To be fair, 2 people had a 2 sentence conversation about it on #maemo. But it ended there. I, on the other hand, have gone to DEFCON 4.

When do they close the mountain? Is it DEFCON 3 or 2?..

http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/beta/tutorial/html/

***

As far as bundled apps go, I agree with GA regarding Nokia. I still have ill feelings about Nokia over the whole $349 Navicore debacle just because it appeared to be a blessed app.

Nothing is stopping maemo.org from blessing apps by having a simple, single page, tablet friendly site with maemo.org "must haves" listed and linked.

(BTW GA I have always been amused by your insistence on correct syntax in forum posts while things like 4 different text configurations of the category for "Utility" existed in the NIT's Application manager.

These categories and maemo.org have gotten much better lately, but still... )

Here are my two cents.

I think it would be good to let users know what the "tablet" or whatever name can do for them. Like counting seconds to boil your eggs, play chess with your daughter on a plane; and when she is tired of that show her a nice little movie, take out your device to show the photos of your daughters when you visit friends or family, listen to some music on the train, make a skype call when you're in a hotel in some remote country, email from that same hotel (you don't need to bring your laptop on a two day mission!), read this forum when you cannot get sleep...

All reasons for a regular customer to want to have your tablet with you all the time (to make this complete we would need easily installable productivity software...).

The N810 failed somehow to become a permanent companion for me (bad GPS, some missing productivity software, among other things). Yes, I know it was only intended to be a pocketable internet [sic] device, but it can be more. And those who have time and needed skills already are using the tablets as quasi-computers.

I believe that should be the message for the next device, but one has to deliver some of these functionalities of make sure that the buyer can easily access them. Having 10 or more software in the application manager who do the same thing, doesn't make it easy for the average customer to choose what works best for him.

I don't know whether it should also have phone capabilities (beyond VOIP), but those should not hurt (unless they increase costs too much or make them more cumbersome).

I guess by now everyone knows I have two daughters... :-)

Regards,
Antonio

when i got my n800 skype was included in the app menu, but it was not bundled. i had to click through a few messages to install it. would something like this work as a way to protect nokia from liability (?) while still giving the user a better 'out of the box' experience?

I don't think that would help make the tablets mainstream sales though.

Imagine a car that has a good engine and strong overall build, but substandard accessories and interior. To make up for this, the manufacturer includes a credit note with every car so you can install your own accessories and interiors from third parties for free.

Car enthusiasts (especially those who like to tinker under the bonnet) would probably love such an arrangement as it would cheaply and easily allow them to customise a car to their liking.

Everyone else would prefer the car to just come with good accessories and interiors pre-installed.

It's the same with mobile devices, most people (and most reviewers) judge a gadget by the features that come with it out of the box. If the built-in features and apps are poor, they won't want to buy the device.

That might be a stupid attitude to take, but it's what people do.

skype usability was advertised by nokia even though it wasn't necessarily included.

To help you focus on productive speculation, I think the clearest gaps in terms of features pre-installed or fully advertized as downloads will be covered between Fremantle and Harmattan. With open or closed software, whatever makes more sense.

About the overhead brought by Nokia processes to external projects (community or commercial), one possibiility could be to apply part of the quality control we apply to ourselves. Public list of requirements, public quality criteria and public deadline to match those. Candidates checking all the boxes could become candidates for an officially supported and advertized addFon, or be even pre-installed.

I think the stock applications in Maemo 5 will probably provide a better experience than the out of box experience on the tablets.

Fennec seems like its the browser of choice, which we have tried and most people seem to like, especially since it will be on stronger hardware.

There is a going to be a calendar with to-do application built in with iCal syncing capabilities so that can sync with Google out of the box.

The IM will support all major VOIP and IM networks SIP, MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk etc hopefully this includes video conferencing out of the box.

Modest as an email client is improved and made finger friendly.

The media player will be able to handle a decent amount of video content without transcoding. It may even be a little flashier with Cover Arts etc as alluded to by Kontorri on his blog.

Application manager is undergoing an overhaul that might or might not make it a better place to look for applications.


@Krisse I think that the biggest issues most regular users had was unrealistic expectations of what the device could do. My girlfriend for example always thought that it was weird device because it wasn't a "phone", now with the RX-51's 3g connection I can describe the tablet as a "skype" phone that works everywhere and not just on my laptop and she will understand. The more powerful processor will make browsing FULL real websites a tangible and more enjoyable experience for noobs.

Then there are the rest of us on this board who will simply be happy because of better hardware on a platform we already understand and love.

Yes, further analysis is necessary.

Ehm, duh, maybe you noticed connectors like USB are getting smaller, that SD won from CF partly due to form factor, and that SD is getting smaller as well, nevermind that batteries were much bigger (and had less capacity) years ago. So this an invalid compare. My (small) Nokia phone has what you state as well (microSD as well), and so do the tablets.

We're talking about modular receivers & transmitters here (WiFi, HSPA, BlueTooth, ...). They provide different features, and the hypothetic reasons for providing such modular or not are different.

Yes, and Apple makes it difficult to mod your hardware with tons of screws. They also managed to put battery on-board on their latest laptops. But we are not talking about Apple or batteries here.

You're only see the positive sides of it; there are negative sides of it as well. Like I said, it costs space (internally, and the slot must be reached from external as well) while it is probably less efficient power wise.

Case in point. My Zaurus had a CF and a SD slot. My tablet didn't have a CF slot. I never missed the CF slot on my tablet because on the Zaurus it was used for WiFi card anyway which the tablet has on-board. Later versions of Zaurus had on-board WiFi, or 2 CF slots. Meanwhile, I don't see where this CF slot on the tablet would have fitted. I think that is also why you don't see 2 SD slots on the N810: lack of space. It really is very important on small devices.

And how would you toss in this modular receiver/transmitter of yours? What standard would you use? Not SDIO right. You already have USB. So, what would it be? ExpressCard?

[EDIT]If I have the choice

A) pick 2 of the following: on-board BlueTooth/FM, GPS, WiFi, or 3G
B) pick 1 of the following: CF, SD, PCMCIA or ExpressCard.

I'd pick A. (Broadcom chips have BlueTooth + FM; these are in Nokia N800 and some iPod/iPhone.)

If you pick B then you'd either use full SD with SDIO or the bigger stuff like CF, PCMCIA, and ExpressCard. Excluding SDIO, do you have any idea how much space this would waste on the device? That, space wise, one could probably fit more than 2 of group A there?

BTW, I wonder, where would you stick this modular WiFi antenna of yours? On the side??[/EDIT]

Mobile computing is in Bizarro World. Here's an Engadget article actually touting Android 1.5 Cupcake's onscreen keyboard.

Cupcake has a stylus-size keyboard for 480x320 capacitive screens, and Maemo 5 will have a thumb keyboard for 800x480 resistive screens.

Stranger than fiction.

EDIT:

By I am excited about the Beta SDK!