A status report
Here is a little status report of what is happening.
N800 software
N800 is getting nice reviews. People seem to like what we’ve done. Of course, there is a lot of room for improvements, but it seems we are on the right tracks. The direction is right – the speed could always be better, eh ;-)
We are currently working on improving the N800 software for the forthcoming new software releases. I believe we can improve performance in many areas. Also, the overall stability and quality is on our agenda, of course. So expect to see N800 getting better and better. I feel kinda bad seeing magazines and bloggers reviewing N800 and complaining about something that is already fixed in our internal sw releases. I hope all reviewers understand that N800 is a device that is going to improve over time – just like the 770 has done!
Some people are also asking about new Flash versions, new browser versions and so forth. These components involve customer and business partnership relations, technical work, and other things that make it impossible to tell exactly what is gonna happen. However, our goal is to make Internet Tablets as interoperable with internet services as possible. This includes services such as Skype and Google talk, support for major internet formats, and a brilliant browser. As I said earlier, the direction is clear and right, and the speed --- well, we run as fast as we can!
maemo.org
Another thing we are working on is the application installer and application catalog at www.maemo.org. You can already see the test version here.
770 support
As agreed, we are working on getting N800 software running on 770 – not a final product image but an engineering release that’ll help developers to bridge the gap between N800 and 770. Carlos posted you an update.
N800 software
N800 is getting nice reviews. People seem to like what we’ve done. Of course, there is a lot of room for improvements, but it seems we are on the right tracks. The direction is right – the speed could always be better, eh ;-)
We are currently working on improving the N800 software for the forthcoming new software releases. I believe we can improve performance in many areas. Also, the overall stability and quality is on our agenda, of course. So expect to see N800 getting better and better. I feel kinda bad seeing magazines and bloggers reviewing N800 and complaining about something that is already fixed in our internal sw releases. I hope all reviewers understand that N800 is a device that is going to improve over time – just like the 770 has done!
Some people are also asking about new Flash versions, new browser versions and so forth. These components involve customer and business partnership relations, technical work, and other things that make it impossible to tell exactly what is gonna happen. However, our goal is to make Internet Tablets as interoperable with internet services as possible. This includes services such as Skype and Google talk, support for major internet formats, and a brilliant browser. As I said earlier, the direction is clear and right, and the speed --- well, we run as fast as we can!
maemo.org
Another thing we are working on is the application installer and application catalog at www.maemo.org. You can already see the test version here.
770 support
As agreed, we are working on getting N800 software running on 770 – not a final product image but an engineering release that’ll help developers to bridge the gap between N800 and 770. Carlos posted you an update.
posted by Ari Jaaksi at 9:07 AM
58 Comments:
I'm sure you do feel very bad about getting poor reviews due to unfinished software, and well you should. Nokia did this with the original Internet Tablet, however you were to get away with it because the 770 was such a new product/concept.
With the N800 there is no excuse. It was obviously rushed for CES, it's patently clear the software is unfinished and received only minimal QA - some of the bugs are embarassing, even some of the software design has glaring problems which would have been caught given sufficient review and testing.
More haste, less speed is something that definately applies to Nokia at the moment - please do something about it! :)
Focusing on quality is critical to the success of this platform, and would suggest you are learning the lesson the hard way. Any successor to the N800 must be feature complete, stable and well tested prior to release - and more importantly, prior to first review!
Bad reviews based on the initial product stay on the internet forever, and it's what potential buyers will base their purchasing decision on. Few (if any) magazine or web sites bother to update their reviews to reflect improvements present in updated firmware.
As they say, first impressions count. Please get it right at the third attempt! :)
What's it going to take to at least make the 770 itself stable? The random reboots, with no log to see what happens, are unacceptable. The application catalog manager choking up if a repository happens to be down, rather than a graceful save. The application manager sometimes randomly crashing, even causing more reboots -- again, no log. This should not be something Nokia is proud of, especially for a product that is this "old", as it's been referred to.
I hope the people at Nokia actually bother to read internettablettalk.com. You might get a more accurate perception of the reception the n800 has garnered. It hasn't been that stellar: lack of a cover for the screen, covering the relocated ports with the stand, making buttons smallers, removing the rockers.
So, how about fixing the major problems before introducing more "features". We bought into the 770, and we bought in to it hard. Don't show us our belief in Nokia's vision was all for nothing.
Deckard, I respectfuly disagree. N800 is good and it is receiving good reviews. And it is getting even better as we speak. We put a lot of effort in q/a and the whole idea is that you'll get updates and new features into your own devices. But, thank you for your feedback. I'm happy to hear comments and opinions from people who have purchased the product!
Wow, so it's true, you really are abandoning the 770 after less than a year and a half. That's quite a bold precedent to set there...
Thanks for the heads up; I don't think I'll buy another Nokia product ever again.
About the multimedia capabilities in n800, the omap has an integrated IVA and a power VR, then why you are using the dsp for the multimedia when it has lo performance compared with the IVA? At the omap homepage, says that IVA can code/decode mpeg4 videos at fullspeed with high resolution.... then Why nokia isnt supporting it in the n800?
The powerVR give to us the possibility of accelerated 2d (opensvg) and 3d (egl 1.1), Thats is a must have for a modern UI like iphone, and offcourse for gaming. With 3d capabilities, browser can do zoom in like nintendo ds borwser , or others browser in mobile devices with 3d capabilities....
Are there any plans from nokia, IT, to support that hardware in a new release of maemo?
Nice going... so the 770 is as much as dead now.
Thanks for abandoning users with "old" products.
My mini-review:
- I'm so far very happy with my N800. Great display (people I show it to are extremely impressed, particularly by the viewing angle which is close to 180 degrees), etc. etc. Love the amount of RAM and flash, and the two SD slots is excellent for my planned use pattern (more about that below)
- Pouch: The suede makes it stick nicely to the inside of my jacket pocket. However, the N800 itself is prone to slide out of it. A little strap over the end would have prevented that. I'm probably going to sew one on.
- The spare stylus is a nice touch (having had to hunt shops for a new stylus to my old PDA in the past)
- wi-fi appears to be 1) very sensitive 2) surprisingly nice to the battery (my PDA w/wi-fi sdio would kneel the battery while in use). All in all, very good.
- I've heard some 770 owners express dislike for the buttons. I never had a 770, but I like the buttons on the N800.
- I wish the five-way key could be used properly for page scrolling in the browser and elsewhere, like my old Palm can do. Stylus on scrollbar gets tedious fast.
- I'm told the built-in email app. is bad. It doesn't bother me much because with this screen gmail through browser is very good anyway and my preferred way.
- Overall design, w/stand and all: After some days of use I've decided it's good, and feels sturdy.
Here's why I've always wanted two SD slots:
- Use one as "permanent storage", this is better than a built-in harddrive (which involves latency, battery issues, and moving parts)
- Use the second slot for everything else: Cards from my cameras (checking out pictures and movies), cards with documents (for work, this would typically be pdf) and so on. BTW: That external slot would be better if it was a proper push-to-replace slot, look for someone with e.g. a Palm T3 and let them show you.
But:
- The media player looks good, but it have almost no codecs! So, in practice, it won't show any of the .mov and .avi files I have on my camera SD cards. Can we get more codecs in the next release? This is my major problem with the N800 (my old Palm PDA can show everything I have, using the free tcpmp player.)
Any other problems:
- There's a boot problem that comes and goes. Some days it won't boot, until I temporarily removes the internal SD card (the card that came with the N800), other days it _does_ boot, again and again, and sometimes it apparently helps to remove the battery for a minute (but the major thing seems to be if there's a card in or not.) Looks like some kind of bootloader problem. Also see #959 at the maemo bugzilla.
(And obviously I usually keep it in standby, so this isn't a major problem as such.)
Here's a thumbs-up for the N800! :-)
Thanks for giving us the n770 internet tablet without bothering with updates to its most important application: the browser.
Please get a deal with Opera to provide updates to this application on the N770. I don't even care if I need to pay for the updates or not, but N770 do need a more stable browser.
The quick wishlist for future sw updates to the N800 (addendum to my mini-review above):
- A useful set of codecs for the media player. Very important.
- OpenVPN integrated with the networking, so it can easily be configured in/out as needed. With this the N800 could be an instant hit for corporate use. Co-workers seem to be much more interested in this device than in PDAs or smartphones. (Should probably add MS PPTP too (even though it's known to be insecure), as some would want it, but both are supported by linux so shouldn't be difficult.
- Get that intermittent boot problem sorted out.
Other wishes like improved applications could come simply as new apps. available at Maemo, so are not as critical as stuff that needs to be done by Nokia (codecs, integrating things into the network app, boot stuff). So those I'm not mentioning here.
Ari
Please check the numerous postings on Internet Tablet Forum, with N800 users complaining of reboot loops after they have done nothing more than add an RSS feed, or installed xterm, or experiencing reboot loops for no apparent reason at all. Several of these owners have returned their devices to CompUSA etc. as faulty and are less than impressed. I can't blame them. Just hope that a reviewer doesn't experience this kind of behaviour!
The lack of the 770's cover means there is no adequate protection nor is it possible to rapidly put the device into a 770-like standby mode with screen and wireless disabled (check bugzilla for more details). This oversight should not have been allowed to happen, and it annoys some of us. Also, the responses so far from Nokia appear to be along the lines of "it's always-on, you are using your device incorrectly"... excuse me, maybe you don't appreciate how I want to use my device! :)
Speaking of cases, is there an ETA for the Nokia N800 Case, which isn't yet available to buy? It would have been nice for it to be available on launch day as it may have limited the negative "no case" comparisons with the 770. Also, I'm concerned about scratching my display, not to mention the inability to disable the screen due to buggy lock screen behaviour.
I'm sure you did QA some features, but it certainly doesn't feel like a finished device (or at least, one that is ready for shipping).
That said, I do like it very much. Thank you - but please focus on the quality!
If you are really sincere about not leaving 770 owners behind, maybe you should forget about the unstable engineering release, which will only benefit development for N800, and concentrate your efforts to negotiating an updated browser for 770 (we may pay couple of bucks -just a couple - if required) and solving the current issues with it.
Trying to piss off the fire? We 770 owners are really thankful of your piss on us!
Every move you have made is towards quick death of 770's, including developers only version of os2007 for 770.
Give back the future of 770, make it compatible with os2007 so that application updates and new programs can run on it. Make it stable and good enough so that it will not be downgrade from os2006. Make it available for everyone. We don't need official Nokia support, we need OS which is good enough for not needing support.
If you can't put new browser to 770, then make opera to fix the old one so that it won't crash on opening and closing of browser windows and make hardware buttons work properly with it. We need at least everything working on 770-os2007 that works on os2006, like gtalk.
Can't you see how hard handed you are towards 770 owners? You don't just leave them behind, but also stamp them to the ground. If you at the big and mighty Nokia can't provide compatibility between two os generations, how do you think that hobbyist software developer can do it with his application for os2007 or why should he even be interested of doing so? You didn't just cut off the OS update from us, but then your discount program took off the developers from 770 and now you make those developers who still have 770 busy porting their applications to N800 and they have less time port other os2007 programs to 770 or they are only using 770-os2007 and not interested of os2006 anymore.
You are doing NOTHING to help 770 users, only pushing more and more application developement for your latest toy. I feel betrayed.
Wow, these are some quite vitriolic comments, and for what? I don't think Ari gave any new information about the OS2007-for-770 effort at all. I know I've been less than accepting of Nokia's handling of the transition from the 770 to the n800, but some of these comments are ridiculous and uncalled-for.
I still hold out hope that Nokia won't abandon the Nokia 770. But then, maybe I'm just being naive. :/
I don't understand why the hybrid 2007/2006 OS should be intended only for developers. That makes no sense whatsoever, and will only serve to aggravate the community.
Who is making these decisions? Surely not Nokia developers! Sounds like Marketing.
gnuite: Ari's post, along with the one he links to on Carlos's blog, solidly establish that Nokia has no intention of providing the new OS for 770 to consumers. As a developer, you must surely understand what that means. The sole purpose of the half-assed "hacker's only" version they are now offering is to encourage more development for the N800. Nokia has effectively abandoned the 770, despite their statements to the contrary, and they will no doubt do the same with the N800 as soon as it's successor becomes available. Maemo has become a fragmented platform, one which is no longer worth developing software for. The vitriolic comments in this thread are entirely justified.
Many of these comments are at odds with the evidence I see that the n800 is a big success so far. Looking at internettablettalk.com convinces me that this a worthwhile device with intense, sophisticated developers.
So much ignorant anger over lack of backward compatibility, a concept that usually carries a heavy penalty! There are no devices for 400USD to compare with the n800. Backward compatibility with 770 would have taken longer and added costs.
Finally, the one weak point about the n800, video (flash, youtube) is explicitly addressed in Jaaksi's blog entry. It can't get much better than this! Problems like casing can be fixed by third parties. Nokia has done a stellar job on getting a worthwhile device out fast!
I don't quite believe what I read here - and I'm talking about the user comments, not the original post. Don't get me wrong: there's a lot Nokia got wrong with the N800 (incompatible OS, poor quality of the hardware buttons, lack of screen cover/sleep mode), but the vicious comments here are completely out of proportion. Yes, I would love to have a new improved OS on my 770. But then: Did this article here say anything like "there will never be an update for the 770 again"? There's talk about a hybrid OS version for developers, which IMHO makes no sense at all. Developers need to test on a real N800, an incompletely backported OS2007 on the 770 won't do the job. And to be fair: "Improvements" on the N800/OS700 compared to the 770/OS2006 seem to be cosmetical; some of the canges are even downgrades (USB host mode). I for my part will start whining if really important additions (like the long awaited SIP-integration) become part of OS2007 and *not* be available for the 770. But I still expect Nokia to offer such improvements on both platforms.
gnuite says "Wow, these are some quite vitriolic comments, and for what? I don't think Ari gave any new information about the OS2007-for-770 effort at all." ... "I still hold out hope that Nokia won't abandon the Nokia 770. But then, maybe I'm just being naive. :/"
Thank you, gnuite, for the awesome software you've written. But I must respectfully say, I think this post clearly marks the time when our naive optimism about Nokia's plans for the 770's future should end. Mine certainly has.
Here is a really embarrassing confession: After I spent a lot of time writing up my detailed first impressions on the N800, I actually refrained from linking to it too much as I was quietly hoping that Nokia could still change their ways and I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news. With the 770 cat now fully out of the bag I no longer harbor any such optimism, so let me tell you: The video calling is unusable. The camera flip switch works intermittently. The lack of hard cover is enough to ensure that even if everything else had gone smoothly I'd still prefer the 770 as the N800 can't very well stay in my pocket when I'm physically active (I like to climb trees with the 770 in my pocket; I can't do that with N800).
So, here are my first impressions. If you are actually interested in improving your product you should read it.
Sorry if that is unclear, in the beginning of my post I'm talking to gnuite, the middle to everyone, and the last sentence is to Nokia employees.
Anonymous: It doesn't really matter if they do more updates for 770 now. I'm sure they will. That they have let the two devices sit on store shelves for this long with incompatible OSes was bad enough, but today's news makes it very clear where they stand: They plan to continue to maintain an artificial software divide to sell their new disposable devices. I for one am not interested in that kind of platform.
Disposable 'computers' suck.
I am pretty disappointed that a product I got a little over a month ago is pretty much dead. And full of bugs that will probably never get fixed. The 770 may be old to you, but it is new to me.
I bought the 770 because I wanted to help out with the development of the platform. Now it seems I just wasted my money, since you are abandoning the only platform that was even officially announced at the time. Sucks to be me I guess.
Apparently the 'Nokia Experience Layer' means "full of bugs we won't fix, but you could, if we give you the source, which we won't". I guess Nokia can't afford to let their competitors get a hold of valuable IP like the file manager...
In my opinion, you should have been (all along) releasing a true, usable OSS distribution that could be built from source by developers. The 'Nokia User Experince' should have been an extra codec pack that included things like licensed media codecs, opera, etc.
If Debian can make a binary-package based distribution that runs on a huge range of random hardware including 5-10 year old computers with VGA video cards and spanking new multiprocessor boxes with top of the line 3D cards -- why is Nokia struggling to support just 2 platforms where you had complete control over the hardware??
Ari,
I tihnk taht I understand where you are going since it an opne platfomr it takes time to get everyone going. A have acouple of questions concerning software. Do you know when the rhpasody for the N800 would be available and the video conference beta only has a pc windows client. I find it puzzling since the tablet is a linux table so it would make sence to have a linux client. Are you planning on releasing a Linux client.Other than this I am looking foward to improvements
Ari,
I see that you guys are making amazing improvements to the Maemo platform, but I do have a gripe about multimedia support.
Its really quite terrible, even the built in N93 video drops frames and has heavy tearing. I am curious if there will be any attempt to assist the mplayer developers, or add further accelleration and codec support the the gstreamer that you have chosen to go with (divx, xvid, mp4 are so basic now days) Also, I've found that even audio playback can be a little sluggish to start.
Otherwise, I have found the tablet to be most excellent. The browsing experience is great, and I expect that there will be tweaks to improve the RSS reader and Media player as we move forward through the year. Thanks for the amazing product, keep up the good work.
Please advise whether it would be possible to license opera upgrades for 770 without too much additional development work (as these are already being produced for 800) - some of us may be willing to pay a very small fee for software updates to Opera particularly...
Also please be aware that if you do not make opera updates available for 770 in any way shape or form that you will alienate a /lot/ of your potential customers of future devices.
There are two big pieces of sickening irony apparent in Nokia's blatant falsehoods about hardware limitations being the reason the new OS can't work on the old device.
1) In the future many people will very likely be running a fully usable GPE-based Linux OS for 770 built with OE without Nokia's help. And then the 770 (and maybe N800) will be on a huge list of devices from hostile manufacturers that, despite being different hardware, are all able to run the same free OS with a huge library of free software. What Nokia claims is too hard to deliver, volunteer hackers have been delivering for years.
2) If Nokia is going to maintain OS2006 in addition to OS2007 (which has only been implied but not actually committed to) it kind of seems like that would actually take more time and effort than it would take to just have one version of ITOS, doesn't it?
Maemo ITOS is dead! Long live 770!
Ari, it's quite simple really. Just give the N770 users a straight answer: "yes we will be ironing out the bugs in OS2006 and make it stable" or "no, we don't want to invest anymore time on OS2006 and it'll stay as buggy as it is now: forever".
It's one thing to expect open source developers to write applications for the N770, which is cool. But the problem is that the developers CAN NOT do anything about the blatant stability issues in the browser and other proprietary parts of the software. Shifting the blame to those who license Opera to Nokia is pretty lame, you could just as well make an effort and try and get a - maybe paid for - browser upgrade for the N770 crowd.
Like I said before: I don't care about running OS2007 on the N770, I want a stable Opera, so I can surf the net on what Nokia calls an 'Internet Tablet'.
Seems like people here answer to comments... So I'll copy the comments I made on the Carlo's blog (about the same things).
Hello,
Being a gnome app developer and a website projects consultant, I bought the nokia 770 some months ago.
How upset I was when I discovered that you released a new version just some months afterward for nearly the same price!
But well, I won’t put my shiny new nokia tablet in the trash can (burn 350€ isn’t really something I love), and I surely won’t buy a new one just some months after the other (if I ever buy another one after that).
So, thanks a lot for making those efforts on backporting all that ! It’s just a pity to have to still use flash 5 and outdated software like those you can’t backport.
If you ever make some end-user release of those images, I will use them for sure.
Thanks again !
Cheers,
Jonathan
Jonathan brings up an interesting point, which is that Carlo's blog seems to be taking all comments and putting them in a black hole (aka comment moderation). Right now, many hours after it was posted, there are still zero comments viewable there. And worse, if you have commented, you can see your own comment on the page even though no one else can! So you might think you're the first and only one!
It would be friendlier if he would have indicated that was his policy, or just turned off comments altogether, so people don't waste their time and energy typing a comment that only Carlo might ever see. (Unless wasting people's time and money is some sort of sadistic Nokia pastime...)
Seriously, though: Thank you, Ari, for allowing us to comment here. It softens the blow slightly to know our voices are being heard, even if we can't change your agenda. And of course, some of us still have a shred of hope left that we can change it. Should we give up this hope that the 770 might still be rescued by Nokia? Please, make it more clear if this is truly hopeless. Reading the ITT forums you can see many people are still hopeful you'll come around.
I'll say the same thing I said in a comment on the Carlos post Ari linked to: the "OS 2007 Hacker Edition" is not only the opposite of what I was hoping for from Nokia, it is so far removed that it feels like a slap in the face.
What I wanted was a Nokia-provided way for developers to continue to target both the 770 and the 800 with a single release - a way of maintaining the 770 as a viable platform for at least a while longer. What we are getting is a Nokia-provided method for developers to write for an 800 using a 770 - something that seems designed to kill off the 770 platform, as it encourages developers to leave the 770 behind.
This misses the point so completely that I can't decide: is Nokia is so clueless that it doesn't realize what an insult this feels like, or do they simply not care?
I would strongly agree with deckard's comment about N800 software quality: in its current state it is unusable. Random reboots every 10 minutes (sometimes every 10 seconds!), reboot loops, problems with software installation and numerous bugs make the device simply not ready as a consumer product. OS instability is in fact much worse than on Nokia 770. Don't get me wrong, I am posting this not for flaming, I just hope Nokia folks will recognize the problem and hopefully fix it. Ari, please get real and admit that N800 is a complete failure from QA point of view. It is less stable than Windows 95 original release was on my computer back in 1995! That's for sure is an achievement on itself but I doubt it is of the kind Nokia was after...
Give out "early adopter" codes for all 770 owners to buy the N800 for $199, and this will help ease the pain.
Actually, giving user discounts to all 770 users would add to the pain, for the same reason that this 2007-770-hacker-edition does: For people who own a 770 and don't intend to upgrade any time soon, this all translates to most of the new ITOS software apps released by 3rd parties will be incompatible with 770 (consumer edition). The fact that the 'hacker edition' cannot access the DSP (no voip, or any audio playback apparently) makes it basically absurd for 3rd party developers to ask their users to upgrade to it.
Maybe giving discount codes to people who bought 770s very recently before the shove-off would make sense, but I wouldn't seriously ask Nokia to do that.
What we can seriously ask for, and are now forced to demand angrily, is a consumer-targeted 770 release that can run most programs made by any casual N800-based developers who don't happen care about the 770 enough to make an ITOS2006 version of their software. That is what the problem is.
Fixing bugs in the 770 is essential too, of course, but that comes with the newer versions of software hopefully. A new Opera might have to cost more money, for Nokia or even for end users... see the comments in the previous thread on this blog for my crazy conspiracy theory about why there is only one engine in the osso-browser.
DON'T YOU 770 PEOPLE EVER STOP COMPLAINING?
For crying out loud, you wanted OS 2007 back ported to the 770, and that's happening now but you're still not satisfied.
What do you want - the moon on a stick?
Get over it! Some of you bought the 770 a long time ago and it's had it's day, Nokia are doing their best as agreed to bring you OS2007.
Those of you who bought the 770 during the run up to the N800 simply didn't do your research - it was obvious to anyone who looked around on the internet that a replacement was imminent. Your fault for being lazy.
Please, just stop complaining, it's getting really tiresome and is NOT productive. Allow Nokia to get on with their job, ship OS2007 on 770 and see where it takes us.
For now, stop bitching at Ari everytime he updates his blog or guess what? He just won't bother communicating with us, because of you whinny b*stards. And then who will you complain to - you mummies?
Time to grow up chaps. Welcome to the fast paced world of consumer electronics.
It kinda hurts me to see some of the remarks that are being posted here, as I don't think they are going to help the "development" cause at all. I am new to these devices (in this case the N800), but I have been an early adopter in quite a few different fields. At least Nokia embraces the idea of "open source", and are willing, as a company to at least offer some help, or not lock out the user community. I bought a PSP with future development in mind, thought that would be the obvious direction for Sony, well - you can understand that dissapointment.
I guess what I am saying is, keep things in perspective. Nokia has a large product line, it seems they are trying to meet user demand and not cross-over their one products to much... all difficult things.
Mr. Jaaski, keep up the good work, I look forward to updates and continual improvement -- I guess that is the name of the game.
Thor
ComputerWorld just reviewed the N800 and said "But don't expect to use the N800 for streaming video. Our attempts to watch video clips streaming from YouTube, for instance, were a disaster, with broken, pixelated images the norm. Apparently, the faster processor is powerful enough to improve Web browsing and many other functions but still isn't robust enough to support both Wi-Fi and streaming video at the same time."
So, not meaning to say "I told you so" but rushing the N800 out has resulted in at least one poor review which will lead to lost sales... there are certainly some aspects of the N800 firmware that should have delayed it's release, maybe in about 2 or 3 months it will have reached the state required for launch.
Not meaning to flame, just saying you can't keep doing this and getting away with it (you're not Microsoft!) :)
@VoiceOfSanity
If you'd read the comments you'd at least realize that a lot of us could care less about a developer pre-alpha version of OS2007 running on the N770. Simply because it DOESN'T FIX the blatant errors that are in OS2006. The unstable webbrowser will not get fixed, Ari has told us that much.
Does Microsoft stop releasing updates and bugfixes for Windows 2000 because XP gets released? Similarly do they stop pushing bugfixes to XP when Vista will be released? No. Same for Apple, same for all Linux distributions out there. None of them go 'yeah well, we now have a new OS version we need to focus on, so we'll just ignore the problems with the previous OS for now'. Very nice way to treat your customer base.
The OS2007 backport to the N770 is just a proof of concept so N770 devs can test their code and see if it'll run on the N800. For the end user, nothing changes.
voiceofsanity asked: "DON'T YOU 770 PEOPLE EVER STOP COMPLAINING?"
I never actually owned a 770; I knew people who had them and I wanted one, but I decided to wait for the N800. Now I regret that purchase.
Don't you think Nokia's actions with regard to the 770 say a lot about their overall strategy? If the 770 is already incompatible with the latest OS just over a year after its release, aren't you concerned that the N800 will meet the same fate when its successor arrives? Perhaps you can afford to replace a $350-$400 device every year or so, but I cannot.
I've been looking at buying an internet tablet for some months now and have carefully researched the N800. This would be for use as an end-user, not as a developer.
Right now the biggest barrier to my buying an N800 is the risk that Nokia will drop the N800 in a year just as badly as it has just dropped the 770.
The N800 is simply too expensive if it only has a 2 year useful lifetime.
Ari says "However, our goal is to make Internet Tablets as interoperable with internet services as possible." This misses the point. The internet is a moving target - particularly AJAX. An internet tablet which does not receive browser & flash updates will, over time, be able to access fewer & fewer web sites.
At this point, for me to buy an N800, will require either a big price cut or Nokia to commit to updating the browser & flash to maintain interoperability with internet services over something like 2 years.
Why is Nokia using a proprietary browser like Opera anyway? If my Nokia cell phone (and the Apple iPhone) is powerful enough to run an open source KHTML-based browser, then surely the N800 must be as well.
http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/S60browser/
ian.r - what are you regretting? Did you even read my post?
Here's a summary for you:
Nokia are giving ongoing support for OS 2007 on 770.
They are back porting OS 2007 to the 700.
Their is no question they will continue to support the N800.
And it's beyond any doubt that Nokia have learned important lessons throughout this episode, and have had the courage to admit as much.
But you still complain. So what more do you want from them? BLOOD?
Just listen to yourself.
@voiceofsanity said "Nokia are giving ongoing support for OS 2007 on 770. They are back porting OS 2007 to the 700."
What kind of retarded statement is that? There is absolutely no ongoing support for OS2007 on the N770, Ari Jaaksi said as much in his posts. They're only doing a semi working backport to give N770 developers 'something' so they can try and get their apps working on the N800 (without the need to actually buy one).
What N770 users need and are asking for is that 0S2006 is made more stable and the webbrowser is fixed so we have a real 'internet tablet'.
Of course, you can selectively pick and choose the comments you want, but you seem to completely ignore what people are writing and on top of that you're starting to make up stuff now.
Wow, "voiceofsanity"... You might want to reread this thread, because your statements demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. I did read your first comment, and you are wholly incorrect. From everything Ari and Carlos have stated in their recent posts, it is abundantly clear that there will be no 2007 OS for 770 for consumers. In other words, developers will have to release multiple versions of their software if they want to continue support the 770 end-users. Nokia has two different internet tablets on store shelves, with two incompatible OS's, and no plans to change. This "hacker's edition" of the 2007 OS does NOTHING to rectify that situation. In fact, as others have already stated above, doing a developer-only release can serve one purpose only; to encourage more N800 development. This is plainly bad news for 770 users, and we N800 owners can expect the same treatment in the future.
@thomas
Er, yes my bad - that should have read:
"Nokia are giving ongoing support for OS 2006 on 770."
Sorry about that.
@ian.r
Grow up and act your age fella, crying like a school kid (maybe that's what you are, I dunno) isn't going to resolve this situation.
Your posts are over dramatic and sensationalist, you don't know what Nokia plan in future so calm down and take a deep breath. Give Nokia some credit, they're not likely to repeat this c*ck up a second time.
If you're not happy, take your N800 back to the shop and buy a Microsoft WinCE device. Leave the debating to the grown ups who don't want to listen to your posturing and conspiracy theories.
BTW: A new version of ITOS2006 was released today. It seems the 770/OS2006 is not as "dead" as some claimed it was.
lol, voiceofinsanity is just trolling at this point.
To the post above - and the whiners aren't trolling? ;) :)
You mean this release?
* Improved quality of WLAN connections
* Wi-Fi certification included
That doesn't seem to be the fixes that people are asking for. It isn't worth re-flashing and reloading all your apps for these 2 fixes.
@voiceofsanity: not really, seems to me people have been voicing legit complaints, while you're throwing out rude insults. and now i'm guilty of responding to your flamebait :(
Call it flamebait or trolling, but is it fair that every time Ari comes out to play he gets verbally mugged by people hysterically harping on about the same old subjects that have been addressed on numerous occasions and that ARE being addressed at this very moment?
Some of the posts here are based on idle speculation that serves no purpose whatsoever. Who knows what will happen to the N800 if/when the "N900" is released? I don't, you certainly don't but if you don't want to buy the N800 because you believe Nokia will do the dirty on you then fine - don't buy it, see ya, go get yourself something else, please.
There are a number of issues that exist in the land of the Internet Tablet, and they've all been brought to the attention of Nokia on mulitple occassions. There really is no point for some of the posters in this blog to get so worked up about it and regurgitate the same points in new posts attached to each new blog posting from Ari.
Give the guy a break, otherwise he won't bother wasting his time posting at all. And then maybe you'll all be happy?
There is only one solution, release the 2006 source code: file manager, pdf reader, contacts, ...,all (except licensed code like opera), and you will see what the community can do with it...and you didn't.
A correction: I referred to bugzilla #959 in my earlier post (boot problem), this should be #957, not #959.
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Yes, all you 770 users need to grow up and act your age! Boo hoo, Nokia screwed you and now you want your money back! Well you can't have it back!
Don't you realize that money is needed to subsidize more developers to migrate away from your outdated os2006!?
And Carlos from Nokia, has already stated the following about the os port for the 770:
"It’s less than alpha. No Q.A. was done on it and who knows what it might do. It should not brick your device but then again, we can’t be totally sure of that either."
Did you babies even read that before complaining!? There is a reasonably good chance it won't brick your device!**
Also, it's so good they don't even know what it might do! READ BETWEEN THE LINES you bunch of slackjaw complainers. THERE ARE FEATURES IN THERE THAT NOT EVEN NOKIA KNOWS ABOUT YET! It might even double as a car! Tell me where else you can get a car for $400.00!!!
And the technology is so fricking bleeding edge that it's even pre-alpha! Do you hear that!! Pre-alpha!!! Us N800 owners only get alpha and beta software which is practically outdated before it's even out. And you winers have the audacity to complain about that! I for one won't complain when Nokia releases an incompatible N900 with os2008 cause I know I'll finally get some pre-alpha software love coming my way.
**Of course Nokia isn't sure if it will brick your device or not because all the 770 QA testers mysteriously didn't show up for work one day. But they have their top guys out looking for them now! I believe there was a suspected sighting of a few of them at the N800 cubicles.
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I bought my 770 in December, 2006. It still has eight months of warranty coverage. Now I see that Nokia won't fix the bugs in the firmware. I'm very disappointed.
Dr. Jaaksi, what will Nokia do for me?
Hi Ari
Have all discount codes been used perchance?
A little about myself:
Currently working on a PhD in fast computer vision algorithms for small devices at a prestigious uk university.
Visiting Lecturer in an Advanced Games Module and Multimedia Module at other uk universities.
Please let me know - I've been looking at obtaining the N800 for some time now [the price has been somewhat high for a PhD student/lecturer :)]
Kindest Regards
Y.Abbas
yabbas AT gmail DOT com
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