Recently Nokia and Intel announced the merger of the Maemo and Moblin smartphone operating systems. While this could be a good thing, it has left many Nokia N900 owners wondering what is going to happen to them?
Specifically their big question is: will the N900 support this new Meego or will the N900 be at a 'dead end'. The answer from Nokia is 'no, there is no plan to offer Meego on the N900'. Worse than this, there has been no plan to offer Maemo6 on the N900 either. While the name of the next release is undecided between Maemo6 or Meego and will in either event be Meego compatible, it was never planned to be offered to N900 buyers. Nor phones with the first version of Meego be offered an upgrade to the the second version. Each device 'obsolete' very quickly unless things at Nokia change.
The reason for this is Nokia things about Maemo devices the same way it has always though about Symbian devices. That is, a device will only ever run the release originally offered. Can you recall a Nokia phone that moved from one version of Symbian to another? If a new phone with a newer Symbian was released soon after you bought a phone, do you seek to move to the new version? Generally 'no' and it all comes down to difference between a phone and a computer.
Historically, computers have the option of running a new version of operating system, but phones don't get that choice. For computers, a big deal is made of the operating system whereas historically the OS has simply been the engine to enable the phone to work. More specifically, with a computer it is anticipated you may wish to run the latest apps, and historically, prior to the iPhone, most people didn't even run apps on their phone. If apps were present, they were an accessory, not central to using the phone in its primary role.
Now all this has changed, but Nokia doesn't yet have the mindset for the change. Until they do have that mindset, new Nokia phones will only ever have Nokia support to run the OS originally offered.
Traditional computer buyers, for example buying a Macbook, would be horrified if Apple two months later introduced lepoards, tigers, lions or other big cats and did not offer this OS to existing customers with a new enough computer for it to function, but phone buyers have not had this offering since application software compatibility was historically not an issue.
Now Nokia has the N900 'mobile computer'. People think of it like a computer and expect computer treatment with respect to software upgrades. However Nokia hasn't made that leap yet!
Until this approach changes at Nokia, there will be disappointment in the mobile computer customer ranks. Sure their will be community versions not supported by Nokia, but Apple with their computer background will encourage moving to the latest software to enable the largest base for application developers, and Nokia will treat devices as traditional phones and developers will not be as enthusiastic.
Yes, it does sound like there are other reasons why the N900 will be an orphan, but the mindset still needs an update if Nokia is to avoid angering the faithful.
Phones are not obsolete when a new OS is released if they cannot be upgraded are they? That only applies to computers surely?
For background, here is a link to a video on unwired that where some Nokia views are expressed:
here
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