of ineterest is that nokia's rm device info slated for public release by the FCC (the hwkb "dev" device) in June has another device (from memory rm_744 or rm-745) slated to come out of confidentiality clause @ 21July. could this be the candybar consumer device.
I'm at work so can't dig up much info on this rm-744 (or could be rm-745).......
would make sense to release the dev hardware a month before the consumer device
Hmm only a 1050 mAh battery? Well, on the one hand that seems a bit low, but on the other hand I can see why (for a "consumer device") they'd want it to be as slim as possible, and batteries can be a big issue for that. Plus I wouldn't discount the possibility of some rather improved power management (I mean, my sister's N8 has a smaller capacity battery than my N900 from what I remember, but I carry a spare and for hers it isn't an issue, so definitely one can offset battery capacity).
That being said, I wouldn't at all be surprised if the rm-745 turned out to be a Symbian^3 device, considering (as stated) it has the same battery as the C5. Although to temper my skepticism, the N900's battery is the same as the 5230 (for those not familiar, it's a contemporary-to-the-N900 low-end Symbian touchscreen) so maybe I shouldn't be so doubtful.
Always important to stick as close to what we directly know, and to treat our assumptions and hypotheses as what they are, mere conjecture. That is to say, the FCC confidentiality times can't expire fast enough
- The upcoming device is what Nokia until recently was betting the farm on. No reductions have taken place and it is still the same device, so you can imagine the scope of it. Not releasing it now to support the WP7 strategy would be ridiculous and obviously won't happen.
- MeeGo was supposed to replace Symbian as Nokia's primary smartphone platform. This has changed now, and instead WP7 will take this role, but that does not mean that there is no room for MeeGo any longer. WP7 is a safe bet for a wide range of phones, but that does not exclude the possibility of the occasional MeeGo speciality device.
- Hardly any phone maker who uses third party operating systems limits themselves to a single OS, even if they have a strong preference. Why should Nokia be different, even if the partnership with Microsoft is unique.
- Elop decided against MeeGo as the primary platform not because of the (lack of) potential he saw in the software, but because he (probably rightfully so) decided that the ecosystem is more important than the software itself. Buyers want "apps", and competing with the three mammoths iPhone (with its gigantic mindshare and largest number of apps), Android (with Google's crazy infrastructure and services) and WP7 (with Microsoft's money, infrastructure, and developer base) would have been incredibly hard.
Joining one of these ecosystems has many benefits, but unfortunately requires also adopting one of the operating systems. It would have made little difference to use Android over WP7, only that WP7 in my mind is clearly the more exciting platform. While it still lacks quite a bit, it makes sense to me that Nokia and Microsoft together feel confident that they are able to get it into shape before Nokia alone would have been able to deliver both a competitive OS with MeeGo _and_ finally get their ecosystem to be competitive (not to mention convince enough developers to support this new platform, which has changed so frequently in recent times).
Does this suck for us? Obviously. But we won't be able to do better if we don't look at things realistically. It is too easy to dismiss WP7 as yet another worthless Windows, or Elop as a Microsoft trojan horse. Both are very obvious conclusions to draw, but from what I can tell, don't appear to be true.
Ultimately, like others have said, a healthy Nokia that supports MeeGo and open source to some extend is still better for us than a deathly-sick Nokia that is fully committed to MeeGo.
Also, if Intel doesn't like it they can shove it and we just give it a different name. What matters in the end is that in not such a long time from now, the smartphone world will be richer for one exciting open platform (this time it's no hacker's toy like Fremantle was), and one amazing device.
