I don't have much to offer that hasn't already been said except for one small thing. While it's true that we shouldn't underestimate the techiness of Average Joes and also true that the number of techies is rapidly increasing, the vast majority of people Nokia will eventually want to win over from the competition really are that tech-ignorant.
For instance, you would expect 20-somethings to be pretty savvy, but in my college biology lab in the heart of Silicon Valley, we needed a stopwatch for an experiment a couple weeks ago... I wish I were making this up:
Student A: Oh, a stopwatch? I have one on my phone.
Student B: *jaw drops* Wow, what phone do you have?!"
Student A: *whips out her iPhone with a smirk*
Student B: Ohhh... no wonder. They have the best apps!
“Our vision is to bring the innovation, quality, and end-user participation into the consumer mainstream.”
Ari Jaaksi, Vice President
Nokia, Maemo Devices
This does not specifically mean the N900, but it indirectly refers to it since Maemo is on the N900. Mainstream can be a loaded statement, but I am of the opinion that non/not mainstream really means people who are more likely to take a risk on a product... So to bring this back to the original topic of whether Joe or Josephine Average understands how special the N900.. it's anyone's guess he can like it for whatever rational or irrational reason he or she has and educating people that they have options that may fit them better than other devices and that Nokia is a company that produces products with quality, innovation, and end-user participation is something that we as members of the Nokia community could educate others on if and when the time comes and if it really matters to us to cheer Nokia on.
But I think we should just get the device and enjoy it for whatever reason we bought it and there's no point wasting cycles in dwelling over whether other people will understand it or appreciate it as much as you. If it fails because it fails to reach the mainstream and lack of revenue at least it's open source and has many protocols and applications that are functional and feature-packed for you to keep enjoying it. But of course it's a risk like anything else.. a little more so because it is a new device and because it is not mainstream.
I see the problem as this: we have here a potentially powerful device that's a phone and a computer and is hopefully not bad at both.
I have a pocketable computer that replaced my laptop and even at two years old every indication is that it would blow the doors off the computer aspect of the N900. For the unsubsidized price of an N900, you could get a Viliv S5 or UMID M1 and a Nokia 1661 for voice calls.
Like it or not, the competition the N900 is up against is the smartphone segment which can handle phone duties and light computing. Facebook and email are significant to the users, the relative openness of the Linux distro is much less so.
Nokia needs to focus on the everyday capabilities and apps of the N900 to be successful. It is rapidly loosing the initial advantages as far as hardware (the new Samsung Moment has a faster CPU and an OLED screen). It needs to wow people with the UI.
In a CNet interview with Doug Fisher of Intel (which is well worth reading in its entirety), he discussed what is driving their Linux distro, Moblin, which will eventually be competing with Maemo and Android for the smartphone market:
"We had three main areas that we had been driving requirements around, which is Internet usage, media consumption, and social networking. Those are really the three design points Moblin is focused around--that type of device. It's really a different usage experience. What you described [lack of end user adoption of Linux] is really true. Educating the user to make them comfortable with this type of environment is important, and what they do with this device after they get it is critical."
Well, since I started this thread, I can explain what I personally mean with Joe Average.
Average Joe Average:
My Joe Average is the guy who isn't in any way stupider or more ignorant or less prone to make smart choices. He is the guy who call you when they have trouble with a corrupt hard drive, your sister who think computers are boring, the guy across the street that has no time to research his buying decision, the pretty girl at the gas station, your young but technologically challenged economics professor at school. Really, not a stereotype as much as the lack of the stereotype that we fit in by being active on t.m.o.
I don't think we're talking down on these people in this thread, we just have to admit that we in here are more than average interested in technology. Average Joe is the rest.
A phone that only sells to people as interested in technology as us would per definition not sell very good.
Roy at IT:
Furthermore, there's a risk that we that can be called tech-heads are divided into Symbian people, Maemo people, Android people, and iPple. So even Roy at IT may not look at the N900 twice because it's just the new Nokia flagship, and he's much more interested in Hero / Leo / 3gs. And on each of the other platforms, these days there are coming out new devices that are much, much cooler than the previous generation. Really. There is a lot to read about on all platforms. And Engadget has article after article every day, about every model, and for us tech heads there is a lot of noise the N900 can drown in.
Volt at t.m.o.:
If I wasn't already a Maemo user, I would most certainly be getting an HTC phone next. Most probably an Android. There is a lot of buzz about the Android, with it's opennessy linuxy coolness. The Maemo platform had an timing advantage but lost it, they really should have came up with the N900 last year instead of the N810 wimax. Now Android has a lot of things working for them. I believe that until you start considering the platform strenghts and weeknesses, the HTC phones are more appealing than the N900 - there are more models to choose from, they're stylish as long as you like black, the high resolutions are there, they were early to implement WiFi, etc. Nokia is doing a lot right these days, but they're a bit late to save the smart phone market. I fear I might not have noticed the N900 amongst the other interesting products, and I probably would not have hold back and waited. The Diamond2, the Touch Pro2, the Hero, already on the market. To see where the N900 kicks these phones arses, you have to look beyond the marketing brochures, even beyond the specs. The sales person may not know. It's hard to see that one platform might have more applications but another is growing faster, yet another have better terms and more potential. You have to know stuff about the operating systems, the platforms.
The percentage who do that, really low. Here at maemo.org, the percentage is probably really high. Amongst our friends, rather high. The world market overall... Really low.
Why, then, would people pick the Maemo phone? Well, good reviews maybe. Price difference, maybe. Recognition of words like "android", "maemo", "windows mobile", makes people feel safe. "Does it have a facebook widget" seems to matter.
On one hand, if facebook widgets matter the most, maybe the Maemo platform doesn't have anything extra to offer mr. and mrs. Joe Average. Maybe the phone isn't special.
On the other hand, if this phone has more potential to grown services and apps that other platform doesn't have, then I think it'd be a shame if the platform drowned in the media flow.
I don't think we here are smarter, more informed, better than the Joe Average that is a incarnation of "wide market appeal". We're just more informed about a tiny slice of technology. My sister would never, ever buy a N900 unless I told her to. My coworkers only know of the N900 because I forcefeed them info when they link me HTC Leo/Hero links. I think the N900 has a better platform. I just fear very few people will find out.
By step 5 out of 5, people had better have noticed. Or there will be no step 6.
Not for nothing isn't it not all about speed. For instance my overclocked near 600 mhz mytouch 3g runs like *** compared to the N900. So boasting its 800mhz depends on what processor is inside.
I have a pocketable computer that replaced my laptop and even at two years old every indication is that it would blow the doors off the computer aspect of the N900. For the unsubsidized price of an N900, you could get a Viliv S5 or UMID M1 and a Nokia 1661 for voice calls.
Would you mind telling us what your pocketable computer is? Otherwise, it's hard to evaluate your claim about "blowing the doors off" the computer aspect of the N900
And the key question: do you have a fully functional Linux running on it? There are a lot of MIDs that have been designed for the Windows market, but the Nokia tablets + maemo appear to me to be the most polished Linux devices to date. I am eager, however, to see what Intel + Moblin delivers.
