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Nokia: Hands off my Maemo!

Categories: Announcements, Linux, Nokia
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 3:34 PM

maemo-hedgehog-hands-offNokia’s just announced Nokia N900 has been getting some pretty solid reviews as of late. It’s single most intriguing feature is the Linux-based Maemo OS. With its touch-optimized user interface, Maemo OS promises to finally bring a powerful yet fun mobile platform to high-end Nokia smartphones. And, to keep the user experience as “cool” as possible, Nokia says that they will not allow carriers to customize the Maemo OS with carrier-branded apps and services.

Reuters reports that Nokia’s Symbian-based offerings have not fared well in the face of the iPhone OS and the Android OS – both of which offer compelling user experiences, finger-friendly interfaces and powerful features. Nokia allows carriers to do with their S40 and S60 devices whatever they wish. But, as Nokia’s David Rivas, vice president for devices R&D, puts it, Nokia is looking to throw Maemo into the same “game” that Apple and Google have playing. The name of the game is apparently “less customization, cooler user experience.”

It remains to be seen if Nokia can push the N900 to the same sales highs as the Nokia N95 or N97 without a carrier-customized operating system. Maemo will be reserved for the highest-end of Nokia’s product lineup, so there’s no doubt that determined consumers will be picking up the N900 unlocked and ready to play. Will carriers be willing to subsidize the N900 and its locked-down Maemo OS?

[Reuters via PhoneScoop]

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About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • alberto_i

    let’s just hope some carrier picks this and lower the price, so that the american people can buy it and get over this iphone hype! i dont mind paying $650 cuz you get a free bluetooth headset better deal than i got when i bought n95 8gb.

  • Joshua Richards

    Please correct this:

    “Will carriers be willing to subsidize the N900 and its locked-down Maemo OS?”

    Maemo is open source, users have root access, no jailbreaking, none of that crap. Please don’t write about things you don’t understand.

    Wow.

  • I4U

    “its locked-down Maemo OS”
    Joshua, another point of view: it’s locked-down from the operator point of view. My freedom begins where this one of operator ends!
    Why the operators are locking, for instance, VOIP capabilities? They can exclude VOIP from the unlimited internet contract, but why are they locking this function. If the user wants make VOIP and is ready to pay, then it’s a supplementary income for carriers!