This device is supposed to be all we thought it would be.  Only, there are a couple major differences from what we thought it would be.  First off, we thought it would be a data-only connection, with voice coming later.  Secondly, we thought there would be a 4″ screen (based on the previous tablets).  Finally, it appears that, due to the phone aspect, it will be locked into a carrier.  If leaked information is right (and Nokia internals seem to confirm this), then the leak is absolutely correct, and… we’re screwed.

When I bought my Nokia 770, I thought it was the coolest thing I had seen.  I wasn’t looking for a phone (I don’t have a cell plan… don’t have much need for one… yet…), yet this was a device that I could carry around and browse the web, etc.  It wasn’t terribly powerful, but that was OK.  Then, I got a N800, which blew me away.  It was amazingly faster, and I thought it did a great job at what it was designed to do: an Internet Tablet.

Recently, the maemo community has been trying to pull itself together (not without objection).  The maemo website has been redone, beta SDKs have been released, Internet Tablet Talk has been moved to talk.maemo.org, and it seems like everyone is waiting for a new device.  It seems that Internet Tablet Talk moving to talk.maemo.org was a key point to Nokia’s next device.  If they were not going to put out an Internet Tablet, but instead release a phone, they couldn’t have a website called Internet Tablet Talk talking about Maemo, now their phone operating system.  So, what did they do?  They decided to “pull the community together,” and remove “Internet Tablet” from Maemo.

Now, I don’t think the development of a phone is a terrible idea, and it’s where Maemo needs to go, but I’d like to see Nokia keep the Internet Tablet spirit, while adding phone features.  The spirit of the Internet Tablets was to have a pocketable device that you could take and get internet anywhere, and have a nice, good-sized, good resolution, 4″ screen.  This, to me, seems like the perfect screen size for this device.  It’s small enough to be pocketable, but big enough to be readable.  Yet, with the next Maemo device, Nokia is downsizing, but keeping resolution.

What does this mean?  It means that text will be smaller.  One of the design points of Maemo 5 was to make the interface “finger friendly” (this hinted at the lack of a stylus in the next device).  However, putting the same resolution on a smaller screen means that UI components now need to be huge.  It seems that this is a step backwards.  We will have more processing power, so we want a bigger screen, so we can do more with it.  Higher resolution, right?  Well, Nokia cheated at this.  By making the screen smaller, but keeping the resolution the same, they have a higher DPI, which will be percieved as a higher resolution.

But, is this really what’s best for Nokia and Maemo?  Nokia is clearly trying to get Maemo devices more mass-marketed.  They seem to believe, due to the low sales of previous internet tablets, that Maemo will be better off in a phone.  Phones just generally sell more.  Or do they?  Nokia advertised the internet tablets just about not at all, and Apple, with the iPod Touch, has proved that there is a market for a portable WiFi computing device that can fit in a pocket.  Sure, the internet tablets were designed with Nerds in mind, but I think that if Nokia worked on marketing the internet tablets, there would have been a bigger market.

However, this is the benefit of phones: Nokia doesn’t need to do any advertising.  Sure, there are advertisements for phones, but, generally, advertisements are for phone networks.  The network sells you the phone, and advertises for whichever one makes them the most money.  But, when you go in to buy a phone, all the phones are out on display, and you can pick which one you want.  Not once did I ever see an internet tablet “out on display”.  So, the phone market creates free advertising.

Overall, I’m disappointed that this is the direction that Nokia is moving with the Mameo platform.  I liked the internet tablets being a niche device that no one else has.  I enjoyed showing off my nerdiness by pulling a computer out of my pocket.  Now, it’ll just be another smart phone.  No big deal.  Everyone has one of those.

First, there’s the issue of defining what content is.  When the community was informed of the move, we were basically told this: “There will be no change in content, only the URL and a few cosmetic changes.”   Looking at the current state of iTT, some may say that “a few cosmetic changes” has been taken too far.  While the themes on the forum, as of today, remain the same as always, the whole structure of the forums has been redone.  The work has mostly consisted of renaming forums, and removing multiple, mostly unnecessary subforums, it seems a radical change.  However, is this really considered the content of the forums.  On most websites, a refactoring in the navigation of the website would only be considered a cosmetic change.  All the old content is still there, the path to find it is just slightly different.  So, why is the same not true on iTT?  All the old threads and posts are still there, they’re just in slightly different places.  The exception to this, however, seems to be the new maemo.org forum.  However, the old layout had a “Website/Suggestions” forum, and because iTT is moving to talk.maemo.org, this now seems like a logical name for the “Website/Suggestions” forum.

However, that’s not the only cosmetic content change that’s being made.  The default theme of the forum will soon change, to fit in better with the redesigned maemo.org theme.  So, there has been a poll on what should be done with the new theme; namely, the header before each post.  First there was a brainstorming thread, then General Antilles made a poll to see what people wanted, taking ideas from the brainstorming thread.  However, he overlooked an option for “no change”.  This has made a handful of people angry, because they consider it a change in content.  The counter-argument, which has been made in that thread, is the same as above: the content on a forum is the posts that are made, not the metadata that goes with the posts.  If my blog suddenly decided to change date format when showing posts, would that be considered a change in content?  I doubt it.  Most people would be confused at first, and then consider it a small cosmetic change, and continue enjoying my blog posts (:-D).

While on this train of thought, something else occured to me.  On iTT, it is currently possible for a user to change his theme.  On forums, theme changes can be as small as different link colors, or as large as a completely different content layout (however, I’m now including the order and names of the forums in the word “content”).  It should be easy for those who wish to keep the old layout to do so, while the rest of us can move on to the new layout.  Even better would be to create multiple versions of the new layout.  One version could display the new header style (whatever it is), while another could display the more traditional header.

Having beat the content horse to death, it’s time to move on to another point that has been made.  This time, however, it’s a bit more personal.  Another idea that has been brough up in the talk of the move was to create a sticky thread that would quickly explain how the forum works to new users.  This is a very common thing to see on forums, and, thinking it was a good idea, I wrote a draft of what I thought the sticky should look like.  I made a new thread, noting that this was a draft, and asking for suggestions on how it could be improved.  After a bit of discussion, a post caught my eye:

In general, the forum has worked just fine in the past without rigorous rules. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. A list of acceptable acronyms or trying to prevent people from being sloppy suggests an excessive amount of control.

(Note: this makes more sense in the context of the thread.)  I was surprised by this.  First of all, I did not believe the rules I had written to be “rigorous,” more of a quick way to accompany users with how things work.  Now, to deal with the more specific items listed.

The list of acceptable acronyms was more to help new users become acquainted with the lingo used with the ITs (Internet Tablets).  New users might not know that OS stands for Operating System, or that n810w refers to the n810 WiMAX edition.  Writing this post, I see that this should have been a more general “lingo used here” wiki page, instead of focusing on specifically acronyms, but that’s beside the point.  Even experienced users can get confused if one person says uses one term, and another person uses a different term.  This “rule” also served to prevent instant messaging acronyms from showing up on the form.  In my opinion, forums should be “more professional” than IMs.  When IMing, it’s perfectly acceptable to type in fragments.  On a forum, however, this should be frowned upon.  When IMing, it’s perfectly acceptable to use acronyms like “lol”.  On a forum, however, this creates content that is hard to read.  This rule was also modeled after the Rockbox forums, where there were fairly strict “keep it English” rules, in order to help both blind users, using text-to-speech software, and non-native speakers, who might be using online automatic translators (which work great… if you use proper grammar).

Actually, that paragraph also covered the second point: trying to prevent people from being sloppy.  While there are appropriate times to be silly in forums, the conversation should be kept as formal as possible.  As previously stated, using standard English also helps users who aren’t native speakers, or might be using text-to-speech software.

So, do we need rules?  Perhaps not strict rules, but a set of guidlines should be outlined, I think.  Most of my “rules” were more meant to be guidlines, anyway.  The intent is not to scold people for not following some arbitrary guideline, but to keep order.  I was not envisioning people being warned or banned for using acronyms that aren’t considered acceptable, just some gentle nudges from others in the community to keep things standard between members.  I never meant to imply that the system was “broken,” just to put into words what the community had already been enacting, making it easier for new users to become acquainted.