[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] OS2006 roadmap

[From: Dave Neuer]

On 1/10/07, Ted Zlatanov <tzz at lifelogs.com> wrote:
>
> Well, obviously there will be 500 such developers now :)  I just think
> it should have been 1500 happy users with $100 discounts instead of
> 500 happy developers with $300 discounts.

Those 500 developers are going to create applications which may not
work on the devices of every non-developer owner of a n770, and the
only reason for that is that Nokia won't open the platform so that any
developer with a n770 can update the OS platform for those users.

>
> > In short, I think that fully opening the platform (both n770 and n880)
> > now is the only way Nokia's going to be able to compete when the
> > iPhone comes out in 5 or 6 months.
>
> You are basing this on the potential impact of an unreleased device?

You are kidding, right? Yes, the device is unreleased. Does anyone
actually expect that it won't be phenomenally popular?

> Never mind that the 770/N800 is not a phone, and doesn't require a
> 2-year Cingular contract as the iPhone will in addition to its $500
> price.  I agree with the sentiment, but the reasoning doesn't support
> it IMHO.

How's this for reasoning:
1) Anyone who wants to buy a phone in the US is going to have to sign
a 2-year contract with their phone provider _anyway_, and if you don't
switch providers the contract is meaningless (it's not officially
waived, just not enforced, e.g. if you want to by a new phone or
change your plan later, through the same provider). I don't think
those terms should be legal, because their only purpose is to
anti-competetively lock in users, but my point is that there doesn't
seem to be any big outcry from consumers and the practice hasn't
adversely affected anyone's bottom line that I can see;

2) The device will almost certainly be _far_more_useful_ out of the
box than the n770, I don't know about the n880 (e.g. the n770's
prettly lame media capabilities: the only useful thing out of the box
w/ my n770 was web browsing, and that was only after some OS updates
made the browser quite a bit more stable). Browsing, email, music,
video, phone calls, on one device, all will almost certainly work
nearly flawlessly.

Again, the only reason that the latter is the case is because Nokia
didn't get all that stuff implemented before they released their
device, and won't open the platform enough that non-Nokia people that
are so inclined can help (just look at the continuing thread about
video scaling if you need more evidence of that).

Dave