We're getting some feedback .. and we've got a plan now
Thanks
Thank you all for your feedback. Also you, Mr anonymous, who gave so many comments on my previous post.
The Plan
But seriously, this is what is gonna happen:
-We will now investigate what it takes to run N800 software on 770 hardware. We will post the details and ask you to solve problems with us, if possible, as we go on. Expect to hear from us through maemo and other sources. I do not yet exactly how we gonna do this all. I'm at the Heathrow airport waiting form my flight back to Finland, and we have not had a chance to figure this out fully yet. However, the team is already working on this.
-The goal is to provide an engineering release of those parts of the software that can be made to work. I do not believe we will make an official "consumer version" of the software for 770. But having a release working on 770 would allow developers and hackers to continue working on 770 and bridge the gap between 770 and N800.
-Once we've done the release we want to get more feedback from you about where to go from there. Unfortunately I do not have an estimate of when such release would be ready. But we are working on it now.
-Should we find it impossible to have N800 software even partially run on 770, you will see the details of our attempt.
Some of the challenges encountered so far
-WLAN configuration has changed quite a bit.
-DSP (770 is OMAP 1710 and N800 is OMAP 2420) is different. DSP code is developed by various parties and we do not have a full control over it. We need to figure out if we can support DSP (codecs and stuff ...)
-Browser is licensed separately for both platforms and we do not have a cross-platform version. We do not own the browser code.
-We have several commercial components that are licensed for N800 only. Should we make them available for 770, you or Nokia must pay. How do we arrange that is not clear at the moment.
-Some new components require more computing power than 770 offers, and they run slow even on N800. I fear making them work on 770 will be very challenging.
But as I said, let's try now. Thank you for your feedback!
Some reality bits
Somebody commented that it was easy to make a 770 application run on N800. Yes it is and that is very good, isn't it. But making the operating system and drivers and all the low level things running on a different hardware is significantly more complicated. It requires much much more than just recompiling. If that was the only thing needed we would have of course done that ;-)
Also, supporting and commercially launching a new software releases is a big task. If you have never done a product release you wouldn't know. This is why we're thinking about an engineering release that would work, would be supported for developers by developers, but not offered as an official release supported by Nokia's global support organisations etc..
770 didn't go away and is a good product
So we understand you comments. However, please remember that 770 is already an old product. It was announced 1.5 years ago and that is a long time! However, it is a good product and Nokia supports it fully and keeps on selling it, too. It is just that technology keeps on developing and we want to offer better hardware to our customers.
Thank you all for your feedback. Also you, Mr anonymous, who gave so many comments on my previous post.
The Plan
But seriously, this is what is gonna happen:
-We will now investigate what it takes to run N800 software on 770 hardware. We will post the details and ask you to solve problems with us, if possible, as we go on. Expect to hear from us through maemo and other sources. I do not yet exactly how we gonna do this all. I'm at the Heathrow airport waiting form my flight back to Finland, and we have not had a chance to figure this out fully yet. However, the team is already working on this.
-The goal is to provide an engineering release of those parts of the software that can be made to work. I do not believe we will make an official "consumer version" of the software for 770. But having a release working on 770 would allow developers and hackers to continue working on 770 and bridge the gap between 770 and N800.
-Once we've done the release we want to get more feedback from you about where to go from there. Unfortunately I do not have an estimate of when such release would be ready. But we are working on it now.
-Should we find it impossible to have N800 software even partially run on 770, you will see the details of our attempt.
Some of the challenges encountered so far
-WLAN configuration has changed quite a bit.
-DSP (770 is OMAP 1710 and N800 is OMAP 2420) is different. DSP code is developed by various parties and we do not have a full control over it. We need to figure out if we can support DSP (codecs and stuff ...)
-Browser is licensed separately for both platforms and we do not have a cross-platform version. We do not own the browser code.
-We have several commercial components that are licensed for N800 only. Should we make them available for 770, you or Nokia must pay. How do we arrange that is not clear at the moment.
-Some new components require more computing power than 770 offers, and they run slow even on N800. I fear making them work on 770 will be very challenging.
But as I said, let's try now. Thank you for your feedback!
Some reality bits
Somebody commented that it was easy to make a 770 application run on N800. Yes it is and that is very good, isn't it. But making the operating system and drivers and all the low level things running on a different hardware is significantly more complicated. It requires much much more than just recompiling. If that was the only thing needed we would have of course done that ;-)
Also, supporting and commercially launching a new software releases is a big task. If you have never done a product release you wouldn't know. This is why we're thinking about an engineering release that would work, would be supported for developers by developers, but not offered as an official release supported by Nokia's global support organisations etc..
770 didn't go away and is a good product
So we understand you comments. However, please remember that 770 is already an old product. It was announced 1.5 years ago and that is a long time! However, it is a good product and Nokia supports it fully and keeps on selling it, too. It is just that technology keeps on developing and we want to offer better hardware to our customers.
posted by Ari Jaaksi at 2:38 PM
72 Comments:
Making developer version for 770 may help programmers to develop for N800 using 770, but I don't see how this helps 770 user base not to be left behind when most active developers are moved to N800 by Nokia. Any move to unify internet tablet community is good, but I still think we need consumer OS update for 770 to solve this problem.
Mr anonynmous,
As of now, I believe that N800 hw is so much better that supporting the software fully on 770 (commercial grade support) will not be possible. As an example, running a new Flash on 770 .... So eventually the world moves on and we need to follow ;-)
But give us a chance now --- let's see if we can work this out!
This is good news; it means developers can more easily release software which works on both devices.
No, the 770 might not get updated Opera and Flash, but more of the open source components and their APIs may make it back. This'll make it much easier for developers, IMHO.
This post has been removed by the author.
Thanks Ari!
Getting full & official IT2007 released on 770 can not happen, some of us do understand how much work it would mean.. =)
But I guess it would be enough if you could make a developer release which could be used to test N800 applications. Meaning that it would contain same (or compatible) versions of GTK+, Hildon, DBus, libosso etc. so that normal, non-HW related N800 applications would be running also in N770 + this IT2006_for_N770 release.
---> N770 owners could use big part of coming N800 applications and even better for Nokia, these N770 owners could develop & test IT2007 (N800) applications. Then when we get bored on how slow those applications are working for us, we'll upgrade to N800... =)
This sounds better than what we heard before.
As for licensing problems with proprietary binaries such as Skype/Opera/Flash: I could well live without them on the 770, and for sure I'd not pay a cent for them. I never considered them part of an "ITOS200x", anyway. They are applications and don't belong to any OS, neither 2006 not 2007. If licensing ageements prevent moving them to the 770, then so be it. I won't whine. ;-)
What would be nice to have on the old model are improvements you made beneath the application level, so 3rd party apps find the same APIs regardless of the device.
If by "developer version" you mean fully functional system and it is easily available for everyone, but you just don't want people to call to support line if they have problems with it, then it sounds just great! I'm slowly getting back my faith for Nokia and future of Internet Tablets.
And just how long will this new N800 be supported? My guess is that it will be even shorter than the 770 and it's a shame. I thought we were building, not breaking down...
Ari,
I am very impressed and almost emotional right now seeing the responsiveness of you, your team and Nokia as a whole. Fantastic, awesome and all the other accolade people here in the US love to use. :-)
Probably this not enough for all, but I am sure a lot of people are extremely happy to hear these news!
Jari V.
ps. I am just an end consumer and already preparing my story line for the wife to purchase the N800 :)
Hello Mr. Ari,
I am glad to notice that you welcome feed backs so warmly. About an year ago I had tried to reach you and Nokia channel to see if you can arrange 770 in India.
Last time was no help, and I am not much hopeful if Nokia has considered any plans for N800 for India.
However the point is that while you missed to target India as a market for Internet Tablet device, you missed to get a very important feedback, which could have given +1 point to N800.
CDMA/EVDO/EDGE modem built-in could be the most desired addon for countries like India, WiFi does not go everywhere here.
Well I know this mention of feature might put you in trouble to answer or follow up further. Because I am very sure that you could have never missed this feature for ensuring maximum chances of being connected for Nokia Internet users.
However I will love to read from you why not India, and why not truly mobile Internet access ?
I'm confused, we expected that maemo was a platform to develop soft for internettablets, independent of its hardware, but no, it isn't. So, why i should say to anybody to buy an "old but still buyable" n770? its comparable to a tablet with Win CE, in one year there is a newer version, but isn't updatable, an a lot of programs needs the 200x version and not your old version 200x-1...
Lucky,
See what maemo.org front page says: "Maemo is application development platform for Nokia Internet Tablet products."
So we (==Nokia) develops software for Internet Tablets togehter with upstream projects like Gnome, kernel.org, etc. Nokia then integrates this for internet tablets in our own product development projects. These projects release internet tablets and maemo.org SDK.
Maemo is not a place where internet tablet software is being built. It is made available there, though, as an SDK, documentation, developer root file system etc
Also, some parts that cannot be built in upstream communities are built in http://sardine.garage.maemo.org/ and we are investigating if that approach works. Have you been already working on Sardine? If not, check it out!
I must agree with the person a couple posts above. I don't care if Opera and Flash stay behind at their old version. I also don't care if I can't run Skype (I have GoogleTalk and GizmoProject.) I wouldn't even care if any new codecs are not supported due to the DSP changing. I *WOULD* like any bugfixes that are needed to still be supported (don't know that there are any).
On the other hand, I'd like all of the APIs to be updated (less things like webcam that aren't there). This includes updating to the latest version of the gstreamer core.
One thing I'd be VERY willing to pay for is Ogg Vorbis support in GStreamer.
I'm more than willing to accept that some apps that people write for the N800 may not work on the 770 due to memory, too slow, or lack of certain hardware (like webcam or DSP). On the other hand, I'd be angered if it was due to the API not being maintained.
Thanks Dr. Jaaksi,
This is good news, much better than the ones in the previous post.
We developers will do our contribution, we are not really concerned with a finished product or full software support. We just want an OS that worths to continue to work on. And eventually we will upgrade, but this will happen when we feel ready, not when we are pushed to do so.
Thanks again. I hope we will see some action in the future to second these words.
I'd be glad to have a version of IT2007 without new flash and opera version. Sadly Opera crash too often to be really usable, a bugfix would be great.
N770 is a very good product but is far less usefull without 3rd party tools. I won't buy one without community apps because i'll miss too much features.
N800 is really appealing and i hope to buy one in a few months. But the announces from Nokia before this one scared me...
I'm waiting for my N800 now; should arrive today. Of interest is the lack of good PIM tools.
I have a Palm T3. I use my PDA for everyday use. I elected not to go to a "smart" phone because of the small size of the screen, e.g. it isn't practical. However, the large screens on the 770 and 800 do make them practical.
To enhance the capability of the 770 and 800, the following software tools should be available:
- Calendar
- Contacts
- Todo
- Expense manager (Palms isn't efficient so it has been replaced)
- Password manager (similar in capability to Passwords Plus)
- World clock (with multiple time zones visible)
- Small database similar in function to MobileDB (I create DB on the fly for any number of purposes. They're small and don't take up much room)
- Mileage manager to track fuel usage, costs, etc.
- Conversion calculator to enable conversion between multiple formats such as currency, distance, etc.
- Dictionary/thesaurus
I have all of these on my Palm and more and the 64MB of memory is sufficient. With the power and memory capabilities of the 770 and 800, they could easily make for an outstanding PDA as well as Internet tool.
Do you plan support for a word processor that will open msword documents?
Rgds:
Eric
You actually paid money for that buggy piece of crap? I would have threatened Opera: fix 770 browser or we will look elsewhere for 800 browser.
You have my vote for a more stable Opera for the N770.
Thank you Ari.
It's great to see you guys in Nokia listen and positively respond to concerns of Internet Tablet user community.
This ensures growth of the community and userbase and encourages users to upgrade without being forced.
I agree with several comments I've seen here...this is heartening. I feel a little less abandoned. And as others have said...I'm not particularly worried about applications that the 770 doesn't have the horsepower for; I'm more interested in API and OS-level components (bluetooth audio support, for example). I'm looking forward to seeing what happens!
Great news! I have been following this conversation with interest. The main reason I bought the 770 was because it ran Linux and was fairly open for developers. I bought it because it at least gave me the chance of writing apps (first, Maemochron) to turn it into the device I want. It's not perfect, but in my experience with most other platforms this is about as good as it gets (try writing j2me apps for multiple handsets and getting jsr support info from the phone manufacturers and carriers!) To see you guys listening to developers and users and making a change in your plans like this is fantastic. As Martin Grimme in the roadmap thread said, "Why complain about the 770's future when the future is in our hands?" That's the way it should be. Thanks Ari.
However, please remember that 770 is already an old product. It was announced 1.5 years ago and that is a long time! However, it is a good product and Nokia supports it fully and keeps on selling it, too. It is just that technology keeps on developing and we want to offer better hardware to our customers.
That's funny, my 3+ year old powerbook still gets software updates quite often! I thought Nokia was trying to brand its devices as being "computers". Thanks for alienating all the early adopters! I'll still be using my Nokia 770, but I imagine it'll be going next to an Amiga in a museum some day.
Hello all!
I'm looking to purchase the new N800, and I think that what happens with the 770 will be the decisive factor. I would buy the N800 if I would be able to use it like a mini-computer upgrading the OS without restrictions.
I think that is the feeling that every one have about community driven projects, that you can use your old devices with new software, and receive great updates.
Of course with time, the device will be too slow, but you will be always be able to fix bugs on your software, or test a new application to see if a hardware upgrade would be worthwhile.
Perhaps also in the future one find that a new "killer app" can be run in an old device. If I cannot port this app to my Nokia tablet because Nokia didn't provide the updates or something blocked the community from giving support I would feel really bad about my device (like I'm doing with my phone and one old PDA).
At the end, I would buy the N800 if I see that it has a similar support like the NSLU2 or the Zaurus PDA. In fact, if I see that the 770 will not be supported in the future, I would think strongly about buying the Zaurus.
And I really don't mind too much about closed source apps (flash or skype), though I would appreciate them in the new version.
Or perhaps I'm missing the point about what the N800 is :)
Kiitos paljon for your time and feedback :)
hi ari
so, the 770 is an old product; based on linux kernel, a bunsh of gpl sowftware with some propreitary components, 1.5 years old. now we may order the n800 as successor. and still no ogg vorbis?
many mid priced portable music player suport even flac! are you taking the open source spirit serious ? get your home work done - i just don't want to buy a gp2x in order to have a portable linux based dev with ogg support (i know: can't compare 770/n800 with gp2x because of missing wifi, screen ... :-)
however: i am looking forward to maintenance releases for the 770!
chan
Thank you for this update!
About the WLAN configuration: why not make this part free as in speech as well? I wouln't consider a N800 because after a year the 770 still didn't get EAP TTLS (and I and others did ask nicely). If the system was really open, I would just have replaced the necessary parts with wpa supplicant. And this is has nothing to do with the wireless driver, which can remain closed source.
With the DSP you mean the video en-/decoder part I assume? Because the OMAP of the N800 has the same C55X DSP as the 770.
But the improved video decoding isn't really important for most users is my estimate: they are more interested in working libraries to build or use working applications.
Thanks very much for giving ongoing 770 support your attention!
Given the fact that such open-source applications as MPlayer and the Ogg Vorbis player (and the Ogg plugin, which is what I personally use) are currently available for the 770, I think having the DSP code be closed-source isn't a showstopper for (community-written) media support on the 770. And the existence of Minimo suggests that not being able to license a new version of Opera for the 770 under OS2007ish is not going to deter everybody, either. (Obviously, the ideal situation would be where there were no technical obstacles to running either version of Opera on either version of the OS, only licensing ones. Then 770 owners could bring their existing licensed copy of Opera forward when they installed OS2007-for-770, although I imagine that would be a certain amount of hassle.)
The important thing, I think, is for 770 developers and users to feel like their platform is not a dead end, and for Nokia to foster a larger unified software and development ecosystem that supports both devices -- because obviously it's good for Nokia, as well as for the users, if community development that happens on a 770 can feed into Nokia's future OS offerings, or contribute to demand for Nokia's current and future hardware.
Greetings Dr. Jaaksi,
Thank you for your responsiveness. Here's a request of my own.
In addition to supporting developers with special releases, please let all users (including developers) support themselves by releasing the proprietary low level parts of the platform as free software or, if that's impossible, enough documentation to reimplement them as free software. The high level applications are not important in this regard -- free replacements such as gnash, minimo, and tapioca exist already.
Ari
-Respect
-Strangely enough now I am happy to upgrade my 770 to an 800
Mike C
Dr. Jaaksi,
Thanks for acknowledging that there is a problem, and for being willing to change your plans.
Unfortunately, I don't think your current new plans are really good enough. It is ESSENTIAL that Nokia provide a version of OS2007 for 770 to consumers, rather than only to developers.
As I said in my comment on your last post, the LCARS PADD theme needed some modifications to work properly with the N800. Many of the theme changes Nokia made in the new OS seemed unnecessary from my perspective, but of course I wouldn't mind if the changes were made available for both devices.
But if 770 continues shipping with a different OS than the N800, I'll have to release separate versions for the two devices. The same (much worse, actually) will be true for tons of other software as well.
I understand the difficulties in licensing proprietary software (Opera/Flash/Skype), but as Oskar pointed out above, those aren't really parts of the OS itself. Even if you can't include the latest versions of those proprietary apps in the 770 version of OS2007, you should still release the OS itself to consumers. Anything short of that will completely fragment Maemo development and the community as a whole.
This would be terrible for end users.
In the photos from CES, I saw Nokia employees wearing shirts saying "It's what computers have become." If you honestly believe that it is acceptable for "computers" to be unable to run the next release of their OS, less than 14 months after shipping, then I wish you had not wasted our time and money by entering this market.
I don't understand why Nokia is still selling the 770 (maybe clearing out inventory?) if there will be no software support. Why would anyone buy one if there will be no updates to fix bugs? Also, the 770 has been out for 1.5 yrs, but there was more marketing and probably more sales in the past 6 months.
Will it be common practice for Nokia to release a completely new OS for every new tablet? That doesn't seem like a good business model.
To the post above, Nokia continue to sell the 770 because Nokia never said they would stop releasing updates for the 770.
In fact Nokia said the 770 would continue to be supported with firmware updates, just that it would not be the OS version produced for the N800.
Nokia now have two internet tablet offerings, the cheaper 770 or the more expensive N800. Choose the device based on your wallet and/or requirements, both will be supported by Nokia going forward.
The biggest issue about forking the OS version on the two devices is that this creates more effort for the development community. The sane decision is to support compatible APIs where this is possible. That is the decision being debated here, not a total lack of 770 support from Nokia.
Sorry for going off topic, but why doesn't youtube work on the n800? I'd MUCH rather you work towards that than backporting 2007 to the 770.
The difference in price between the 2 units is only $40, which is not a hug e difference. I would never recommend the 770 knowing that the OS would never get any official bug fixes.
How many firmware updates has the 770 had so far? I can't remember any. I can only remember software updates with the big one being OS2006.
I've commented to this effect on InternetTabletTalk, but two years ago I was looking for a Linux based PDA sized device with WiFi capabilities. Several weeks later, as if my thoughts had been read, the Nokia 770 was announced. After jumping several obstacles (I live in Canada where it is unavailable and had to make the drive to Michigan to get one) it lived up to my expectations and more.
After 14 months with the device, it's still exciting to use. It still fits the niches I got it for (VNC capability, streaming media, semi-laptop functionality that fits in my pocket).
I firmly believe two things on this topic: Internet Tablets (in the method Nokia has created) are ready for mass markets, and that volunteer developers are the lifeblood. This isn't to put down any of Nokia's software engineers' work but to be honest, it was the variety of third party apps and unlimited potential of open source that made up my mind to get one.
The only advance notice were a couple of blurry leaked images, and a few weeks later, reports of people having bought the N800. I can see developers feeling startled, it came out of nowhere.
I think a phased transition would heal peoples' wounds a bit more. It's been brought up before but what about a bare bones version of Maemo? That would limit the amount of code modification necessary by excluding the many bundled apps. As they're converted, release them as packages on a separate repository.
I'm no fan of large companies, but I must admit the direction Nokia has taken with Maemo and the hardware that runs it has softened me a bit.
And to you Ari, thank you especially for letting us know what's going on. It's nice to know we're good for a little more than the money in our wallets.
Cheers,
Hedgecore
As a couple of others have suggested, I think the key thing is API and application compatibility.
I realize and accept that it's probably impossible to get low-level drivers, or software that accesses them directly, to be compatible across the 770 and 800. That's understandable and even expected.
What I do not find acceptable is breaking software that falls outside of these categories. Even a low-level Statusbar widget like the 'CPU/Mem/Screenshot applet with run command' ought to be able to run on both platforms; CPU and memory loads have a high-level enough abstraction to be covered by a compatible API - or should be. If they aren't, because OS 2006 handles them differently than OS 2007, then that is what we are complaining about and that is what needs to be fixed.
What I, as a user, expect is to be able to run a given piece of software on either hardware platform as long as the hardware can handle it. I don't expect to run webcam apps on the 770. I don't expect to run apps too big to fit in the 770's memory. I do expect to be able to grab and install VNC without having to worry about tracking down separate versions for a 770 or an 800.
If there were changes that needed to be made in the hidden plumbing that keep an OS 2006 app from working perfectly in OS 2007, that's understandable. But I expect that if a developer has to tinker with a 770 app to make it work on an 800, he can then release it in one version to work on either machine. If he can't, then he either has to go to extra work maintaining both versions (and the user has to deal with two versions) or he has to drop support for one platform. And which one is he going to drop?
How many applications are still in development for OS 2005? OS 2005 is effectively a dead platform, but that's all right (relatively speaking) because everyone can go to OS 2006. If developers are going to have to maintain separate versions for OS 2006 and OS 2007, then I think there's a good chance OS 2006 will become a dead platform - but here the 770 users will be screwed, under the current plan, because there will be no OS 2007 to move to.
I think the messages above reflects very well the comunity feelings about what is going on.
So I'll talk about different things:
1) Don't use DSP, integrate mplayer for OS2008.
2) I'd put Flash 7 as the only closed source app that should be available to N770-OS2007.
3) About, what to do next:
a) I'd really apreciate a bluetooth speakers slave option, so you can call throught OS2007.1 as long as you have a phone paired.
b) PIM: A CANOLA interface based PIM is crucial. Put all your efforts there!!
A Canola-inspired PIM is very interesting.
I think Ari's comment in the Thoughtfix interface that "you have PIM in your phone" is incorrect: I have a very poor calendar in my phone; but data entry sucks, getting a visual overview sucks because of the small screen, modifications suck because it's a closed platform.
The problem with PIM on Maemo is there's no obviously good open source candidate that Nokia could take and provide a GUI over - I think a lot of work would be required, which is why it makes sense to leave it to the community.
More Canola-like interfaces would help show off the capabilities of the N800/770 in the light of the oncoming storm that is iPhone.
There exist web based PIM/GTD implementations.
I personally like the opensource one, tracks on a webhost implemented in Ruby on Rails. http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/
The opera browser on Nokia 770 does pretty well with the interface although it does not support all the AJAX features.
Also given all the online office applications by google, I think the most crucial piece of software becomes the web browser and support for Ajax, javascript etc...
I am not sure how better is the browser in N80 but I hope Nokia will put a lot of effort in this direction, hopefully to minimo.
Licensing issues MY ARSE.
I purchased the 770 assuming it would continue to be supported with bugfixes.
It's an INTERNET TABLET but it doesn't have a stable browser available. At the moment I've been putting up with all the crashes, non-working pages, no-ajax, all the while assuming we would eventually receive a working version of the software.
I can tell Nokia this - fail to update Opera/Flash on the 770 and I for one will not be a Nokia customer again.
"As an example, running a new Flash on 770 .... So eventually the world moves on and we need to follow ;-)"
Eventually the World Moves On?
I for one have had my 770 for about a month and a half. I'm supposed to just throw away that several hundred euro's and cough up for an 800 am I? That's the extent of support I can expect from Nokia for my device is it?
If the N800 has an enhanced version of Opera then 770 owners should receive this update as we've already licensed the bloody software when we purchased our machines. This SHOULD included software updates.
"However, please remember that 770 is already an old product. It was announced 1.5 years ago and that is a long time! However, it is a good product and Nokia supports it fully and keeps on selling it, too."
Ari,
I bought the 770 a month ago. For me, it's not an old product -- and as long as Nokia keeps the product on store shelves it should not consider it "old", lest you want to lose all your future customers. I don't walk into an Apple store buying an iPod announced a year ago and get the "it's an old iPod" speech from Apple. They take my money and understand that I am a new customer. This product is new _for me_. Please understand that.
Second, the product the Nokia is effectively replacing for me is a Palm Vx. I bought this product 10 years ago. Not only did the Palm Vx have fewer bugs at release than the Nokia, but it has fewer bugs and support issues 10 years later than the Nokia 770 will seemingly have 1.5 years after its release. It's true that Palm no longer officially supports Palm Vx, but iirc, I installed three or four OS upgrades perhaps up to 4-5 years after the Palm Vx's initial release. What's more, very few pieces of new Palm software failed to run on my Vx, since backward compatibility was _always_ a conern for the Palm engineers. It should be for Nokia engineers, as well.
> Nokia supports it fully and keeps on selling it
Ari,
Could you please elaborate a little what you mean with support, will there be any bugfix releases for N770 (OS2006) from Nokia?
"you have PIM in your phone"
This was actually said? Couldn't find it anywhere.
In any case: PIM in every phone I've ever seen (except those phones that are essentially PDAs) is simply _rubbish_, you would never use it for anything if you had used _real_ PIM apps. Let's get tood PIM stuff in the N800 (and 770!), please.
er, "good" not "tood".. :-)
From Joe Williams: That's funny, my 3+ year old powerbook still gets software updates quite often! I thought Nokia was trying to brand its devices as being "computers". Thanks for alienating all the early adopters! I'll still be using my Nokia 770, but I imagine it'll be going next to an Amiga in a museum some day.
Ari has made a serious effort to reach out to the critics, and responding with sarcasm and hyperbole is inappropriate given the quick concialatory effort toward the community. Give him and his compatriots a chance. Comments like these are counterproductive.
Ari said "-The goal is to provide an engineering release of those parts of the software that can be made to work. I do not believe we will make an official "consumer version" of the software for 770."
This sounds like all 770s are stuck with the current 2006 OS (unless you are a developer). Unless Nokia decides to release a supported, consumer version OS that is available on the nokia.com website, the 770 platform is essentially dead. Where is the updated Opera updates and bug fixes going to come from? Even the Nintendo DS has Opera updates.
The discussion here of updates for Opera & Flash has crystallised why I'm sitting on the fence about buying a N800.
Does Nokia's plan for the N800 include browser and flash updates during the lifetime of the product? (I don't just mean bug fixes).
The internet is a moving target. As new versions of Flash appear & new ways of using AJAX are found, browsers which don't support the new things are left behind. I don't believe embedded internet products are viable without a plan for updating the browser & Flash decode to track web technology changes.
A commitment from Nokia to provide at least one significant version of opera & flash for the N800 would probably push me off the fence into buying an N800.
This is related to what the anonymous said above and I also posted on internettablettalk:
What I don't understand is why Nokia has chosen to use Opera 8.5, because Opera 9 for Devices is already available (i.e. the Wii runs 9). Especially considering Nokia has taken a new Opera license for the N800 which is not available for the 770.
Does this mean Opera 9 will never become available for the N800, but only for its successor, meaning the N800 will be dumped next year just as the 770?
This would suck because Opera 9 improved many things such as better AJAX support, add blocking and (user) scripting. This way the NXXX will always lag behind in internet functionality and experience.
This evening, I purchased a N800 at CompUSA. First thing tomorrow AM, I'm returning it unopened. Heres why:
I've been using my 770 every single day at work since early 2006. It's been buggy, slow, and often frustrating to use, always with a very unpolished, inflexible, quirky and crash-prone GUI. The 770 HAS adequately met my single requirement - It permits me to access the web in a usable fashion from a device small and light enough to fit in my shirt pocket. I'm an Anesthesiologist (former EE/MSEE simulation engineer) in a very busy practice, and constantly on my feet and on the go between multiple operating rooms. Because ready access to the hospital WiFi network and the WWW greatly increases my efficiency, I'm relatively price insensitive, and will probably purchase any device that better fulfills my mission.
I don't care a bit about videos, sound, playing audio files, or webcams. What I need is a stable browser that can reliably and rapidly access mostly textual information across a Wifi network, and present this data on an easily readable screen.
I've put up with the many quirks and generally amateurish manufacturer support of the 770 because for a year it has been the "only game in town", with an active user/developer community amd a manufacturer who seemed very committed to eventually ironing out the many bugs via regular OS upgrades.
After reading the discussions about the "forking" of the Maemo OS, the one thing I am convinced of at this point is that Nokia is probably going to be very, very successful in alienating both the 770 user and 770 developer communities. As most 770 bug fixes and OS improvements seem to have been in response to user/developer input, I fear that the rate of improvmentin the Maemo 3 OS may greatly slow as users and developers give up and move on as more promising and better supported platforms become available in the marketplace.
My plan right now is to continue using my 770, accepting (and expecting) a greatly reduced (or absent) level of support from Nokia. By Spring 2007, both the future viability of the Maemo 3 OS (and thus the N800) and the true functionality of upcoming competing products (iPhone, etc.)should be much clearer.
For the apparently small functional improvements offered by the N800 for my mission, it's just not worth the effort to make the switch from the 770 now only to have to jump again when a better device becomes available in the near future.
Ari said: "-We will now investigate what it takes to run N800 software on 770 hardware. We will post the details and ask you to solve problems with us, if possible, as we go on. Expect to hear from us through maemo and other sources. "
I think this looks much better now. Show me another company that listens to developers and hackers, and posts a response in a day! Really!
I bet Nokia had a reason (resources, architecture problems, licensing problems, stupidity ...) to do what ever they were planning to do - and now it seems they are willing to change some plans based on the feedback. You cannot make everybody happy but I think this is much better than an average corporate response.
Hi Ari,
This is fairly standard nokia stance when it comes to upgrading. ie: upgrade your hardware and anything not on that hardware isn't supported. This is the same attitude played on the phones... instead if stabilising a product and supporting for a decent period of time the consumers are forced to hardware upgrade continuously.
In normal circumstances i'd expect an upgrade as my device is only 6 weeks old. if i bought a pc now without vista it would include free upgrade. My loox was upgraded to win mobile 03 for free as it was in that purchase window.
Ari -
thank you for really listening to customers.
I have another question: I bought a 770
and I want an n800 but not for the full
price. Can you offer a discount/refund?
I think this would commercially a wise move.
Hi Mr. Jaaksi and all readers,
Some background, I am a 770 user for about a year now, and still happy ! I was (and still am) impressed by the overall quality of this new kind of product. And most importantly, it's doing what it should do, my top 5 is browsing the net (1), reading mail (2), reading rss feeds (3), making Voip calls using Google Talk (4) and using VNC Viewer to take over other computers (5), besides all this I watch from time to time a movie with the 770, using streaming audio, reading pdf documents, ...
About the complaints / reactions about the new N800 and the strategy intended by Nokia :
- I still hope Nokia will provide (maintenance) software upgrades for the 770 (based on Maemo 2.x)
- I understand a branch IS necessary between N800 and 770, mainly because of the next hardware generation, meaning other type of applications can run on the N800, ...
What I don't understand, is the price setting for the 'old' 770.
I cannot imagine that people (who are aware of the N800) are going to buy the old (from hardware point of view) 770, just because of the 30 EUR price difference. I you have to choose for an older version (369 EUR) or the newest version (399 EUR) including faster hardware, ...
Can you elaborate on this please ? Is Nokia going to lower the price of the 770 soon ?
Cheers, Jan
Thank you, Ari for the new tablet. It's a smashing product.
N800 is using OMAP2420 but I can't find any datasheet to play with low level stuff like power management, advanced timing and so on. TI is asking for an NDA! Please try much more open platforms like our minds.
Freescale has some good stuff, like i.MX31 .
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=i.MX31&nodeId=0162468rH311432973ZrDR
Dr. Jaaksi
Any other news for us. Feedback is slowing down but this does not mean we are not very curious about every single development taking place in Nokia about 770 and 2007OS.
Please keep us posted...
Thanks,
We will! But it is just Monday here ...
Telling the community that 1.5 years is "old" is simply ridiculous. The basic point is that you have abandoned a platform on all levels (most importantly, the OS, the chip set, and the storage media) just 1 effective year after launch. Nothing says "*&#@ the consumer" like that!
Please stop trying to mask the companies blatant and utter disregard for its customers under the pretense of "technical progress". It insults the intelligence of all 770 owners!
Since your device is reportedly targeted as an "internet tablet" then one would expect that, at the very least, you would continue to provide browswer enhancements for 770 owners... and I mean at the very, very, very least. That would be like the one thing that a company with little to no respect for its customer base could do... whereas a company that had respect for its customer base would do more.
Yet, one of the most important software tools for your internet tablet is conveniently not open source software and is released under individual product release licensing. So, in reality, you are placing the consumers in a bind. The core piece of functional software for an "internet tablet" gets outdated and non-upgradable with each hardware release. Thanks!
In real terms, per your current directives, development and hence, consumer software, is essentially dead for the 770 platform. Your company appears to just expect everyone to roll over and pay every 1.5 years...
Companies and Engineering teams are either commited to building sustainable platforms or they are not... Nokia is showing the Linux community and the consumer market what it is really about... which is not a big suprise. You guys need to be running a different OS... to fit with your business strategies.
There are all kinds of business models and I guess you guys are used to pushing EMF transceivers on a giddy public...
All I can personally hope for is Palm Inc + Linux sometime soon - real soon.
Hey, I recently posted as anonymous at 1/06/2007 9:11 AM in a previous entry.
To recap a bit, I have a 770, I find it extremely useful, and I think that at some high level, your vision for Internet Tablets as the way forward for mobile devices is very accurate.
I might not have explicitly said it in my last post, but my biggest objection with the 770 is that a very significant portion of the core software that it ships with is not free. Some of the problems you have in supporting both devices with the same software is clearly related to this, because you don't have the legal right to use the software on both devices.
I recently looked into porting a connection manager for MSN to Maemo. One of the things I noticed was that to understand how to provide a configuration GUI for the connection manager, I'd need the source for the osso-applet-accounts package (assuming I'm understanding things correctly). I ended up deciding to rely on jabber transports to connect to MSN, because I'm way too busy with school to go the extra mile and code my own standalone UI from scratch, as well as debug telepathy-butterfly, which seemed to be working in the SDK, but not on the device.
Basically, I like my 770, I don't think there's any real competition to Nokia yet for it (thanks for taking these steps in the right direction), but the hardware is much less valuable to me because of all of this closed source stuff that I can't look at or change, so if I decide to do something constructive with my spare time, it's going to go elsewhere. If your team were to decide to change this, go with a more open chip vendor than TI (to deal with the DSP-related issues), and decide to replace all of the software in the OS with free software (even for flash player this is possible, apparently), you could have a product that is just as useful, but also much more appealing to people like me. Hopefully you're at least toying with the idea, now that you have a successful product line.
On a separate note, Nokia is severely under-marketing both devices. I'm living in Ontario, Canada (they officially aren't being sold in Canada), and nobody has heard of the Nokia 770. Plenty of people ask me what it is though, even complete strangers, and when I tell them that it's a Nokia 770, the first thing they say is that they've never heard of it.
"However, please remember that 770 is already an old product."
I just bought mine six months ago. This isn't a mobile phone, it's a computer and should be treated differently. Mobile phones are often discounted by the companies that offer the mobile service - the 770 and n800 aren't. While it is often feasible to buy a new mobile every time your contract is up for renewal a hand held computer is a different matter entirely!
That said, thank you for informing me of how nokia views its product line - disposable. I may have to think twice before buying anything from nokia in the future that isn't a mobile (and even then, I'm not going to reward bad behaviour with business).
I have been watching this debate for a while. In my opinion the N800 is a step forward. Its using a more easily available and hense less expensive storage medium, but can still use the older format.
The core service on these devices is the browser. A commitment to provide updates the the brower for a documented period of time would help to make the N770/N800 much more saleable. The wifi connection applet also fits this definition.
I've used palms for a decade. The last one I purchased is my last. Why? because plam no longer provides long term upgrades and fixes. My first pilots were upgraded numerious times fixing lots of bugs and adding features (and sometimes they got slow). My current one is buggy - it is easy to get its browser to crash. Palm has no interest in fixing it...
One area that plam got right. My pim and notepad data still contain info from my first device.
I subscribe the the belief that phones are for calling. Something bigger is where I want my pim.
A good pim designed to interact with the cell (e.g. I can sync a small subset with the cell) would be an asset.
The support of the key components is core to my loyality.
This brings up a question. Flash 9 is now out for linux. What are Nokia's plans for it? Will it be retrofitted to the N800? What about the N770?
I understand that the non GPL software used may entail a cost to these upgrades. It so please keep it minimum. This also implies that more GPL can help make supporting older applications less expensive.
Comments?
ed tomlinson edtAtAeiDotCa
Dear Ari Jaaksi,
this is the my second commment while I wait for the conclusion of the drama :).
I fully agree with Simon80, who says that the closed source parts take away value from the product.
I would pay gladly 100 E more for the product if it were really open and free. It would be nice to don't have to worry about if Nokia is going to give updates or not (eventually Nokia will forget about every product, is the same with all companies).
Perhaps we could forget a bit about the openness if the support of the underlying architecture were impressive, but as we can see, that will never be true and the ability to "scratch an itch" is unvaluable.
For me, being an technology enthusiast and a poor student, perhaps will be better to put these 400 E in some other device.
Anyway, I will still watching Nokia to see what happens. Or perhaps someday someone starts a reverse engineer project for the n770 ...
The worst-case scenario has landed: http://www.notacloud.com/blog/?p=26
So some people will now release packages saying "this is for the N800, and also for 770 users who installed the 'hacker edition' of the OS".
It is really kind of strange (read: insulting) to call this the 770 hacker edition when it doesn't have any extra hacker type features (or any features at all) over the N800 consumer edition, and it appears to actually just be a (quote) "less than alpha" unsupported backport with the most wanted upgrades missing and no mention of future support. Where did Nokia get the idea that hacker translates to infinitely patient beta tester who should not ever expect to see a stable release?
I think calling this abomination the 770 release for developing N800 apps would have been a lot more straightforward, but it wouldn't have stopped me from coming to the obvious conclusion:
Nokia isn't yet interested in selling non-disposable computers. What a sad shameful waste of time and energy, for developers, customers, and even Nokia itself :(
From my perspective, OSSO's lack of communication (eg roadmap, etc) is their biggest failing here. But considering that they got my money for two devices that I certainly wouldn't have bought had I been able to see the secret roadmap they now appear to be following, I can't help but cynically wonder if they don't view this cunningly poor communication as their biggest success.
Now that Nokia's 770 abandonment is clearer, so I don't feel so bad about being rude, I wanted to float a (maybe not so) insultingly-crazy conspiracy theory and ask Ari to confirm or deny it:
Given that Nokia is a big customer of Opera (far beyond internet tablets) and given that these internet tablets are relatively unique among handheld devices, I wonder if Opera might have given Nokia some kind of incentive to not make (or help with making) any other engines available for the osso-browser.
Did Opera impose any such requirements?
This post has been removed by the author.
Hi, Ari --
Thank you for your frank posts over the past year-plus.
Acknowledging that it won't be easy to work out how they should be paid for, a newer Opera and a newer Flash really do belong on the 770.
I hope newer versions of OS2006 -- or whatever the 770-specific version is called -- will come out with them.
Roger Sperberg
disclaimer: I own neither the n770 or the n800.
Over the last three years, I've come to the conclusion, however, that I need precisely two computing devices -> one is a portable with enough oomph to run some fairly graphics/processor/memory intensive tasks, and one is a ultraportable that will support (a) note taking (b) sketch (c) music playing (d) moderate web/email support and finally (e) in an emergency, can run a decent terminal.
The n770 and the n800 are pretty much the only devices that fit in the second category, so I'm probably going to buy one (given the price difference, I imagine that I'll be getting the n800).
A few people on this thread have expressed pretty severe dismay in what seems to be an orphaning of the n770 by Nokia. There has been one particularly telling point: a "free as in free" version of Maemo OT2007 that is usable on both hw platforms independent of licensable software seems reasonable. In particular, since the device is internet aware, it is simply irresponsible for a company to offer something like the n770 without a reasonable lifecycle for bug and security fixes. If I'm buying a piece of electronica, I'm expecting that it be usable for 5 years at a minimum.
On the other hand, a few people have commented that 14-months-to-abandonment seems painfully short. In some sense I agree, but this device in this form factor *is*, in fact, bleeding edge technology. When the n770 was released, it was pretty much the only device of its sort in town. Speaking from experience as a geek and a gadget adopter, anyone who bought one really should have expected that they were getting something that was going to be radically underpowered compared to its immediate successor.
So, I guess I'm saying that I understand that all new development is going to happen for the new device (that's to be expected in bleeding edge technology), but at the very least the existing device(s) ought to have stable software for a significant period of time. Maybe not the newer versions of software, but security fixes and bug fixes at least...
Now we have 2008 and where is the n770 upgrade???
I cannot believe that it takes so long to envelope that for a future technical huge company like nokia!
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