Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

Quim, I did not say you or anyone had made any decision. I was speaking in present perfect sense.

And height, scope... that can be seen as semantics. My point was that there are people hammering you for decisions and changes outside your scope. I had thought you would be grateful for the clarification...

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

Harmattan. Not yet, obviously, but when it's out I see no reason that it shouldn't be supported on the N900 in the same way that the latest iPhone OS releases are available on all the existing iPhone hardware.

Partly because, like Milhouse, I don't fancy buying new hardware just for the bug fixes, and partly because of the effect on 3rd party development. If each release is restricted to one single device it's harder to build up a critical mass of potential users for would-be developers to target. Apple don't go to the trouble of handing out free updates for older devices because they're nice people, they do it because it helps both developers and users feel secure about the future. Nokia doesn't do it, and the result is that people don't feel secure, hence this thread being created in the first place.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

[QUOTE=Milhouse;551743]

Smartphones are expensive devices. They're not disposable, nor do they have a very short useful shelf life - indeed, even without any further updates we can all accept the N900 would remain useful for several more years, basically until it suffered a hardware failure.
________

You are far better than I then. For me, the N900 is my primary work phone (even though some keep saying it is not a phone) and gets extensive use for all sorts of things. I travel often and if I can get 2 years of useful service I will be happy. Besides, two years from now, even in the backwards US, we may have 4G service and that will require a new device.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

I have hundreds of subscribed threads in this forum. Only a handful of them have any of this activity in them.

If you're reading threads with sensational titles about topics which have very little solid information about them, you're asking for rants, FUD, and noise. I usually keep one or two of these threads in my subscription list for fun, but mostly I ignore them.

We're all smart people here. Honestly, we all know what to do.

• Unless you're a moderator going in to close a thread or something, don't bother with provocative troll threads. Don't even read them. You've got way better things to do.
• Don't try to play forum paladin here. Nokia doesn't need defenders from trolls. If you're posting defenses against FUD, you're actually part of the problem. No seriously, cut it out. If you are a Maemo employee and you post a defence that includes some new information, that's different.
• If you notice that a young thread is a few pages long and very active, it is probably going to be noisy. If you're the type that doesn't like that atmosphere, stay out. If you don't like crowds, you don't walk into a pub that is standing-room only, do you?
• Use the "thread search", "forum search" and "power search" functions in the forums to find stuff that you're interested in, rather than just visiting the "New Posts" page and jumping into the most active threads.
• Get involved in some actual development / testing / wiki maintenance work around here. You'll find your opinion of the forums improving.

Oh and I chuckled at benny1967's lovely roadmap example ;)

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

Obviously hardware designs fall out of fashion, and devices of today will eventually be considered underpowered when compared with devices two or more years into the future, but fundamentally the N900 will continue to do the job it was designed to do for many years to come. In much the same way that a Nokia 3310 works just fine today - doing the job it was designed to do.

I'm not saying I would keep or use my N900 for 2+ years though, however if I were to sell it on or hand it to a family member or even keep it for 12-18 months which is typical for me, it would be nice to know it still had support and/or bug fixes coming down the line. That's the situation with other competing products. And that's how they are rapidly growing a large user base, with consistent cross-product releases.

While the N900 may have app support in future - thanks to Qt compatibility - I'm just not convinced the N900 will get all the bug fixes it deserves. The only way I can see that happening is, unfortunately, to ensure that Harmattan is made available for the N900 otherwise the N900 with Maemo5 is just one more costly mis-step on the way to Nokia/MeeGo nirvana. :)

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

A separate post for this:

Everyone keeps saying, "OS updates on iPhone still work on old devices" without realizing that this actually means that the new devices must be underperforming in order to maintain compatibility.

I for one would rather have a compatibility layer (ie a compatible version of QT and web runtime) on Maemo 5 to run MeeGo apps rather than castrating Harmattan in order to make it run on old devices.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

I'll take exception to part of that with this caveat: proactive thread moderation, ie steering the topic, can go a long way toward defusing troll-type threads (rather than simply closing them, the easy way out). In fact this forum is full of threads that started off as troll outbursts and were quickly rendered into productive dialog. Even OrangeBox had a couple.

Unfortunately, we come up lacking in the area of proactive moderation, and instead highly rely on the reactive flavor. :(

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

I just can't resist.
You all, ranting bout apple iphone updates are quite narrow minded.

First. iPhone 2G has half baked 3.0 update and won't be supported in the future.

Second. You're missing the point of actually open os. If iPhone user won't get an update - he's doomed to live with current software. If maemo user doesn't have a feature that he wants - he creates it with his own hands. Look at fmms or USSD dialer. Or many other apps. This is how it works here, welcome to the wonderful new world, where creators can breathe. If you came up with something worthy but you can't do it yourself - just ask the community, we're much friendlier than you think.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

not really, saying that is like saying windows 7 is designed with reduced performace/functions because it also works on intel pentium 4/amd barton cpus.

a good designed OS can run on both setup and utilise the hardware to its full potentional.

edit: with good driver support from from manufactures

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

It takes a high level of hardware abstraction to make that true.