The Symbian software marketplace dwarfs the Maemo marketplace, which to date seems to be mostly open source apps (in line with the audience of the N770/800/810, which was mostly Linux geeks). And new versions of the firmware are still being released - with more major releases due in Sep/Oct.
N900 has a single-touch resistive touchscreen, compared to the iPhone's capactive, multitouch screen. The demo video shows an interesting single-touch zoom method on the N900 - draw a spiral, like winding a display closer or further away.
Maemo may power Nokia's high-end devices, but this is no reason to sound the death knell for Symbian. With regard to Nokia, they make a lot of phones that are not the N900, and do not cost 500 euro. There are also dozens of other companies supporting the Symbian Foundation, including many other manufacturers like Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
That works out to $712 USD as of this post (click for a more up-to-date rate), but that will probably be European style - unlocked and with no contract.
It will be up to carriers in countries like the US to decide how much to subsidise the phone, over what contract term.
Maybe they will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, in terms of getting Microsoft to support the abolition of software patents, and you should be contacting them to express your gratitude?
In the next few months we will be working towards splitting the jumbo Mono source code that includes ECMA + A lot more into two separate source code distributions. One will be ECMA, the other will contain our implementation of ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms and others.
Depending on how you get Mono today, you might already have the this split in house or not.
Don't want the parts that aren't explicitly patent-unencumbered? Don't use them. But the first half will be enough to run open source apps (such as those for GNOME) written in C#.
If I wanted to develop an app for Windows alone, you had C#/.NET, "Microsoft Java" with a complete native look-and-feel (although I do admit it took until.NET 2.0 to really get there), or "Java" with (at the time) looks-like-Java-on-all-platforms.
Not to mention the other languages on the CLR.
As to why Linux didn't pick it up, Java wasn't even really distributable until Sun released it under the GPL, and Mono was way ahead of the IcedTea (free JDK) project - Mono had ".NET does not exist on Linux" as a driver, where IcedTea was all about "Java exists; you could use that if you DL it from Sun, so this project is really only interesting to people who care a lot about the freedom".
If you want a GUI on Windows, or using the Windows libraries, sure.
GTK# is entirely developed by the Mono project, and requires none of the aforementioned Microsoft parts. That means applications like Tomboy and Banshee should now be fully RMS-friendly.
Mono is more than just 'running Windows applications on Linux'. There is a large ecosystem of utilities developed with it, because (a) a properly object-oriented language with native bindings is much better than the C-with-Gobject alternative, and (b) Java was not Free at the time.
I know you're trying to come across as a joke, but the keynote said the push notifications were limited to text, a number to go on the icon on the home screen (similar to the number of unread messages icon on the Mail app), and sounds for notifications. So you can have a hee-haw, but no pictures of ass.
2008: you buy a phone on a 2 year contract (expiring in 2010)
2009: you want a new phone, they still need a 2 year billing commitment. So, add that time to your current contract. Now you have two phones and a contractual obligation until 2012.
Rinse, renew, add another two years every time. They could even make you trade the old phone in.
Alas, companies are so much more interested in new customers than keeping the current ones happy.
Other versions of that story suggest that Take Two demanded 3D Realms pay $30 million to buy back the publishing rights for DNF, which they paid $12 million for.
Slashdot Mirror
The Symbian software marketplace dwarfs the Maemo marketplace, which to date seems to be mostly open source apps (in line with the audience of the N770/800/810, which was mostly Linux geeks). And new versions of the firmware are still being released - with more major releases due in Sep/Oct.
Is it really fair to say it has no future?
N900 has a single-touch resistive touchscreen, compared to the iPhone's capactive, multitouch screen. The demo video shows an interesting single-touch zoom method on the N900 - draw a spiral, like winding a display closer or further away.
Look at the N900 feature list - "Phone" is fourth down.
Maemo may power Nokia's high-end devices, but this is no reason to sound the death knell for Symbian. With regard to Nokia, they make a lot of phones that are not the N900, and do not cost 500 euro. There are also dozens of other companies supporting the Symbian Foundation, including many other manufacturers like Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
Symbian^4 will use Qt as its UI layer, and Maemo is moving into a similar direction (that's why Nokia bought Trolltech!) - targeting both platforms should be quite simple.
My apologies, Slashdot ate my euro symbol. That's 500 euro.
It's a mobile internet device that does telephony, not a phone. Phone capability is quite low on their feature list! And yes, it supports wifi..
500, in October..
That works out to $712 USD as of this post (click for a more up-to-date rate), but that will probably be European style - unlocked and with no contract.
It will be up to carriers in countries like the US to decide how much to subsidise the phone, over what contract term.
Maybe they will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, in terms of getting Microsoft to support the abolition of software patents, and you should be contacting them to express your gratitude?
But interestingly, with NZ being in the furthest ahead timezone, we get same-day movie launches before the rest of the world.
Could we give them an "I'm Feeling Lucky" option?
But he can write a bot to respond to her on Wave.
"Yes dear."
"No dear."
"Anything you like dear."
What is the link to the "Your guess at my location was wrong: I am actually at" page?
Remember, kids, don't buy all your RAID hard drives from the same batch. Or even manufacturer, if you can help it, or really care!
I know lots of utilities for Ubuntu are written in PyGTK.
In the end, I think it comes down to what language, and class libraries, you are personally familiar with.
Because the guy at Boycott Novell didn't believe him.
-1, Wrong.
TFA (Miguel's blog post) states:
Don't want the parts that aren't explicitly patent-unencumbered? Don't use them. But the first half will be enough to run open source apps (such as those for GNOME) written in C#.
If I wanted to develop an app for Windows alone, you had C#/.NET, "Microsoft Java" with a complete native look-and-feel (although I do admit it took until .NET 2.0 to really get there), or "Java" with (at the time) looks-like-Java-on-all-platforms.
Not to mention the other languages on the CLR.
As to why Linux didn't pick it up, Java wasn't even really distributable until Sun released it under the GPL, and Mono was way ahead of the IcedTea (free JDK) project - Mono had ".NET does not exist on Linux" as a driver, where IcedTea was all about "Java exists; you could use that if you DL it from Sun, so this project is really only interesting to people who care a lot about the freedom".
If you want a GUI on Windows, or using the Windows libraries, sure.
GTK# is entirely developed by the Mono project, and requires none of the aforementioned Microsoft parts. That means applications like Tomboy and Banshee should now be fully RMS-friendly.
Mono is more than just 'running Windows applications on Linux'. There is a large ecosystem of utilities developed with it, because (a) a properly object-oriented language with native bindings is much better than the C-with-Gobject alternative, and (b) Java was not Free at the time.
My apologies. A bug in the spec then :)
So? That's one bug. Report it to them, they'll probably fix it. No reason to write off the entire program.
Which is how Sonic the Hedgehog works - a Genesis emulator and a ROM..
Will Meat Loaf?
I know you're trying to come across as a joke, but the keynote said the push notifications were limited to text, a number to go on the icon on the home screen (similar to the number of unread messages icon on the Mail app), and sounds for notifications. So you can have a hee-haw, but no pictures of ass.
Why not work it like this:
Rinse, renew, add another two years every time. They could even make you trade the old phone in.
Alas, companies are so much more interested in new customers than keeping the current ones happy.
They fly direct!
(For fourteen straight hours)
Other versions of that story suggest that Take Two demanded 3D Realms pay $30 million to buy back the publishing rights for DNF, which they paid $12 million for.