Tardy to the party post: It is widely reported that some brilliant minds over at InternetTabletTalk (great job, penguinbait and qwerty12) packaged Android to install properly on the Nokia N810.

In trying to do anything interesting with the install, I've failed. This is a great tool for developers, but only a curiosity for normal Internet Tablet owners so far.

In any event - it raises the question: Can Internet Tablets have non-maemo/OS2008 Linux systems available to them? We'll see. Any alternative Linux OS on a device serves to inspire innovation across the whole platform.

The GPS performance on the Nokia N810 is often criticized. This is for a good reason: It has historically taken a great deal of time to obtain a satellite lock. Often, GPS units could take between two and five minutes to get the first lock and under a minute to get subsequent satellite locks.

Diablo proports to have Assisted GPS support enabled. Often A-GPS is thought to require cell tower triangulation to help the GPS chip along in finding the right satellites. This is incorrect, however. A-GPS can use cell towers, WiFi, measurement of fragmented GPS signals, or even more advanced calculation of the signals it receives. A popular example of this is the Skyhook service on the iPod touch. Skyhook is not perfect, however - it still thinks I am sitting outside my old apartment when inside my new apartmet 30 miles away.

Regardless of the system used by the N810 in Diablo: It helps! The first GPS lock took a very long time, but subsequent tests were better. Here's a little overview:


Test 1: Start Wayfinder software in a moving vehicle from a fresh Diablo installation - 14 minutes to lock.


Test 2: Reboot the same N810 (power off/power on) and start Wayfinder (also in a moving vehicle) - less than 1 minute to lock.

Test 3: Do not use the same N810 for 48 hours. Drive 22 miles away from the last locked position and start Wayfinder software (from a stationary position) - 1 minute and a few seconds to lock.

Stay tuned for additional tests non-Wayfinder software.

After the most recent update to the ACCESS Garnet VM for Nokia Nseries, I decided to collect a bunch of the questions others have asked me and take that collection directly to them. While they couldn't answer all questions (as is normal when asking about product releases,) ACCESS Company gives us some insight on the purpose and goal of the Garnet VM. I thank them for their time in answering these questions.

Diablo has only been out for a day, but there are some notable changes. Here is some exploration of the experience in pictures:

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Originally uploaded by thoughtfix I don't know what Nokia did differently with the Diablo release, but they did it right. Instead of taking hours, the new firmware downloaded in under 15 minutes.

Here's a massive press release. Between the Symbian announcement, the Trolltech acquisition, and the maemo project, Nokia appears to be the far-and-away leader in code for mobile devices. Correct me if I am wrong, of course. By the way - they're making Symbian open-source.

What will they DO with all this code? It may take months or years to sort it out, but we can expect some massive changes in functionality of mobile device software. No word yet on if the Internet Tablets will be changed at all, but we've already heard plans on interoperability with Qt, Ubuntu, Gnome, and KDE.

The great desire, of course, is for developers to publish ONE application which is instantly available on Qt, maemo, and Symbian devices. This would take a long time if it ever happened, but it's all under Nokia's roof now.

Dr. Ari Jaaksi's recent conversation has sparked some serious response in the maemo community. Read the article and the linked article. We know they're always listening to the users of the Internet Tablets and related devices. What would YOU teach Nokia?

Origami Experience 2.0 was launched for Windows Vista UMPCs last week. This led to the painful experience of putting Vista back on the Q1 Ultra and giving it a try. While it is not impressive enough to keep Vista on that little machine, it does serve as a point of inspiration.

The maemo home screen comes with a handful of applets. Other than the RSS reader, none serve as constant information displays like the OE home screen. This is a potential missed opportunity for developers. While many Internet Tablet owners ARE on the go, it is safe to say that many also spend a good deal of time in front of a computer. Having the Internet Tablet as an auxiliary display for "at-a-glance" information would be nice.

If you want to know more about OE 2.0, take a look at JKK Mobile's video overview.

Can independent developers make money in maemo applications? In the comments to the last post about the 3G iPhone, reader MDK writes the following:

Even from the developer/hacker pov the AppStore is a total revolution. It actually allows others to earn some money along with Apple and make some independent business around the platform.

That's a good point. The AppStore allows rapid purchase and downloading of applications and warehouses free applications as well. For the Internet Tablets, maemo.org offers warehousing, application search, and one-click downloads but does not offer any way for developers to monetize their applications. There's also no central source control for these applications: If Nokia decided to make a developer application store, they'd be at the mercy of user charge-backs to credit cards when applications stopped working. In ecommerce, too many charge-backs means you lose your merchant account and your ability to accept credit cards.

There are many potential applications for which Nokia Internet Tablet owners would pay if the applications worked properly. How can maemo developers turn a dime on their work?

Now that everything is official, it's time to look at what Apple has done. iPhone fans may disagree with the points below but they are made from the out-of-box perspective without warranty-voiding jailbreaking and 3rd party apps.

• 3G: A welcome addition, but still without a tethering option. 3G is nice on a phone but truly shines when it can be shared with a laptop.
• Application Store: Okay Apple. You've made a token effort to get 3rd party applications into the iPhone but why stifle innovation by making them ONLY available through your store? Why are you taking 30% off the top for every sale in that store?
  
• Price drop: This is one of the best things you've done with the iPhone. A $199 device is very compelling. At that price, the iPhone looks like a good secondary device as opposed to the normal gauntlet of an iPod touch, an N810, and an N95-3. Sometimes it'd be nice to just carry one device. However, Matthew Miller of The Mobile Gadgeteer points out that the iPhone with the matching AT&T data plan actually costs $40 more than the previous iPhone over the course of the contract.
• GPS: It's nice to have location based services, but don't think you invented it. The N810 comes with a mapping application and has an upgrade option for turn-by-turn voice navigation. Why doesn't the iPhone have that upgrade option?
• Enterprise support: Good work. There's nothing bad that can be said about this new feature - unless it bombs fantastically when put into real use.
• Browsing: Still that same 480x320, 160 pixels per inch (compared to the N810's 800x480, 225 ppi) display. Still no Flash in the browser. While multi-touch zooming helps make up for this, constant scrolling is no solution for full page reading. Keep trying.

Comments, alternate perspectives, and additional points are welcome!