The Dreams of the MeeGo Diaspora | Hacker News Reader

The Dreams of the MeeGo Diaspora

bergie.iki.fi

67 pointsbergie31 comments

OMG. That piece is an example of how hacker reality vs end-user reality diverges beyond belief. The N770 was a worthless piece of crap, period. All of the Nokia Internet Tablets flopped. There was nothing in any of them that was imaginative, cutting, edge, cool, or must-have. They were a flaccid repackaging of everything that already existed in terms of UI -- but with less functionality, less ease of use (hello, Dependencies!), and less reason to exist as a product. That HE found them to be compelling devices makes me fear for the future of MeeGo now.

You seem to think mass-market consumerism is the only kind of success. I assume you view Arduino and the Rasperry Pi also as utter failures?

The Internet Tablets were not intended to that market (N9 was the first real mass-market device, the step 5 of 5), but instead were well-loved by the hacker niche.

>>>The Internet Tablets were not intended to that market

Then why were they on sale to the general public in stores? They were intended as mass-market devices. And they failed on that score.

I'm hoping MeeGo will not be similarly botched. I liked what I saw -- from an Internet distance -- of MeeGo on the N9. I wish Nokia had gone with that instead of Windows.

From back in 2009:

Nokia currently views the N900 and Maemo as "bridge" products mainly targeting developers and enthusiasts, but aims to develop Maemo into a mass market platform to compete with the iPhone OS, Android, and Windows Mobile, competitors that Symbian has been losing market share to.

http://www.pocketables.com/2009/11/nokia-nseries-will-likely...

But agreed, N9 was really an amazing device. You can see that the focus and polish needed for mass market was there.

>>>Nokia currently views the N900

Notice that starts with the N900, not the 770. They had to spin after the failure.

Not exactly, the N900 was the first with a cell radio (except N810 wimax which short lived) so it was a 'bridge' between cell phones and the tablets.

Jolla could well outlive Nokia now, with the right manfuacturing partner. (HTC is getting dumped the same as they were with Microsoft, would love to see them embrace this with their QWERTY designs)

I wish Jolla luck. It'd be something if they could pull it all off.

Why should you wish that Nokia had gone with that instead of Windows, if you think that Maemo was a horrible failure?

Harmattan is a very nice UI with some innovative features. But if underneath it, loading software will require chasing down "dependencies," then maybe the beauty is only skin deep.

Bad repos might have been the source of your 'dependency' problems, Nokia was the only mobile device user to embrace apt and had a much better product than the CE devices that used 'reflashing' as in wiping the universe and starting over.

N770 was understood and loved by the hackers, but not by the general public, and was a commercial failure. It was also more powerful than most of the other devices out there and ran more general purpose software than the popular PDAs and smart phones. (WM could run CE apps but not Windows apps, N770 could run any X application with recompilation.)

It wasn't until the iPhone that a Unix device was accepted by the general public, and only because Apple did a better job of hiding that from the public. (And other things as well

Of all the mobile electronics I've ever had, I remember my N770 the most fondly and wistfully. next to my then modern HTC Apache Windows Mobile device, it was like an artifact from the future. I coded up several great apps for it in python including a personal finances ledger and a price checker using the Amazon API. The thing was amazing. Even though it has since died and I've moved on to Android, I miss it.

I find it hard to apply the label 'Unix' to an OS which cannot multitask. A few directories wholly hidden from the user, with no available shell, gutted utilities and services, and little if any meaningful interaction between programs, does not constitute Unix.

Hacker reality? It's 2007 and you have a multitasking Linux device with:

1)64GB of storage 2)800x480 pixels in a screen almost the size of an iPhone 3)WiFi with great performance 4)Skype wherever you are 5)BT pairing with dumbphones with unlimited data plans 6)RDP/VNC connections over SSH 7)Python at your fingertips 8)Control over your device 9)Multi-boot

It's 2012 and that still doesn't sound that bad. Maybe that's why I still grab that out of my bag instead of the latest Android gadget sitting beside it when I need to do something quickly.

Yeah, it's odd that Apple didn't adopt WVGA in the first iPhone. Knowing of the Nokia devices made me do a double take when I heard 320x480, I thought it was a mistake and they really meant 800x480.

But it made retina cheaper later on.

800x480 on a small screen like that would be "retina".

There is a difference between something being a technical achievement and a product.

You're correct. It's called advertising.

An example is a friend who oohed and awed over the Samsung Galaxy Note due to its size, who previously had slammed the Nokia tablets for being too big and bulky.

The famous "Apple is only successful because they have great marketing" delusion.

Advertising works to reinforce a product's strengths. It can't turn water into wine. And so if those Nokia tablets aren't appealing (and they aren't) then no amount of advertising can change that.

Apple chip on your shoulder?

Keep in mind, Nokia tablets weren't advertised. In fact it was almost impossible to get one through a retailer. In my initial attempts to purchase one online I had retailers cancel the orders after 3 or 4 weeks of being unable to secure stock.

And, really, have you ever used one of those tablets? The 770 is an awkward device compared to the N8x0s, but damn they work and they work well.

The main point of the article is something else, but this is a pretty thoughtful sentence:

"In a world where everything must go through the rules and regulations of an app store without any oversight we, the developers, will suddenly be in the same abused stage as artists are with their labels."

Except that the main app stores are fairly transparent about how much of the money you get and they generally let developers set their own prices.

Sure, but they also mean that now there is a middleman that mandates what you can or cannot do

Yeah, one that brings huge numbers of potential customers to your door, processes credit card transactions for you and may give you some free publicity (featured spots, etc.).

agreed on those, and it should be noted that record labels do provide similar services to their artists. My post was more about how there is no way around these middlemen.

So if you're doing the app equivalent of pop music (twitter apps, casual games), you're probably fine. But try to do something more ambitious, and they'll crush you (well, close the only channel to the customers, at least)

True, although I feel there is still plenty of room for as-yet-unseen ambition in projects that fit within the rules (for every app store). And it's worth pointing out that there is a significant benefit to the users for restricting what apps can do -- albeit at the risk of reducing the more 'ambitious' projects for the sake of the least common denominator of users.

Developers of mobile native apps can choose from a bunch of platforms and app marketplaces. If they choose to develop for iOS, they pay $99 a year, and they can offer their apps for free in the App Store, even if it's ad supported. If they offer paid apps, Apple will take 30% of the gross. The developer doesn't have to pay for bandwidth or credit card processing. Even some of the customer service and marketing will be done by Apple.

Compare that to the way how artists who sign with a major label are treated. It's clear who is getting the better deal.

What these two groups have in common is that their work is vetted, and the catalogs they wish for their work to end up in are curated. The chances of a musician being picked up by a record label are way, way, way slimmer than the chances for a developer to be accepted into Apple's developer program and having the privilege to publish their apps in the App Store.

Does Apple publish all apps that are submitted for consideration? No, and I'm glad that it doesn't -- there are plenty of lousy programmers out there. As a consumer browsing through the App Store, I regularly find lousy apps that aren't even worth downloading for free. If anything, I think Apple should be more diligent.

I really really hope that Jolla takes off. It sounds like for a far too brief while, Maemo was the hacker's dream OS, which is pretty dang cool. It also sounds like the Nokia N9 was the first phone in which the beauty and usability of the device matched its hacker friendliness. That's all I'm waiting on. The thing I don't want to see in mobile is what happened to Linux, where yeah it's great that we have this open OS, but the experience itself is scattershot, questionable, or very very poor. If Jolla can do this -- and since some of the main people that worked on N9 are players here, they might have a shot -- then that's when I'll be paying close attention.

Is Jolla the Ubuntu of mobile linux?

MeeGo failed when they ran out of silly names to rebrand it with ;).

I kid -- I had one of those early N800s, it was nifty stuff. It would be great to see a true open source mobile OS.

A friend had an N810, inspired me to buy an N900. Still can't find a phone that matches all its features. There's something to be said for using a 3270 terminal emulator over VPN on my phone.

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