Comparing the Freedoms Offered By Maemo and Android

An anonymous reader writes "Maemo 5 and Android have received a lot of publicity lately, despite the former not even shipping yet. Both have become famous partly for using the Linux kernel, but now that we have a choice, how do we pick one? Is the issue as mundane as choosing your favorite desktop distribution, or is there a more significant difference? This article compares the two from an end user and developer perspective, emphasizing root access and ease of sharing code."

Comments

How do I choose?

[Lumpy]

I choose the one that will install on the hardware I own. or the one that has the most pro user functions and anti carrier functions...

I.E. mp3 ringtones that are not locked out.
Backgrounds can be any file I choose to upload to it, same as themes. Give me a way to design and upload a look change without makign the carrier rich.

All features enabled and systems in place that keep the carrier from disabling features in the phone or forcing an update to my phone that is crippled.

Allows me to use a voip client at a wifi hotspot to circumvent airtime charges.

there are features on my S60 phone that I dont see anywhere else. If I press end on a ringing call it will SMS that person with a "I'm really busy right now, I'll call you back as soon as I can" That is a ROCKING feature that I dont see on any of these phones.

Finally scripting. I want scripting on my phone. a sequence to happen when number xx-xxx-xxxx calls me.

So I choose whatever empowers me and works on my hardware.

Re:How do I choose?

[schmidt349]

That auto-SMS idea is amazing, and one of the reasons why even as an iPhone developer I'm annoyed at Apple for locking us out of making apps to fill in that kind of functionality. I respect that they need to make sure the phone doesn't blow up whatever network it happens to be running on or ring up a $500 bill for the user, but you would think that something that cool would be really trivial to write now that everything else is in place.

Another idea: why not have the phone give you a couple of options on the auto-SMS that you can write yourself, i.e. "in a meeting right now," "at the theater," "soldering my fingers to the windowsill," or vary the auto-SMS depending on the caller? I don't know if you can roll this kind of functionality yourself on Android, but if you can Apple is going to be sweating bullets in a year or so.

Re:How do I choose?

[sonnejw0]

Why would you want to send an auto-SMS and waste a text message when you don't answer a call? Isn't it implied that if it goes directly to voicemail that I'm busy and I will call back? Are the people that call you really that paranoid that you don't like them that they need an SMS to tell them that you didn't answer your phone but you still want to be friends?

I mean, sure, it's great that the phone's OS allows that kind of open development and all, but ... honestly?

Re:How do I choose?

[SpooForBrains]

Windows Mobile is like the two Matrix sequels or the Star Wars prequels. We pretend it doesn't exist.

Re:Not a chioce right now

[Canazza]

the N900 gets released 16th November

http://www.product-reviews.net/2009/10/22/nokia-n900-uk-release-date-pushed-back-to-november/

Re:The writer is clueless about end users

[vadim_t]

There's more than one kind of end user.

As an end user, and potential programmer for the platform this is precisely the sort of review I wanted. It doesn't work for the non-technical user maybe, but there will be plenty reviews for those.

Personally as an user I want lack of restrictions and don't give a damn about support -- I've never ever called it for anything I own.

Re:The writer is clueless about end users

[JohnFen]

There must be a nontrivial market consisting of people like me who don't care about support as much as they care about functionality.

The Maemo looks good. It's the first smartphone that I'm actually excited about!

I'm so indecisive

[rwa2]

I pre-ordered my N900 through Amazon a few weeks back. I figured it'd be easier to get Android working under Maemo than the other way around.

Also, Maemo has a pretty long history of development. I was actually planning on buying an N810 a few months ago until I found out that the N900 might actually have a decent GPS.

Plus, Android phones will be cheap and easy to come by... so hopefully I'll get one for my wife and get to play with it there. But what I've always really wanted in my pocket was a little debian box, and the N900 is pretty much the first thing that fits the bill in that respect. I could care less about the smartphone bit, other than the network connectivity, and of course the fact that I shouldn't need to carry a separate mobile phone around with me anymore.

I played around with Familiar linux (from http://handhelds.org/ ) on an old IPaq for a while, but it was always a bit frustrating that the hardware support wasn't completely there. So it shouldn't be too hard for Nokia to improve upon that experience :P

I really do hope Google caves in to the demand for a native google maps / google earth application on the Maemo, though.

Re:The writer is clueless about end users

[BlackCreek]

I second this.

Most users don't need root, nor have any need for source code access. Most users have access to support from the manufacturer, and are fine with that.

Judging from this guy's questions, he already had a conclusion, and started asking questions to justify his points of view. The article is flamebait beginning to end. Some notes:

1. In practice, any Gnome/KDE GUI app will simply not run properly in the display resolution of a phone, and not lend itself well to a touch screen interface. When you want to talk about the great stuff you can do with MAEMO, and you decide to illustrate with XEYES, I say you are out of touch with reality.
2. Android forces a rewrite of even Java code, but it also provides full application isolation. Nowhere the security advantages of it were considered.
3. Android is also offered with root access from Google (ADP) and with the Geekphone from Spain. The fact that you can also buy it in a locked state, doesn't disqualify the platform.
4. As a developer, I also care about the fact that the new MAEMO APIs are scheduled for deprecation before its release. Having a stable, well documented API matters. A lot.

The N900 will (hopefully) be a great phone, no need to go on bashing the competition in order to promote it.

Re:Not really an article

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that we do not yet know what Nokia will make you agree to in order to install the gain root privileges application

Using Maemo 4 running on a Nokia N810 (the predecessor to the N900) as an example, the exact disclaimer is:

Nokia has neither created nor delivered this software and is therefore unable to guarantee that the software will not harm your device. Installation will be at your own risk. Continue anyway. Ok/Cancel

My experience with the N810 indicates that the Maemo system is extremely open. It's not merely slightly easier to get root access, it is significantly easier compared with jail-breaking an iPhone or hacking root onto an Android device. It is literally installing a third-party package (either gainroot or openssh) via the usual GUI package manager and takes a couple of minutes. Your data is not wiped, nor will your root-access be revoked upon the next firmware upgrade (which doesn't wipe your data either on the N900).

Re:Send to voice mail

[TheRaven64]

Can land lines receive SMS where you live?

I don't know about now, because I haven't had a landline for a while, but they definitely could back in 2005. The text of the message was read out by a voice synthesiser and you had the option to replay it when you received an SMS. This is in the UK, so it may be different in other places. They occasionally get celebrities to record the voice samples used for the synthesis. For a while, Tom Baker was doing the voice, so it sounded like you were being sent a message by The Doctor.

Re:Freedom of choice is made for you, my friend

[SCHecklerX]

Simple. Get a Palm Pre. Seriously. WebOS is good stuff. Download the SDK, plug the phone into your computer, and type 'novaterm' (ok, first you have to type the konami code on the phone). Hey. Look. Linux. And the apps are all text (javascript to be precise). You even have things like vi and wget without having to install them.

Maemo wins hands down

[the ReviveR]

From my personal opinion Android simply doesn't stand a chance. While Android does run Linux kernel it doesn't have X Window etc. It's glorified java platform that doesn't even support full java spec. You can do anything with it, but things will take a lot of work.

Maemo on the other hand is what I see as a 'real' Linux platform running software stack which makes it pretty trivial to port existing apps to it.

Stuff I currently run on my N810:
-Real browser looking firefox with flash support
-MPlayer for playing nearly any format I can throw at it...
-Gnumeric for spreadsheets
-Battle for Wesnoth, Beneath the steel sky, Duke Nukem 3D when I feel like playing something
-Vnc server & client
-Gjiten for translating stuff to Japanese. Japanese symbols display nicely etc.

Only thing I'm really missing is the phone functionality. Even if the only improvement to N900 would be adding that, I would be happy. Adding processing power etc. makes it a must buy for me.

Re:Maemo wins hands down

[demachina]

I think Google is designing phones for ordinary people to use. 99.99% of cell phone users don't give a rats ass about most of the things on your list. I grew up on X11 but I can see no good rationale for putting it on a mobile device for ordinary people to use.

I imagine some people want Flash in a browser but Android is adding that. Me personally I suspect Flash on a mobile device will just drain the battery, hog the CPU and memory and make browsing generally sluggish up to the point your battery is dead. Might be OK if you are plugged in to a wall socket 90% of the time but at that points its not really mobile anymore is it. Video is the only compelling reason to have Flash, unless you have a taste for stupid Flash sprite games. Video in a mobile device would better be done by an optimized player in hardware like iPhone does on YouTube or like you could have with HTML/5. Unfortunately this requires the web to stop being so Flash centric.

I doubt anyone really cares about Firefox. They want a browser that works and ViewKit or Opera is just as good or probably better in a mobile device than Firefox.

MPlayer might be worthwhile but everyone has video players of one degree of quality and performance or another.

I think I'm saying that everything about this thread coming from Maemo fanboys, including the original article, is probably an advertisement for why Android will win in the real world, while Maemo will thrive in the tiny little niche of open source fanatics, that the rest of the world is mostly indifferent to. Not to mention Maemo is locking you in to one hardware manufacturer and an incredibly small range of hardware, while Android is now on dozens of different platforms. How exactly is that freedom.....

Re:The writer is clueless about end users

[Ptur]

Let's correct my support claim a small bit: There is actually good news for the n8x0, it's called Mer (http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer)

Re:Not really an article

[Anonymous Coward]

It only provides a warning that you may damage your device and does not mention breaking a warranty, EULA, TOS, etc...

It's also worth noting that the warning links directly to the instructions for reflashing the device (with the obvious caveat that any data that isn't backed up will be lost). So even if you shoot yourself in the foot as root, they're more than happy to point your toward the stack of bandages in the corner.

Win Mobile features

[js_sebastian]

all the features you mentioned are available with windows mobile.

Additionally, you get a lot of nice extra features, like random restarts, battery monitor that always reports full battery, battery that lasts 1 full day when you're lucky, touchscreen that sometimes responds to your touch (sometimes even to do what you want it to do!), apps that cost much more than I am willing to pay and don't do what I need, plus a generally clunky and inconsistent UI.

I have a windows mobile phone and I will NEVER make that mistake again.

And before I get flamed: I know, many of the problems I have are specific to the device, not to windows mobile, so I have also blacklisted LG for my next purchase. Still, the OS makes you feel like it's windows 98 all over *shiver*.

Re:Freedom of choice is made for you, my friend

[TheRaven64]

Yes, it really sucks to have a mature system that supports remote display (want to run CPU-intensive apps elsewhere and display on your portable? Want to run apps on the portable and display them on a bigger screen?), is compatible with most UNIX GUI software written since the mid '80s, supports compositing, OpenGL, accelerated text rendering, and cleanly separates policy and mechanism so that window and compositing management can be easily swapped out and replaced.

Kind of an interesting metric.

[LWATCDR]

None of the metrics really have anything to do with the average user.
1. Freedom from crashes. random, and forced resets.
2. Freedom to find the applications that I want to run without having to write them myself.
3. Freedom from having to learn a complex and inconsistent UI.

Most smart phone users really want and need a good smart phone first. Most users will never want to root the phone. How free and open a consumer software system is of little concern if it is not functional. I would love to see Android and Maemo put in the hands of a new smart phone users that doesn't know FOSS or the GPL from a hole in the ground just to see how functional they are. I would also like to see a comparison of the SDKs from a programmers point of view. Finally we can talk about how "free" they are. All of that is important but usability really is very important and it wasn't talked about in this story at all.

I have yet to play with Maemo but my next phone will probably be an Android device. I don't want to be on the AT&T network so the iPhone is out. WinMo doesn't really thrill me, and the PalmOS still lacks voice dialing and video recording. My wife loves her PalmPre but I am disappointed with the SDK and the fact that it still lacks video recording and voice dialing! MY STINKING SANYO FEATURE PHONE CAN SHOOT VIDEO AND DO VOICE DIALING.
Right now I am torn between the Samsung Moment and the HTC Hero I just hope that we see them get 1.6 and 2.0 updates very soon.