Nokia has been closed up until now. The N900 using an open source OS is a radical departure for them - they've been a traditional, hierarchical closed company. Thus many fewer apps. Also the apps are more functional, less fun for straight mobile phones. The moment you bring in a touch screen with a large screen surface area and good resolution, the more things you can do with it. And then add the financial and career incentive of creating a successful app for the world's most popular mobile computer.
I think you're right, though - Nokia have had to raise their game massively because of the iPhone, and the N900 is definitely a desperate reaction to the iPhone and their subsequent drop in market share. Making it open and using a slightly different technology for the touch screen is a gamble, but I think it might pay off. I'm already scheming video apps for it. On 29-Sep-09, at 4:21 PM, Jay dedman wrote: > > So Rupert.... given your experience with Nokia and Apple, I would > love to > > read your more elaborate thoughts on the two options for mobile > smart phone > > puters. Are you leaning towards iPhone? > > I was a Nokia user for a long time...but without being a fanboy, I got > to say how awesome the iPhone is. The fact that you can figure out how > to do things without instructions is amazing. Hopefully, other > companies will follow this model. > > It's strange to me that Nokia is open and Apple is closed, but > developers have created many more applications for Apple than Nokia. > Being a big fan of Open Source, it's just an example that usability > will always win. > > As far as the camera on the iPhone 3GS, it's not something right home > about. The image is pretty poor. Little control. Bad mic. BUT BUT BUT > it is extremely easy to take a video and post it online. So easy. > > Hopefully, Apple with all their developers and design sense will just > set the expectation for how all phones should be, open source > included. > > Jay > > -- > http://ryanishungry.com > http://jaydedman.com > http://twitter.com/jaydedman > 917 371 6790 > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
