• 3.5" touchscreen, 800x480 resolution. The screen shrinks from the N810's 4.13" but keeps the same resolution. Software won't take a big hit on this since the resolution is the same, but applications that rely on very precise touchscreen use may be more difficult.
• TI OMAP 3430 ARM Cortex-A8 CPU at 600 MHz. This is a massive upgrade over the TI OMAP 2420 at 400 MHz. Faster faster!
• Up to 1GB Application Memory. This is a plus but not as big as it looks. There's only 256 MB of "real" RAM and the rest is attributed to swap. Still - the RAM amount is doubled over the N810 and the usable swap is six times the size.
• 32 GB storage. Wow. That's massive. This puts the N900 squarely in the "multimedia computer" space and even has more storage than some SSD netbooks. The N810 had only 2GB internal. Both support MicroSD (through a MiniSD adapter on the N810)
  
• Size: About 113 cubic centimeters and 181 grams. That's down from about 129 cubic centimeters and 228 grams. it will feel better in your hand as a phone.
• 3-row Keyboard. This part took the biggest hit. The large D-pad and four-row keyboard was replaced by a three row keyboard with a squashed spacebar and arrow keys that can't easily be used for gaming (not that the N810 ever did much of that.)
• Wireless connectivity: This is the first Maemo tablet that is actually a PHONE. With that, we get 3.5G HSPA, GPRS, EDGE,WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1. That's a major boost over the WiFi/Bluetooth that the N810 gave us.
  
• Additional Communication: The N900 now includes TV out, an FM transmitter, a real A-GPS receiver (hopefully destroying the long lock times that the N810 suffered) and a micro-USB connector. The N810 had micro-USB and a GPS. The new features are fun toys, but won't be massive selling points.
  
• Last but not least: CAMERA: The new camera features represent a massive shift from the previous generation tablets. The N800 had a cute pop-out rotating webcam that worked badly. The N810 had a front-facing webcam that worked badly. The N900 has a 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with a digital zoom, dual-LED flash, macro mode, and MPEG4 recording up to 848x480 at up to 25FPS. The Maemo tablets are now on par with high-end Nokia Nseries devices and soundly beat the pants off iPhones and Blackberries.
  

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• The system defines every potential Internet connection as an "access point" and applications ask which one to use. It should be improved to have applications automatically use WiFi when recognized hotspots are available and fail back to the carrier's data network.
• The 32GB of storage is fantastic, but the "phone memory" (of which there is only 74MB) is segmented from the 32GB "Mass Storage" memory. Applications store data in the 74MB "drive" and it fills fast. The phone should instead present itself as one large 32GB volume and save the confusion.
• There just aren't enough applications for S60v5 yet. The "touch" version of Symbian needs more supported applications to be desirable in face of competition.

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Attracting the Masses

• Intended audience: Developers - but other parties may be interested
• Abstract/description

Tablets have hundreds of applications now - but who are they for? If the Internet Tablets are intended to attract a more mainstream mobile market, the maemo community needs to get in touch with the needs of the target market.

The first part of this presentation will give an overview of the most popular applications on competing platforms. This information will be collected through app store sales/download counts, direct communication with a sampling of mobile consumers, and communication with some other high-profile mobile technology journalists. This will include actual applications, connectivity options, peripherals, interface (touch/keyboard/icon/etc) preferences, and related consumer desires.

The second part of this presentation will give an overview of the state of the existing maemoplatform including commercial partners, independent contributors, and ports of more popular Linux software.

The conclusion will analyze mobile consumer desires compared to maemo offerings and, hopefully, give developers ideas on what they can write to make the platform more appealing.

Thanks for your submission for the Maemo summit, we appreciate the effort.
However, we don't think the content is compelling enough for the summit
as is. And certainly "reaching the masses" will be covered by Nokia
during the Nokia day. So we are sorry to inform you that we are not
accepting the presentation.

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• Peter@Maemo says: "Let me remind you what we have said about Maemo 5: Maemo 5 will support OMAP3 processors i.e. ARM Cortex A8 technology, not more, not less."
• He goes on to say: Maemo and Moblin will continue to exist as software platforms, no change to current situation but we will align more of what is underneath the UI framework and APIs.

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• Open source collaboration, including cooperation between Moblin and Maemo.
• Intel licensing Nokia 3G technology
• Increased focus on standards-based pocketable devices.

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