's important to remember that the sleek little iPhone-like interface is about more than oohing and ahhing. It's about usability, arguably the most important feature and something that the tablet really seems to lack.

I see discussions here on whether scroll bars should be made wider to accommodate finger-friendliness. Perhaps a better question would be, "why use scroll bars at all?" People are probably going to hate me for saying this, but the iPhone really highlighted how much the tablet looks like a Microsoft product.

In January 2008 you'll be able to buy HSDPA for Eee.
http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2007/1...or-eee-pc.html
http://www.i4u.com/article13308.html

N810 awesome, much more solid than I could have ever expected. The keyboard is ok too contrary to what I've read on here, definitely sold on the device and I will definitely purchase one soon.

I'm sure the iphone had a development team of several magnitudes greater than the IT. In fact I seem to remember Quim remarking on the Nokia being surprised at how small of a team it took to get the whole product conceptualized, designed and shipped. I guess my question is that now that its been seen that this device is completely viable why go slow and steady when there are the resources available to push the platform immediately and get a jump on the Androids and Intel MID's.

I also see that Nokia is taking some steps ie officially supporting the product through its developer support programs on Forum Nokia and Nokia Beta Labs support. I didn't ever think about what that meant but it truly confirms the N770 and N800 as "experiments" they were proof of concept devices that found a market.
My last question is I wonder how big of a team is devoted to the touch screen flavor of S60 that is coming out next year? I see that as a huge challenge to Maemo. Is it not better to unify resources under a single touch screen platform and a single keypad oriented platform?

For the record I much prefer Maemo to S60 and hope that Nokia takes it as far as it can go.