I had the same errors that Brontide had in Maps (I had to reflash twice) and Modest (I lost a really big and important email one time after it crashed). I agree with him that, if I don't know anything about Linux, it would be a big problem for me.

I don't imagine it happening in Windows, or Palm, or Firefox. I think that's what he wants to say, and I understand him.

I'm not sure I know enough about quality assurance to really say.

My understanding is that QA tests to given specifications. Is that correct?

So, for OS2008, if the specifications QA is given say that chat works with Jabber and Google Talk, and QA finds that yes, chat works with Jabber and Google Talk, then all's good, right? I don't think it is QA's place to say, "Ya know, this would be much niftier with AIM, MSN, and YM! support. Go back to work, code monkeys!"

Nor can QA fail the media playback component of OS2008 for not playing the episode of Muppet Babies they got off BitTorrent, can they? If it plays the media formats the specs say it should, then they pass it.

So, if I'm understanding QA correctly, then I'm fairly certain Nokia's QA team did a good job on OS2008. On the other hand, if my ideas of QA are completely off base, then I'll have to reevaluate based upon further information.

I'm going to go against my previous statement about not participating to comment on that one point.

You may not imagine problems occuring with Windows, et al, but they most certainly do. As a Microsoft developer for many years (and a programmer in general for over 20) I have encountered problems with every single operating environment with which I have worked and almost every single application at one time or another.

Flawless operating systems and applications are, unfortunately, nonexistent. The closest one can currently come to such a utopia is within the Apple phone/mediaplayer ecosystem and that is due to its highly-controlled state.

And as to the latter point, users simply must accept that the drastically different approaches here vis-a-vis Mostly Open vs Mostly Closed lead to diametrically opposing results; the former increases risk, the latter reduces it. That is the "nature of the beast".

The tablets are Mostly Open, and were introduced into an immature and unproven ecosystem. That was not the case with iPhone, where Apple spent at least 2 years silently and steadily preparing their controlled market. As I have mentioned previously, the tablets more closely emulate the history of "IBM compatible" computers which have traditionally been Mostly Open. This provides virtually infinite flexibility and grassroots opportunity at the risk of various vulnerabilities.

Bottom line, as a consumer you pick your poison: safe and limited, or risky and wide-open.

Consumers simply need to educate themselves, period. No amount of disingenuous argument or complaint will alter the importance of that necessity. Buying blindly is foolish, regardless of the product.

Coincidentally, I am right now revising a Windows program (that I wrote last year) to take work environment changes into account. Code that compiled perfectly months ago in Visual Studio now stubbornly refuses to cooperate. The problem lies in how Microsoft implements local security. My dilemma? Visual Studio provides ZERO helpful information on how to resolve the compile error and nothing of value has turned up on Google. Windows flawless? Not hardly. Any Windows developer will be happy to disabuse you of that notion. Often a single line of code becomes a nightmare, inducing weeks of work.

Moral of the story: perfection is a pipe dream. Manufacturers should, however, always work toward that goal. Evidence of continual improvement is evidence of honest intent. Anyone cognizant of the internet tablets' brief history is well aware that the effort is there... it just has not addressed every single problem. Yet.

EDIT: oh, and Firefox 2 occasionally crashes on me.

Well, reading this thread HAS been an education for this potential IT user who has no interest in programming or Linux or any other operating system.

Coming from a background of owning many, many PDA's over the course of the last 10 years, the N810 doesn't do enough of what I want in the manner I'd like to do it, i.e. with no programming or fussing.

The problem isn't necessarily that Nokia put out a beta product, but rather that I expect too much of the N810. Since I refuse to change my priorities in what I want in a PDA-replacement, I will not be getting the N810, but that does NOT necessarily mean that Nokia missed their mark: it IS an Internet Tablet. It is NOT a PDA.

The N810 (according to the above-quoted list of features "from the box"), does exactly what Nokia wanted it to do: be an internet tablet. It can do other things, but needs to be coaxed. Tex's comments about the open source environment are apt and well-taken. It accesses the Internet and plays music and oh yeah, "you might be able to do these other things on it." But those other things are not guaranteed and may take great effort on the part of the user.

I appreciate the OP's comments and the spirit in which they were said. People who have milked the N810 (or N800, N770) for all they're worth through Linux tricks and workarounds may not want to hear more criticism regarding a device that they've managed to make work for them, but the vast majority of consumers won't go to the trouble and will give up unless the product fits their needs in the rather narrow way in which Nokia defined it.

When I say "narrow way", I mean in those tasks that the N810 as an IT is supposed to do and do well. I would say that users of personal computers, both IBM PC's and Apple in the early 80's were somewhat aware of the inherent risks involved in new and evolving systems. I would argue that the average purchaser of a product like the N810 today would expect more maturity given the pace of change in computing technology over the last 25 years and especially the last 10.

I'm rambling now, so I'll just shut up...

Great post treynolds.

And I actually agree with you regarding the need for critical feedback. I just think my take on that was severely misconstrued. But isn't that the nature of internet forums? Signal to noise ratios really suffer.

EDIT: I will quibble with the following--

Sure they expect that maturity, but is it always delivered? Microsoft still struggles with that-- to wit, Vista. MS Vista should be very stable and functional but users still report numerous problems (and I'm one of 'em).

And the tablets are in an even more precarious position, given the still-novel features. So while maturity may be generally expected, in some ways that expectation is unrealistic and based on faulty data. Again: consumers NEED to educate themselves... regardless of the typical state-of-the-art.

I played with Claws last night, and it's not bad. I am able to access Gmail using IMAP no problem.

Do you know how we can disable or remove the built in email client and set another like Claws as the default?

Occasionally? Then I wish I had your copy of FF2. Oh, well, I moved to Opera (not bad at all), and there's FF3 coming real soon.

Could I put some words here?

I think what you just typed brings to what I've said in my first post here: why Nokia struggles with the consumer wishes? Is it that hard to write or port a PIM app that works out-of-the-box and syncs with PC, like Nokia PC Suite? It could sync with any email app, like Mozilla's. No need to be a proprietary app. It would be really welcomed by the community, I'm sure, and wouldn't hurt the IT philosophy, IMO.

Almost everyone who sees my N800 asks it ("is it a palm?"), and in every forum that I visit, everyone who doesn't know what it is, has this doubt. If this one doesn't know Linux or doesn't like it, he/she will decline to buy one IT. And believe me, it makes me sad.

There's an online shopping here in Brazil that, for a mistake, requested one N800 more when I ordered mine. For more than 2 months, they are trying to sell it, and guess: they still didn't get to (in this link - almost on the top of the page). I talked to several friends of mine, but no one wanted to buy one because of the reasons I told before.

I just think they don't know what they are losing


P.S.: hey Tex, regarding Bugzilla, could I say a thing that could be useful? (I know it hardly will be, but...) I often visit Mozilla's forum. There's a guy, called Peter (6), that for more than 3 or 4 years now, collects the most voted bugs and posts daily in a organized way. It would be the ITt's thread about OS2008 issues, but much more friendly. Could that be done in our forum? Here's a link.


Hey Benson, I use FF3 beta since 2nd version, and it hardly crashes with me, if it really crashed sometime. It's much faster than FF2.

Presuming that the new app has the proper d-bus plumbing you have to update 2 or 3 system files that are not commonly edited. A software update could easily break this as well. If you are desperate to try there is a thread in the os2008 forum about mime handling.

Harder than I think you realize. Putting together a good, well-integrated PIM suite with working sync is no easy task, and, honestly, it's something of a wonder the NITs made it to market at all. They have a very small team compared to similar mobiles projects and not a lot of extra resources to throw around at stuff.

Nokia, in the typical bloated corporate fashion, is just moving a lot more slowly with the project than most people think they should (the whole OSS thing doesn't help with this perception)—by all of their own projections and desired sales figures the tablets have been an overwhelming success (I believe they were expecting something in the range of 5,000-15,000 units for the 770, and the figure ended up somewhere in the 50,000-100,000 unit range), so they perhaps don't have quite the sense of urgency a lot of people in the community feel they should. But, my guess is that things will pick up soon enough.