I am a bit concerned about what I am reading here. Did a fair bit of rooting around, ended up with a toss-up between android-phone and n900. I like debian/ubuntu, and n900 gives more opportunity to get under hood if I need to. So, this was earlier in the week. Placed an order. Now, within days, I'm reading that maemo won't be supported into the future, alternatives might be supported (but with a 100,000 uder base, unlikely), and maybe it will become a community-based project?

Oh. Whoopie. I just shelled out fo a communicator that will function like ubuntu on a 5 year-old Dell. Bits will work, but other bits will involve me wasting hours trawling obscure lists to find hacks to fix stuff that should have worked out of the box, or having to wait for functionality until some GNU developer feels moved to write it for free. Great.

My partner needs a new phone - I'll tell her to avoid Nokia, as Symbian is getting a bit long in the tooth now, and look at android.

I have to say I am completely gutted, beneath the cynical reply. I have been looking for a device like this ever since I bought a Psion 5 and sold my Psion 3 to a friend (and regretted that ever since). Such a buzz, finding my media centre PC listed on the network, being able to pull down videos of whales off Kaikora I took two years ago and watching them on it.

Such a shame. This device had so much potential. I am gutted. And I am disgusted at Nokia. Having used Nokias for many years, it feels like a betrayal, but I will make sure my partner gets something else now.

M.

Partially, but mostly you got an extremely open pocket computer that could handle phone calls. Best experiment I've been a part of.

This is, technically, the fifth device to run Maemo. First with cellular capabilities though (does WiMax count as cellular?)

Maybe if all you want is an iPhone then go get an iPhone. I would never be satisfied with the iPhone, and I know many who wouldn't either.

Ditch what, exactly?

Conceding to Apple when there's definitely a market that wants to avoid them would be even dumber.

So let's say you are the boss of Nokia for a second. Apple and Google are gaining masses of ground on you every day. Every chart you look at figures are down, share is being lost. So what do you do??

Let's spend millions developing a device that we'll brand as the ultimate smart phone and then ditch it after a few months. That way we'll really annoy our preimum customers and loose even more market share while we faff around deciding on our next move. Great plan guys!!! Apple and Google must be laughing at you everytime you speak.

The funny thing is that the N900 could have badly hurt the iPhone. All you had to do was finish the software off and possibly improve the handset design before release. What was the point in waisting time and money in a half baked idea during such a critical time?

Now Nokia are in serious trouble with the release of the iPhone 4g. Thousands of Apps, Multitasking, OLED screen, massive community support which means it will be as open as Maemo within weeks of release. Meego won't stand a chance, sorry!

iPhone will never be as open as Maemo or MeeGo. Apple won't make it happen. In terms of open software and possibilities, no other mobile OS exists to compete against Maemo and MeeGo. To really compete against iPhone on Apple's turf Maemo should have been much more mature when it came out in the first place. I think Nokia doesn't need another iPhone OS - they already have something like that in Symbian3 and upcoming Symbian4, with an exception that even Symbian is more open than iPhone. MeeGo needs to be something else - it needs to accomplish much more than iPhone. Therefore, I can understand why Nokia will put almost all effort to MeeGo. Siphoning resources too much to different things will slow down development and Nokia is running out of time badly. Besides, some of development will add to Maemo also, ie. Qt. Will it be enough, remains to be seen. For me it's enough that I can already accomplish more with my N900 than i could ever do with iPhone. Only things I really miss are Ovi Music support and fully functional Ovi Maps.

>> So, this was earlier in the week. Placed an order.

If you are not happy with the n900 NOW (i.e. if Nokia announces tomorrow there will be NO more support AT ALL for the n900) then CANCEL that order or return it (you have a cooling off period correct?)

In the long run this will save you grief

On the other hand, if you are happy with the n900 NOW such that if Nokia announced tomorrow there will be NO official support AT ALL, you wouldnt even care AT ALL (this is NOT hyperbole, most unix/tech users here are like this) then buy the n900.

But if you have ANY doubt at all, cancel that order and look elsewhere.

Thanks, it arrived yesterday, and the agreement is return if unopened. I have to say that I am very impressed with it. I have read through lots of threads on this, and I think that Nokia need to do some damage control here. At the moment, nobody knows what is going to happen - and this will only make the situation worse. If this were an ordinary phone, for a consumer, having it stuck on a Symbian release with updates now and then - not an issue. But as a mobile computing & communication device (which is what it is), being stuck on the final version of the software is a concern. Now, as I understand this, there will be room for using the n900 for development using other OS, but the only Maemo development will be within the community base (no point if there will be no future versions of Maemo); this does not mean that there will not be updates, or support for Maemo 5. From what I have read, there will be developments for the new OS that can be backported to Maemo 5. But there won't be a Maemo 6. Given the life-cycle of these devices, in a world where there are still people who cleave to XP in preference to Vista and who are still waiting to see how W.7 turns out, that means a potential useful life for the n900 at least five years on this version of Maemo. If it achieves that, it would be remarkable in itself. I have never owned any organiser or mobile phone that I still used 3 years later - I had one of the earliest Nokia phones that could work as a modem (£400 a month call bills while I was abroad...); I had Psion 3 & 5, early iPaq, a Sony Clio, and an early netbook. After the Psions, there was little that really hit the spot - this comes close. And FGS, debian on a handheld?

Having slept on this, I think I will be hanging on to mine. If they remove this from their product line (which they will have to if they don't do something about the publicity arising from this), a machine like this will become one of the most sought after items in the field. I hope it won't be another ten years before we see another device like this.

I would think that as these things come with warranty, and in some cases lock the user in to two-year contracts, as long as they continue to market the phone, they will have to support it for some time to come. From what I have seen so far, the only thing I can see it lacks is capability of hooking up to things like iPlayer and 4OD - which is a pity, and I can live without - but it would be a nice to have. Video from my own network via WiFi seems to play no problem, but video from the internet via WiFi is hopeless. I've tried all the tricks to get it going - but it just drags along.

M.

Actually it's now so easy to jail break an iPhone it's not even funny. Remember that due to it's massive popularity there are unlimited possibilities. The N900 has hardly any decent apps. It's all about apps.

But nonetheless you're forced to jailbreak a device you own. Apple is treating you like cattle out of the gate.

You're right. There's nothing funny about having to jailbreak a device you own to gain control of it.

The Emperor Jobs is very determined to limit your possibilities. Just saying 'unlimited' really pisses him off.

Maybe for you it's all about apps. I have all the apps I really need. Good quality apps. For me It's all about the OS. About having an open, fully capable linux distro in my pocket running on a device I control. And not being another iSheep herded around by Sheepherder Jobs' iSheepdogs, only going where I'm allowed.

Reading your posts, clearly you have not grasped the actual concepts behind the N900/Maemo/MeeGo. Neither it's considerable technical capabilities as the first true pocket computer (that makes phone calls) or more importantly, it's philosophical point of view. Maybe this from another post of mine will give you some idea of what it means to me and to at least some others here who do 'get' it...

"I'll never forget when I realized I had to have a N900. I was sick of the Android phone I was using, surfing around to see what else was in the works. Found out about the N900 and got to the maemo.org home page where there was an article kinda announcing Maemo 5/N900. It had a screenshot of a terminal with a '#' prompt and said something like "You can do what you want. We trust you with your device."

I was stunned. I mean, jaw-dropping, got-goosebumps stunned. I couldn't believe a huge commercial enterprise like Nokia would not only actually put a full-stack linux distro in my pocket but then happily allow root access to it! Well, I knew what that meant, in a big-picture kinda way - but I also knew most ordinary users who bought a N900 would have no clue, none. Sadly, all the whiners have proven me right. Wish I'd been wrong.

Anyway, I'm no fanboi for any company, I'll buy whatever is best for me. But I gotta admit that since that shocking moment I've had a bit of a soft spot for Nokia."

mishmich:
PR1.2 have improved overall performance and framerate of the OS quite a bit, but just so you dont get dissappointed - you will not get 100% smooth framerate while using the N900 in its current state.

if u want the desktop to become eyecandy - then install live desktop (incl. 3 themes, not HQ though)

if u want to enjoy youtube i really recommend that u install Mediabox with the youtube plugin - it will give 99+% full framerate while playing youtube clips... also install MPlayer + SiB... it will give good framerate in most cases when watching movies (unless a certain compression parametre was used when encoding the video).

anyway, now im going off topic so to get back:
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i think the Meego project for N900 will turn out really well if 4 conditions are met:
1. the project developers implement all drivers for all of the N900's hardware and make full use of it.
2. use multi-touch emulation: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...8&postcount=61
3. optimize speed to maximum possible extent, as this will leave plenty of resources to other tasks, and for example eliminate framedrops while using the camera as camcorder.
4. implement everything needed to run native Meego apps