[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Maemo 2.0 API changes, signals and properties (was: ANN: Eagle)

[From: Shawn Gordon]

I think you're not appreciating what I'm trying to say, email is 
notorious for not getting the proper tone across.  I'm not attacking 
anyone, I'm expressing my concern at the current situation.  I would 
also say that it is not at all obvious to me that the developers are 
working hard.  I do not in any way mean that as a slam against them, 
I'm just saying that I haven't seen anything that would tell me 
that.  That said, I don't read all the email on this list either.

I think the device is gorgeous, I do think that some of the UI design 
ideas are not at all intuitive though, and the decision on the MMC 
card was really not a good one, they are expensive, hard to find and 
do not go very high on capacity.  No one is going to forgive the 
price point if it is too under powered for what they expect it to do, 
it could be $50, it doesn't matter.  I'm a programmer and I was a 
reviewer for magazines for year as well, I know how these things are 
approached.  If there isn't an option for a beefier unit with more 
features, then it is judged on its features and stability regardless 
of price.  Nokia is famous for their rock solid hardware, so 
something that comes out and seems more like a test unit is going to 
upset a reviewer even more.

I've got to say that this review 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/15/AR2006041500125.html 
is pretty much spot on, much as I like the device, from a reviewer 
perspective there is nothing I disagree with in this review, I had 
all the same experiences other than the network connection one.  With 
the lack of software, it's really not clear what you should do with 
this device.  Nokia (or maybe it was just the press) has made it seem 
that things like VoIP will be coming any day now, but they 
haven't.  My company has all sorts of cross platform VoIP solutions, 
I would have ported it to the 770 months ago but I didn't want to 
compete with a free solution included with the device, but nothing 
has come out yet.

My whole intent in getting involved with the conversations today is 
to try to do something productive because I'd really like to see the 
770 (or its offspring) succeed.

At 10:48 AM 4/19/2006, you wrote:
>On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 09:14 -0700, Shawn Gordon wrote:
> > I gotta say as a third party developer that the state of Maemo is
> > rather frustrating, it seems like a far from done piece of work and a
> > moving target.
>
>Are you seeing API breaks, or are you complaining that improvements are
>happening? Is this an attempt to complain about progress while also
>demanding that progress happens?
>
> >   I've seen a lot of complaints on industry reviews of
> > the device as well to the stability and selection of software
> > included on the device.  What's happening at Nokia to help with this
> > and remove the perception that the device is a beta unit?
>
>I think it's fairly obvious that Nokia's developers are working very
>hard. They appear to be working on general stability, bug-fixing, and
>new functionality. Attacking them will slow them down.
>
>I've seen only one or two reviews that think if suffers from a lack of
>functionality, but they have compared it with either larger and more
>expensive products (such as mini laptops) or with less capable devices
>such as phones and PDAs which don't fullfill the main 770 use case
>(using the web).
>
>The other reviews seem to be very positive, and forgiving of a few
>glitches with the recognition that it's a first, that it's meant to do
>one thing well, and that it has limited resources to keep the price
>down.
>
>--
>Murray Cumming
>murrayc at murrayc.com
>www.murrayc.com
>www.openismus.com


Regards,

Shawn Gordon
President
theKompany.com
www.thekompany.com
www.mindawn.com
949-713-3276