On 7/20/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">James Knott</b> <<a href="mailto:james.knott@rogers.com">james.knott@rogers.com</a>> wrote:<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
My point is that since it is almost a general purpose computer, people<br>should be able to do what ever they want with it, including PDA<br>function. <br></blockquote></div><br>I don't think Nokia ever claimed that the N770/N800 were "general purpose computers". It just happens that that is what they created, of course, but that is an added bonus, if you want, not a stated goal. The goal of these units was to provide an unparalleled internet experience and in that goal they have totally succeeded. I have yet to see any handheld unit capable of delivering the internet browsing experience of the N770/N800, in particular when you consider price and size.
<br><br>Anything beyond that was added bonus - even if that added bonus ended up being HUGE.<br><br>Nokia added a couple of admittedly basic application which clearly are not killer aps (-: the mail client or the RSS reader or the notes editor or the media player will not get some technological achievement awards anytime some :-). The true killer ap is Opera and whatever else the Internet has to offer.
<br><br>You want PDA function: use Google calendar (or whatever else you like).<br><br>They way I see it, and please do correct me if I am wrong, Nokia fully delivered on its promise when it made a small, light, wifi/bluetooth unit capable of surfing the net with Opera.
<br><br>Since they did base the OS on Debian GNU/Linux is was also probably apparent to everybody that the unit had a huge potential (try getting a Palm, iPaq or iPhone to run wget, top, netstat, ssh or nmap and you will see what I mean). So yes, the N770/N800 are *almost* "general purpose computers", but not quite (no printing, no ethernet, etc.). If the community really felt the need for PDA capabilities they would be here. However, that has only happened with the "less than bleeding edge" GPE (or whatever its called). So that just goes to show that the community is not that interested in PDA functionality.
<br><br>I guess that I am lucky as one of the main thing I use my N800 (besides surfing that it) is reading books and for that purpose FBReader is absolutely perfect. That is *the* killer ap, at least for me. I was however quite disappointed that originally the N800 could not play ogg files. So I, and many others, complained, and that has been kind off addressed with kilikali, although what I wanted was an XMMS type of player. But none of that involved Nokia itself,
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">and that is how it should be</span>.<br><br>I would even take that one step further: if I had my way, Nokia would stop writing *any* applications at all. Here is what I would want them to do: create a small piece of hardware which can run Debian and let go and let the community take care of everything else. What is the best application on the N770/N800? Opera, which was *not* written by Nokia. Nor was FBReader, nor was Mplayer, not was Xchat, or Xterm, or whatever other application one might see at the N770/N800 killer ap. Compare these with the, shall we kindly say, 'modest' pre-installed games.
<br><br>The fact is that all the best aps for the N770/N800 were community written. So why not take that one step further: let the community, maybe organized and lead by Maemo, take it all over.<br><br>That would save Nokia plenty of money and the OS and application base would be far superior. I even wish that we could choose GNU/Linux or BSD to run on these units. Then we would have a *real* general purpose computer.
<br><br>I suspect that it was the folks which want PDA functionality pre-installed before buying which pushed Nokia to write an RSS and a mail client instead of just installing an OS or, even better, selling the hardware without any software at all. But that would have been a hard sell not only to the "suits", but even to the general public. So what they did is, well, create the N770/N800 series, a careful exercise in compromises.
<br><br>Associating hardware and software just makes no sense. You end up with iPhones and other such Apple toys, not computers.<br><br>I hope that Nokia makes enough money and get enough visibility to eventually become a provider of Internet Tablet like hardware which would fully and totally rely on the community to populate it with an operating sytem and applications. On the spectum between a handheld Debian computer on one hand, and a Palm/Apple toy on the other, I hope Nokia will choose to be as close as possible to the former. If not, the community will always have the option of removing the preinstalled software and replace it with something else.
<br><br>My 2cts.<br>