That (being general purpose computers, rather than dedicated function appliances) is one of the tablets' greater strengths IMHO. Arguably an Archos may be a better media player, a Kindle a better ebook reader, a TomTom a better navigation device, a Snom a better SIP phone and so on, but the N8x0s are the only pocket-sized devices currently on the market that can do all those things, and even run laptop-oriented apps if you're so inclined.

Ironically, Nokia has been promoting them just as Internet appliances while using the general-purpose angle for Symbian devices ("it's what computers have become"), which are not even close.

They can, but I can almost guarantee you you don't want it the way Nokia wants it.

Canola was not developed by Nokia.

No, when Nokia's involved it makes much more sense for them to make it easy for people to open the box and get quick, easy access to the accessories they may wish to install. Bundling things just results in a lot of needless overhead for the community and Nokia.

I'm not looking for a convergence device. I prefer a smaller inconspicuous phone. It's easy to take places you want to have a phone, but not the undightly bulge or case hanging off your belt. The tablets (and even the iphone) are just too large for that. Plus as snoshrk pointed out, it makes it easy to upgrade your connectivity cheaply.

I think Nokia has to make a big move with the upcoming generation of tablets, letting them go another generation may be one too many. The upcoming tablets should be able to run most programs reasonably and watch unconverted dvd quality video wiith ease. Computer manufacturers are having an increasinly difficult time finding buyers. Many computers 3+ years old are still "good enough" for most tasks for the masses. From a hardware standpoint, the upcoming generation of mobile devices may be "good enough" for most uses. After that, the potential market begins shrinking as fewer people upgrade every generation for minimally faster load times and minimally better battery life. Particularly if their current device is meeting their needs.

I started off with a HP320LX, didn't do much with lt though, a novelty really. A couple of years ago, I bought a Palm Zire 31, within 6 months I had upgraded to a Palm TX, after about a year I got the itch again. There wasn't much out there to compete with the TX. The key point was the resolution (320x480). Most other reasonably priced devices had lower resolutions. The TX had several flaws, and I wasn't satisfied with anythimg until I found the Nokia tablets. I picked up my N800 on ebay, transfer some files, loaded some software, and haven't picked up my TX since. I'm looking forward to the signnificantly better hardware in the upcoming tablets, but I think it would take an even larger hardware change to get me to jump quickly again.

INDT is an affiliate, as he said.

He also said "developed by Nokia" and I wanted to make it perfectly clear that INdT is not Nokia.

For crying out loud, Ryan, he included an "or". His intent was perfectly clear.

Is it really that important to quibble over semantics?

Cripes allmighty...

Or else you'll storm out again?

Anyway, for several good reasons why I'd rather not see good community applications bundled with Maemo, you only have to look at far as the bungling involved in Nokia's own bundled applications.

Personally, I think it's better to focus on making Extras top-notch quality and making sure it's available in the Application Manager right from the first boot. Having a "blessed" set of applications may discourage other developers with similar applications, or discourage new developers from trying to create any competition. New users need to know that they can get other stuff and have a good experience doing it, but forcing a certain set of that stuff on them just seems like a poor way to go about it.

Doesn't doing it this way just result in a larger set of "blesseed" apps? New user gets tablet, goes to extras, sees there's already 2 "top notch" similar apps, and fiigures why bother with a third? Make the "top notch" bar too high and you'll stiffle competition anyway, or just lead to the creation of multiple repo's like now.

If you install a fixed set of apps by default (much like any othher liinux distro) a new can open the box,charge the tablet and get to work/play enjoying the tablet. Just make it easy to remove/replace the default apps. Then when a user outgrowws them (whether down the road, or immediately on first boot) they can jump to extras and install/remove whatever they want.

I'd bet that if Nokia chose from the "top notch" extras apps, a lot of new users wouldn't find there way here because they wouldn't need to. Ship a "bare" unit, and you'll get a ton of newbies here asking how to install * or which one of * similar appss should I use (despite any included instructions or stickies). Worse yet, many would feel the tabblet "sucks" without evn explorng the Extras repo (enabled or not).

Ah yes, a mature comment befitting a community council member...

Two points: 1) Tex, we all know how... particular... GA can be in his comments and viewpoints; I agree that he was going waaay over the top on the nitpicking there... but like all of us despite these moments he does do a lot for driving the community (if a bit rough and annoying around the edges from time to time); don't let him get to ya, a community's all about diversity, while we all have some common interests and goals most of us have a slightly different approach to going about them... that's what makes this such a nice well rounded group (esp. compared to a lot of the other open source devels that have been around longer and tend to end up with forums that have coders who belittle new commers rather than trying to help them!).
2) I'm with Lemmy on this point... while I don't think bundling every app under the sun is the best option, one of the biggest problems with the NITs for newcommers has always been "What the heck do I do with this thing?"; I mean my brother is an exceptionally techie guy, but he was only interested in the tablets after I explained to him all the stuff that he could install and do with it beyond what it appeared to be on the surface. I think that's the underlying problem with the devices... and I hope things like the new App Marketplace (sorry was that Ovi store or something? I'm sure GA will jump in with the correct syntax to fill my general statement here... pun fully intended) will help at least make people aware of the possibilities, along with the cleaned up and stronger emphasis on main repositories.

One thing that I wonder if the Maemo Community Council has talked about or considered is some purposed meta-packages? For example, as with all Linux projects, the downside to open source is that there are often a whole whack of apps that do the same thing... and of course come with crazy names that often do have a terrible lot of relevance to them. No problem there, but I think from a newbie point of view if I could open up the app manager and have the choice of "customize my tablet for general purpose X"... so new users get the ability to easily choose from a few "community created bundles" if they don't know specifically what apps they want, but just that they want to do some fun extra stuff. They can always go back later and remove specific apps or install specific new ones, but I think some of these "groups of apps" would go a long way (esp if they were presented properly) to get more newbies into the idea of installing external programs.

Just my two cents anyways....