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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?"
For some it may be. Why do you think you know what is best for everyone?
Although not explicitly stated, (at least) the first option comes with a 2-year contract. Thus, it only takes some very simple math to figure out that in two years, the first option comes out to $1539, and the second option to $1080.
If you'd really like to spend more, feel free to send me the extra $500 and we'll call it good.
This is a very negative statement, and from a Nokia vice president no less. It seems a very strange thing to say at the time of launching a new device.
I hope Nokia is not buttering us up for DRM and lockdown in "Step 5 of 5"...
Meanwhile, the N900 will succeed wildly if Nokia's marketeers allow it to. We tech people like the device because of its specs, but where are the simple statements of the benefits for its other market sectors?
"Open source Linux with a root shell" is good enough for me, but what about "A phone with a real Mozilla-based browser", or "A music player with stereo speakers built-in", or even "N900 - comes with apps".
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So buy the phone and put your sim card in it.. I think what you mean is the carriers won't subsidise the phone, so you may have to cough up the full hardware price.
Come as you are, do what you must, be who you will.
The N900 is -far- superior to the HTC Dream. Lets see here, the HTC Dream ships with 192 MB of RAM, the N900 ships with 256 MB of RAM. The HTC Dream ships with 256 MB of Flash and a MicroSD expansion, the N900 ships with 32 GB of Flash and a MicroSD expansion, The HTC Dream has a screen resolution of 480×320, the N900 has a resolution of 800×480. The HTC Dream uses a 3.2 megapixel camera while the N900 uses a 5.0 megapixel camera. The HTC Dream is without a doubt inferior to the N900.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
With GSM phones and SIM cards, there is nothing forcing you to buy a phone that is locked or crippled by your phone carrier.
You can, for example, buy an unlocked Nokia cell phone from any of several places, and then put in, if you are in the US, a T-Mobile or AT&T SIM card. If you're outside of the US, use your local carrier--CDMA cell phones seem to only exist in the US.
And, of course, if you do end up with a locked phone, there are services on the internet that can unlock the cell phone for you, and reflash the OS on the phone to one that doesn't have whatever features your carrier decided to disable.
I think the only people who will have a problem are people who are in an area of the US without GSM towers and have to use Verizon.
MaraDNS is an open-source DNS server.
Nokia isn't a FOSS firm? The company that bought all third-party code used in the OS that most of their products ran (Symbian) and open sourced it? The company that's been developing the Maemo stack with community assistance for years and has released three Linux/ARM tablets based on it already? The company that owns Trolltech? Are you talking about the same Nokia as the rest of us?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If you're considering getting one of these (and I certainly am), why not go to the N900 mini-site and submit your email address to get an alert when the phone goes on general sale. If nothing else it will show Nokia that there is legitimate, widespread interest in this phone and hopefully help them keep their resolve against the evil telcos!
N900 site is here: http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/ (scroll all the way to the bottom for the form that lets you submit your email addy).
Also, to whet your appetite of what's likely to come, check out this forum post over on the maemo boards: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=24272
http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/N900
Here it says that it won't support OGG, but it manages to support the completely abandoned Windows Media shit. The only unpatented format it can play is WAV. And it records to AAC (WTF!!!!). It doesn't know about SVG, but manages to support WMF (fortunately WMF is not patented). This phone is a giant step in the right direction, but it's still not the 'dream platform' for open source development.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
Even with the unlocked iPhone you have to keep relogging into the f***g device...
Here I am in Switzerland and there are two providers: Orange, and Swisscom. Swisscom refuses to unlock the device at any cost. Orange sells you an unlocked device, but the operator very carefully said, "be careful it is not all you think it is."
So I called Apple and asked what gives?
Every time you switch SIM card you need to relogin into itunes to reregister your device.
I asked, oh you mean everytime you put in a new card, once right?
WRONG!!! No everytime you switch SIM cards you need to relogin... Otherwise the iPhone will not work.
This is completely bogus and is why I am buying a Nokia N900 and not iPhone. In fact I have not yet bought a smartphone because each smart phone outside of the N900 seem to have one lock in or another.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I have 4 sim cards in my wallet (ATT, Fido, Vodafone(AU) and SFR) and I change them whenever I need to. No reboot, No iTunes. Just switch wait a few seconds for the network discovery and off you go. It even reconfigures the phone features on the fly, letting you send MMS in Canada but not in the US.
The firmware update utility may require signed code (I've not checked; I don't think it does, given that there is the community-developed 'hackers edition' firmware that installs fine with it) but once it's installed I have complete control over everything in the filesystem. The proprietary bits are things like Flash and (in earlier versions) Opera - you can't redistribute these without permission from the copyright holders, but there's nothing stopping you from removing them from your device or providing scripts that replace it with something else on other peoples' devices.
So let's, indeed, come back in 2-3 months and see if Nokia suddenly reverses its policy. You seem to be acting like Maemo is something brand new, rather than a platform that Nokia has been shipping for three years.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
To be honest I think this should be main focus for FCC right now. Why they allow this oligopoly to exist? If the $20-$30/month subsidy for the phone was taken out it would be easy for customers to save money on using phones longer or getting them from second hand market. Prepaid or pay as you go plans are not currently competitive as well, the pricing is even worse than with a contract for average users. Other thing with pay as you go plans is that you are required to pay for at least 250 (or something close to that) minutes per month even if you don't use them.
I have two two lines right now, one from AT&T where I pay close to $100/month even if I don't use it much. I have only 450 minutes with iPhone plan, some text messages and international calling plan. This plan is just about the lowest I could get for my iPhone. Second line is DNA Finland where I pay 0.66EUR/month for 0 minutes and 0 messages. If I use the line my call time and SMS that are around 7 cents per minute/message, other plans with higher number of discounted minute prices are available. Data is unlimited with 10EUR/month, but I don't use it right now so I don't have it. With DNA I can buy subsidized phone with $30/month, but I choose not to.