Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

I agree that balance is the key. However you can't deny that the balance is tipped towards power more than battery life. People were raving about the new Snapdragon.

It is a similar war in the automotive industry: efficiency versus speed. Some want speed. And some want an economic car.

However the N900 is more like a race car. If you wanted a phone with great battery life, a Symbian phone would do well.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

Seems to me that step 5 of 5 has a few areas that need to be worked out:

1) Resource management. There will always be a finite limit on memory and cpu, and with multi-tasking OS, both are easy to consume, but not so easy to manage.

On the memory side, it is all very well having swap, but as soon as you get into swapping, you end up with lag and stalling and staring at an unmoving screen for minutes (worst case). Going to a console session to kill a rogue process.

On the cpu side, it seems all to easy for apps to get into a cpu consuming loop (like microb at engadget.com seems to), which drains the battery if unchecked.

I think a real fix to this is something not all that achievable with the current platform. The haters will hate this, but the way iphone os 3 doesn't do multitasking, and the way ios 4 does do "multitasking" is actually a pretty good idea. It says "Yes, you can stay in memory, and be served cpu cycles, but at any point I may ask you to exit, and you must save your state, exit gracefully, and when restarted carry on where you left off".

This isn't something that linux apps do, and if they could, it would lead to a more stable setup on a limited resource device.

On the cpu side, it is a case of better managing cpu cycles. The solution here is less clear, because an app using a high amount of cpu is sometimes a good thing - like when watching a vid with a codec that isn't accelerated. We *want* the cpu to be commited to the video to get good playback. Whereas some dodgy javascript on a webpage should not be allowed to steal excessive cpu.

But how would the OS work this out? Again, this isn't something that can be done without apps cooperation. Certainly you should at least be able to say "if this app is in the background it should be niced down out of existance, yet this app can consume whatever cpu it wants in the background or foreground" - yet still place upper limits. There are always exceptions to this rule - consider microb at pandora.com - we want commited cpu even in the background, and we wouldn't want this app to suspend ever. It is difficult to imagine a regime that would always work for all apps all the time, without human intervention.

2) Battery. This in part is the same as (1). Part of the battery problem gets solved by better cpu management. But if we want all the things that make this platform cool - the always on, always available option, then battery needs to be better.

3) App Store. I have no need for it - the whole app store frenzy brought about by Apple annoys me endlessly. But apps beget apps begets sales, begets commitment etc. The Apple ecosystem is successful because people can make money out of it. This means that developers will commit resources because they can get a return. This in turn leads to secondary marketing (we have maemo app for that), and so greater exposure. This leads to more sales, and interest from businesses who are happy to loss-lead if it gets them sales for their primary business. This would be businesses like banks and TV channels etc who are willing to develop free apps to get people to buy whatever they are selling.

Get these things right, else all the touchscreens, video playback, form factor, gyros, compasses etc won't matter because no one will purchase the unit in the first place.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

Great post, paulkoan.

I just have to hope that Nokia has learned from the prior 4 steps and step 5 will get more right than the prior steps.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

I agree that there should be better CPU management in Maemo. Much better to be honest. And Apple's approach to multitasking is very good, however the point remains it will not be true multitasking.

Saving your state is good, for a paused game maybe. But what about a process that for example checks e-mail. How would the OS knows whether the process that is hogging the CPU is useful or not?

You do not want the CPU to save the state of an unzipping process? However a process that checks for e-mail every second could be closed till the OS recovers and then opened again.

The only possible way to implement this is having someone decide whether a process could be closed or whether it is necessary.

An app could be flagged with importance on coding ex:

1. Never close unless it is really necessary (like a browser).
2. Close only if closing those with flag 3 didn't help
3. Close and save state if CPU usage is constantly up.

And someone (a physical person) needs to control that these flags are not misused. Which will then put up the credibility of the realness of an open OS. So I do not think that this is possible. Since it is open, anyone can post anything. Unlike Apple which control their apps.

A user could intentionally post a virus, although I do not believe anyone from maemo.org would do this. Maemo repositories are somewhat controlled, but you can install from other sources.

Preventing rogue apps is difficult with an open OS.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

i hear a lot of talk about compasses. i am trying to seee the use for it. is it mainly for joggers or hikers and things like that? ort is there som eother use a compass could have. i know its off topic but curious. also.. when ever i use one of the gps apps like google or ecoach ( i love ecoach every time i jogg i use it) it gives me north south and all that. so whats so special about the compass that the next device should have it?

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

the advantage of the compass is that the screen will rotate and orientate itself based on your position. So you turn south and now the map rotates and points south with you. n900 does some kinda trickery to get it to happen "sort of" in ovi maps w/o a compass. my guess is that based on the direction your heading the gps knows which was is north from that and it re-orientates the screen but with a real compass it happens automatically because, well, there's a compass haha.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

Consider this. You are somewhere you are unfamiliar with. You get your GPS and there is a map with your location in it. Which direction do you start walking in?

Of course you can work this out, perhaps by looking around at street names, or looking at the sun's position, or perhaps you have an innate sense of direction.

Other than these, it would be far simpler if the map you are looking at automatically oriented itself to the direction you are facing. To do this it needs to know which way you are facing. To do that it either needs a compass, or it needs to to move for long enough in one direction in order to get a bearing.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

It works even when you can't get GPS signals. It doesn't require you to move, and isn't affected by position ambiguity.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

Perhaps this could be part of the .desktop file associated with an app. I think if you made the default to kill an app if it doesn't have any indication of how it should be treated in low resource situations, then this would encourage developers and porters to define a resource profile.

A bit like the optifying process that happened for maemo apps.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

apple releases a phone in a year since 2007, nokia releases a phone almost every month. but look at their difference.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

how about this

- PROVIDE PROPER SOFTWARE SUPPORT
- COMMUNICATE TO YOUR USER BASE, even if it is a NO TO FLASH as per Jobs.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

I think the out-of-box experience is key. Rather than having a large number of apps that offer incremental functionality, I'd prefer if enhancements were built in, or rolled in during future updates. The OS stack should be robust and solid. The hardware should be comparative since handset manufacturers license technology from the same component venders, so differentiation is going to come from software. Nokia needs Meego to stand out.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

1024 by 600 pixel display 3.75" display Capacitive touch with resistive overlay
12MP camera xeon flash + 2MP front facing camera + HD video recording 1080p
4 row keyboard thinner
Support for full AT&T
3D audio - Dual microphones.
Better kick stand
Thinner!
Both networks US and GSM
hdmi out
micro usb
Micro SDXD

Maemo 6 not Meego (My political jab at Nokia's incompetence)

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

better materials, glass,metal

more sensors like temp, humidity, pressure, motion(like ir motion not accelerometer to tell when people are near, etc), and any other sensor that can possibly be miniaturized and put in a mobile device, maybe O2, co2, co, alcohol, blood sugar.

they are already getting the services in position, free nav, comes with music, ovi, messaging, etc, just need a little unification there.

video out plus keyboard mouse support so you can hook it up and use it as a computer, then take it with you. maybe a monitor with dock or something.

they are already doing the camera improvements. the sensor on the n8 is pretty crazy for a mobile phone.

integration with other areas of life. right now in my pockets besides my mobile are my house and office and car keys and my wallet. this need to be replaced so only carry one thing. seems like this is starting to be able to replace debit cards.

continue to push the freedom of unlocked devices

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

Ok. Here's my second chance to piss off the entire forum...

After a good, decent conversation with some well-connected and thoughtful folks about the Nokia MeeGo offering; I'll say this.

Any MeeGo products will not defeat any rivals. It will become what WebOS had become... an option, but not the first, second... or perhaps third option.

I'm willing to bet money on that. I'll cover 5 cents per bet.

And yes. I want to be wrong; thus the nickel bet ;)

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

4" capacitive oled screen

Omap4 SoC

http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/20...-tablet-phone/

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

4" RESISTIVE LCD screen

No OLED (i want to use my phone outside) and a capacitive screen is to unaccurate. :(

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

ahh i totally get it now. i used the ecoach application and i see what you guys are saying about the compass. it does not automatically orientate north or any other way in particular as far as i can tell.heck i dont even know where north is. except for the facgt i know the area and can see it, but other wise i would be lost. mobile maps 9 from sygic does how ever orientate the way you are facing. but it does take some movement. either that or rotating the phone once or twice, but eventually it gets it right. thanks for breaking the whole compass thing down

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/19837...countries.html

This will make me want to move to Android since Nokia hasn't given me OVI maps 3.0 on N900 yet.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

I can't see anyway how can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals because Nokia's development team just don't get it.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

Nokia makes some of the best hardware in the business. They've got that in the bag.

They need to focus on their software.

1. The "buy a new device to get the software update" model is antiquated, this is going to force people onto other platforms that provide major feature updates to their devices. A hardware platform should be supported for at least two years so that the customer feels as if they have gotten more value for their money. The only difference between hardware platforms should be just that, the hardware.

2. Customers don't appreciate feeling like guinea pigs. Let's face it. Maemo 5 would have been pretty good if it were on a device that didn't have a phone. The second Nokia put a phone into it, it became a cell phone. There is no excuse for releasing a device with a phone that does not have all the features that a customer expects from a feature phone, much less a phone that costs as much as the n900 does. The rest is alright, although the PIM software, and media player could use some improvement if you ask me. I know many people who prefer going with Apple products simply because, while technically inferior, the software is release feature complete, and relatively bug-free, as opposed to "let's rush it out the door and patch it later".

3. Marketing. I don't know how it is overseas, but in North America Nokia is almost non-existant. They have close to zero market share in the smart phone market, and have next to zero market presence. When a customer thinks Nokia, they think cheap flip phones, and big bricks. Nokia needs to show the public that they have devices that can compete with the current crop of smartphones.

4. Development and support. It's been 6 months since the release of the n900. We still don't have a working OVI store, or proper software to sync our devices with out PC's. This lack of polish is another area where other devices pull far ahead. There is no excuse for this. The software should have been available at launch. If the current crop of developers can't come up with the software in a timely manner, Nokia needs to hire ones who can. Google made this mistake, and managed to wrangle sucess from defeat. Hopefully Nokia can too, but my confidence is quickly waning.

In the interest of full disclosure, I really like the idea behind Maemo and MeeGo, but my experience with the n900 is coloring my confidence in Nokia to make, and support a device as well as HTC or Apple. To me it seems that I would get better value for my money had I bought something else. The only reason I haven't done so already is because I need to recover the money I spent on the n900 in order to purchase a new device, and the n900 isn't worth nearly as much now as when I bought it.

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

the new quad core proccessors are more efficiant then dual core though. i wouldnt mind some more ram. more ram doesnt neccesarilly mean bigger procesor. i dont see why a GB of ram couldnt be supported by the n900's current proccesor

Re: How can the n900 succesor defeat its rivals??
 

Alas, the only thing that Noka can do is provide features that competitors do not have.. but are also hype-worthy
- solar panel on back or some kind of self charging mechanism (by movement). Can they actually implement their own patent:
http://www.nokiausers.net/General/No...echnology.html

- create an LCD screen which only backlights all or portions of the screen to save battery. When on low-battery or 'self-charge' mode light up only the keypad area to make basic calls.

- gorilla glass.. and make a kick-*** add showing it off
- fingerprint scanner to login to phone
- partner with metro trains and put in an rfid chip so you can swipe the phone instead of a metro card. Consider this for credit card transactions in combination with the finger print scanner.
- its gotta be slim if you want mass consumer appeal