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Nokia Fears Carriers May Try To Undermine N900
An anonymous reader writes "Nokia is worried that networks may reject selling the N900 because it won't allow them to mess with the operating system. Nokia has previously showed the N900 running a root shell and it appears to use the same interface for IM and phone functions. Meanwhile, Verizon is claiming that 'exclusivity arrangements promote competition and innovation.' Is it too late to explain to people why $99+$60/month is not better than $600+$20/month?"
Yes, its a phone. Several tech journalists in Sweden has tried it out and it DOES make calls.
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
The fourth iteration (Maemo Fremantle) has a UI built on Hildon/GTK+; the fifth (Maemo Harmattan), a UI built on Qt. I've read 4Q 2010 or 1Q 2011, so app developers have to consider whether or not to use the community-supported Qt API on the existing device, which will become "the" OS in 2011, or build something on GTK+, Maemo/Nokia-supported now, which will become community-supported in Harmattan.
Only an american (no offense) can think something like that.
In Europe carriers subscribe to a common standard for telephony that dates back to when the GSM was invented.
There is *no* concept of "carrying" a phone in Europe, either the phone conforms to the network standard or it doesn't (and if it doesn't nobody sells it).
*all* you need is a SIM card for the basic service, and a data plan if you want 3G stuff.
Of course you can't do 3G if your phone does not support the frequencies and standards, but they are *standards* meaning the only limiting factor is whether your phone is built to use them.
Welcome to a freer and more honest (though not as it could be) telecom industry.
I gave up fighting against bundled plans, because (at least in the U.S.) the un-bundled stuff really isn't cheaper. Witness the "Mi-Fi", a device I'd really love to have and would consider using in place of a phone even - but the plan for that is not that much different than a phone plan, in the U.S. So you are really better off going with a two-year plan and a subsidized device, since you are likely to keep a phone for around two years anyway...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Straight from the horse's mouth.
Look at section "Call features"
Where I live and do my traveling, the GSM providers' networks are marginal at best. They are grossly oversold and there are outright large coverage holes, especially with T-mo. Verizon and Sprint's RF coverage is excellent and the EVDO data with Verizon blows away AT&T's 3G data so badly there's no comparison.
Even if Nokia would offer a CDMA/EDVO version of a smartphone, Verizon would never allow it on their network.
Bullshit.
They released two more versions as "hacker editions" -- backports of the new, N8x0-only software to the 770s dated CPU. No, not everything works perfectly, and they weren't exactly pushed out quickly, but second-class support != no support.
Moreover, with the N8x0/N9x0 transition, they're making obvious good-faith efforts to allow community maintenance of the old OS (although this is limited due to IP issues, they're actually working to resolve these), as well as providing significant support to a community-run backport of the new OS to the old hardware (which is going quite well). The latter is especially auspicious, as a community-run backport means you never have to worry about some corporation arbitrarily ending support, whether after 1 year or 10 years.
Yes there actually is http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1350401&cid=29244185
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
In Australia, what you get is to keep the plan you are on without being locked in to a contract. I have a cheap plan that isn't available anymore if you don't already have it. I easily recover the cost of paying for my own phone.
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It happens all the time where I live. We have two major local carriers, one with CDMA service (superior call quality, fewer dropped calls) for which the phone must be designed for CDMA - there are no sim cards for these phones, the other a GSM network which uses locked down sim cards. Just plugging your sim card into a 3rd party phone will get you nowhere, it won't work without modifications from the cell company. Said company refuses to modify phones they didn't sell, so you're SOL unless you buy it from them. Same with CDMA phones, it may be technically possible to configure your 3rd party phone to run on the CDMA network, but the cell company just refuses. No sorry, we don't do that.
AT&T is gaining presence here thanks to the iPhone, but they aren't exactly the people to go to if you don't want to be "locked in". Verizon is available - if you have a billing address in a state they sell service in, because they don't sell it here. T-Mobile is not even an option, only the military gets to use them.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller