ndi | # 41 | 2010-07-05, 14:28 | Report

The what? Maemo has been deviated from upgrading from 5 to 6, .deb, to a new monster, half-transitioned to RPM, half melded with Moblin, half chicken half squirrel.

It takes more work to meld M5 to MeeGo ALPHA than it takes to make M6.

They are renaming constants. Because, you know, this is the kind of stuff you need to get out of your way before releasing an OS.

M5 never exited Alpha, kid. Not will it ever. And if MeeGo will exit Alpha, or even Beta, it will be way, way after the device you own or buy with MeeGo 1.0 will die of shame.

It's incredibly easy to fix a broken gene. The problem is, the whole system must survive the transition. Humans aren't an extraordinary thing because we eat and go to the bathroom, but because all the stages we went through from cell to now are all viable life forms.

As well, if MeeGo will (would?) be great in 10 years matters not if it dies of a childhood disease. All mutations up to final must live, and if it can't digest users until it's 5.0, it will die of starvation.

And that's a problem. The rate at which the OS is ported down, simplified, or built from the ground up is slower than how hardware progresses. I don't want an OS built for underpowered devices. I want an OS that can scale UP.

An OS that can run in low animation mode and in slide-everything mode. If you build it to eat half the power others eat, by the time of your adoption you'll be ugly and simplistic.

Portable tablets gain in power like nuts.
2005, 250 MHz, N770
2007, 330 MHz, N800
2007+, 400 MHz, N810
2009, 600 MHz, N900
2010, 1000 MHz, IPhone 4

Tell me, how long before an OS that moves fine on a device becomes too small?

I want an OS with potential. You know, until x86 hits.

Which is to say, Windows 7 is potentially the best OS out there, too. They all are. Potentially best gives me no new info, and ads no new trust not hope.

I'm not pointing this at you, just saying that optimism is better when has a base to it. No OS ever developed by Nokia ever fully matured. Partly because by the time they mature the hardware passed it by (Symbian) or they never mature by design (Maemo).

bayernhan | # 42 | 2010-07-05, 17:29 | Report

I am not talking about units shipped, I am talking about the design failure where the lenses of my n97 was scracthing constantly in every slide of the lense cover, and from what I know everyone I know who owns a n97 had the same issue.It is unacceptable for such a flagship phone to have a silly design mistake.Quality over quantity...

bayernhan | # 43 | 2010-07-05, 17:30 | Report

i hope so

gerbick | # 44 | 2010-07-05, 17:57 | Report

These are the things that Nokia should already know and I think that they probably do know that stuff but need a helping hand in the areas that have been left out - namely Japan and North America.

But to answer for the North American crowd; it's rather important in some cases due to location about the carrier, the vendor (accessibility to retail)... the rest isn't about how happy people are with Apple, RIM or Android (Google, HTC, Motorola, Samsung)... but more or less how happy they are with the integration with the pieces of software they already use quite heavily.

The Nokia/Yahoo deal, MeeGo needs to talk that up. Millions of people use Yahoo Mail - imagine if they knew that a phone was coming with an OS that syncs their e-mail of their provider in a fashion that is... painfree and easy.

It's not about much more than that. If I can use the software that I use on my desktop(s) and continue that usage away from my computer on my phone(s)... that would be a good thing. I'm aware that's already in place; but I'm not your average user. I'm an established Maemo user.

But the average joe user in North America doesn't know much more than "I need access to my e-mail" - POP versus IMAP won't ever come up, they don't know what it is for the most part.

Carrier subsidies - it matters in North America. A lot. Not in Europe (as much), not in Asia (as much)... but North America? Until Nokia N-series is sold in more than just two stores (one is closing or closed, so I might be wrong here) and just not online... then the likelihood of buying a N-series phone blindly goes way down.

And stop bringing up Apple. People are happy with them because they were told to be happy. Sounds horrific, but that's closer to the truth than the people are probably willing to admit. I have an iPhone - have had them all, will be getting an iPhone 4 in less than a month. My company gives them to me. Do I like them? Not really.

But I can check a few things without firing up a browser - Google Analytics, stocks, e-mails, IM's et al. And receive regular updates for those apps. Skype's been updated 4 times on Apple iOS in the same amount of time that Skype has been updated twice on the Maemo platform. Fring has seen 4 major revisions since the release of Maemo, it's yet to show up on Maemo (as of June, I believe) and it's been updated thrice on Android (one is in beta now).

I know that MeeGo means "freedom" and "openness", but if it looks like a wide open plain with no trees, no rivers, just... a wide open space and not much more, **** running around in that freedom and wait for little pieces of stuff to come together. People have been in holding patterns, waiting for features on smartphones since 2006. We're tired of it... deliver a more solid experience upfront, or get immediately ignored. For that, see WebOS, OpenMoko. Solid offerings that lacked things people wanted in one form or another.

Again, your (Nokia) brick and mortar retail distribution is so damn lacking in North America and Japan. I don't want to drive 12 hours just for one store to get my hands on a $500+ phone that I might not like and if I return it, I will not get my full amount back due to restocking fees. Sell your stuff at Best Buy for goodness sake.

Giving developers proper tools, giving users the apps they want... it's as relevant as the above.

etuoyo | # 45 | 2010-07-05, 18:28 | Report

Not sure we can judge success simply by units sold. N97 was meant to take a huge chunk of the iphone market and failed to do so woefully. If BMW released a 5 series that happened to sell alot of units but was completely crushed in sales by E Class would you consider it a success even though it went from clear market leader to seriously lagging behind? On that basis it has to be labelled a failure. Also of that 3 million you mention how many are disappointed customers who will probably never buy another Nokia device or seriously think twice about getting one?

tredlie | # 46 | 2010-07-05, 18:46 | Report

What i find interesting/odd in this discussion is the focus on the OS. I am a Linux guy, so for me indeed it matters but likely not for the mass market. Here it takes two things:
1. a nice user interface. Here meego may be ok. I have not really looked into it but I presume I can live with it.
2. this is applications/applications/applications, about which nobody seems to talk. I dont a user interface, its applications that get the job done. And for the highend user there is a standard set, about which Nokia should by now have clue of what they need to look like: these are calendars,todo, and mailing, together with sync capability.
I would love to keep the skype/sms/mailintegration of the contacts in Maemo and have the lacking parts filled in (they just need to copy the capabilities from the symbian line, I am sure they have proper stuff there).

Meego as such is a kernel some middleware and 4 applications about which I have not heard a thing.

Am I missing something somewhere?

tomster | # 47 | 2010-07-05, 19:21 | Report

And there's a point to nail it to.

How the hell do you think you get good developers when the rules are changed quicker than the first lines of code are writen? Nokia's been warping through different OS's quicker than I could change my underwear. It's been from December 09 up till today that we saw or heard of Fremantle, Harmatten, Moblin, Meego and various versions of QT with more or less working SDKs available. But even if you did catch up with this rat-race Nokia wouldn't provide a simple online-shop to buy these apps from.

It's not just as good developers and a nice UI would do the trick. It's the whole infrastructure that has to be well thought of. And exactly this is where I doubt that Nokia got the whole picture right. Everything seems to be stuck in some sort of pre-alpha status. And it even might have been wiser not to release any screens or specs of Meego at such early stage with a half-baked OS.

As many of my fore-posters said: The confidence in Meego and it pulling things off big time is losing ground. Sad to admit it, but that's the way I see thing lately.

Kangal | # 48 | 2010-07-06, 00:04 | Report

I see. But here's what people miss, they are looking at MeeGo the wrong way. I could say that glass is half empty: look that company makes no real smartphones although they sell the most mobiles worldwide and their software/hardware offerings are clearly behind, just look at their track record.

But here's a way to look the half full glass:
We have seen dramatic increase in mobile hardware in the last 2 years. If you asked someone (even a dev) 2 years ago if N64 would work on a phone they'd just laugh What MeeGo is doing is paving the way for tomorrow, not focussing on today. iOS and Android have basically reached their limits, they have either a lack of cross-compatability or a lack of an effecient software stack (java).

Just like how Apple came to be, they just did what others did (Apps, UI) in a better package and stole WinMobile's market ... MeeGo could do the same. It must use the weaknesses of the other platform to its advantages. Against Apple, it must show that MeeGo is sexy and what you need to buy (refer to Futurama episode) with great offerings and aggressive advertising.

It will be harder against Android, it must release something to the caliber of the Nexus One and show that Apps (like an emulator) really do run "faster" (than java).
Next it must also release another phone that's cheaper and weaker (like G1) and show that the same App also runs (not as fast though) regardless of the processor difference (ARM11 vs A8) and another MeeGo device on another platform (x86) that also supports the Apps.

Once they really polish the whole package (software/hardware), demonstate its advantages (against Android) and give it an equal sex-appeal it will sell. First Nokia, then other OEMs like LG, Samsung etc could enter the fray.
We may even find those first-gen netbooks (replace XP/Ubuntu) useful.

ndi | # 49 | 2010-07-06, 01:25 | Report

Then with all due respect to the said dev, they are lacking perspective. Look at those speeds up there. With ARM being roughly one-on-one as computing power per MHz with x86, I dare say it's ready to be upgraded.

Sure x86 isn't power efficient, but many of us just want a full day out of the device, and by full day I mean 9 to 18, that's 9 hours. As for power, trust me, 600 MHz is nough to run XP if you forgo the eye candy. I have compact PCs that run XP on a Geode at 500 MHz and, while gaming isn't great, it fulfills its role as a viable PC, with full-on browsing, Office, minigames, installable software and an app base the size of China.

And if the fact that mobile phones (tablets, whatever, as long as they fit a pocket can can make calls) are only growing better isn't a mystery. Preparations are in order.

What exactly are they paving? Portable Linux is Linux slimmed down, not the other way around. As power grows, it will be slimmed down even less. effectively reversing what MeeGo does. I can't see this future thing you speak of.

Apple came to be quite a while ago. If you mean iOS, then they had a few (huge) advantages:

a) iOS only runs on their devices, that is one device (at first) No drivers, no misc hardware, no scalable interface.

b) No baggage. Not backwards compatible, no app base or devel base to ruin, no expectations to break. At that time, it was a brand new rewrite. Nobody else has rewritten at this scale since. They are all rip-offs of other work.

c) New design. All other OSs are hereditary. They inherit strengths and weaknesses of previous OSs. Maemo is bound by Debian guidelines, with strength and weakness. WinMo was slimmed from Windows and was bound by it.

d) No disappointment, no expectations, no comparison. It Just Worked, and once people liked it, they started adding. MeeGo doesn't have the luxury to not fully implement bluetooth.

That's nice, but unattainable. You can't out-sexy Apple devices because they were built in reverse from style up.

Let's just say easier said than done. That's your plan, out-sexy the Apple, out-feature Android and out-support WinMo? If they could do ANY of that we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I have no idea what Ubuntu users will do, but there's no way in hell you can displace XP while offering no Office (easydebian is not MeeGo and OOo for Arm is no MS Office x86) , no commercial apps (all 4 of them), no app base (compared), an everchanging UI and an Alpha software. XP is closing on 10 years. If it's been writtten it either runs on XP or has a clone onto it.

I have no idea how anyone thinks this will work. If it would, Debian (since it's full) would be displacing XP (also full) and it's not really how it goes.

And finally, even of MeeGo has the magical fairy dust needed to push away Android, iOS (which is wishful thinking with their dedicated hardware base) and even WinMo, let's not forget that while MeeGo is pushed halfheartedly by Nokia, the rest are pushed full-heartedly by even bigger players. I doubt Nokia has the horsepower, let alone the fact that they seem to be conserving fuel and running several things at once.

YoDude | # 50 | 2010-07-06, 02:23 | Report

Now that's scary.

One of the reasons the smartphone market was not as big as it could have been in the US earlier may have been because manufacturers were making US service providers happy. The service provider is the device vendor for most US customers.

Enter the iPhone and now any Android device and look over in the corner, grandma seems to have a smartphone too!

In the US this seemed to come about once Apple had a product that was compelling enough so that their terms could be dictated to the service provider in exchange for exclusivity. Google then created free services that the service providers customers want but for an exclusive period of time, are only available on the Android OS.

I really hope I am misreading the intent of your post, because it sounded like to me that MeeGo is being designed to give these service providers the ability to lock out selected services until additional fees are paid by the user.

WAP, J2ME, and MMS are examples that come to mind of that approach and they were all designed by "device vendors" to make their true customer, the service provider happy.

EDIT: I also just realized that you could be talking pure hardware and in that case new development could be stifled by the limitations of these existing OS's. That is, a new technology could wither on the vine if Apple or Google do not plan to support it.
In that case an OS that is modular and can be scaled up or down depending on a vendors needs would be a huge advantage.

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Last edited by YoDude; 2010-07-06 at 02:33.