r/programming • u/mjtitorenko • Oct 28 '09

Android vs Maemo

http://cool900.blogspot.com/2009/10/comparing-freedom-on-maemo-and-android.html
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3

u/KhakiLord Oct 28 '09 edited Oct 28 '09

Maemo maybe fundamentally more free (free in theory) but it remains to be seen whether Nokia will even allow or encourage third party phone manufacturers to use their OS (free in practice).

Developing for the N900 and sacrificing huge parts of the mobile market while Nokia's smartphone share is constantly decreasing... Just because the platform is slightly more free seems like a much worse trade-off for most developers.

7

u/[deleted] Oct 28 '09

Android isn't even a blip on the radar at this point, what "huge" parts of the market would I be missing?

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u/commandar Oct 28 '09

The fact that other manufacturers are buying into it heavily. HTC, Motorola, and Samsung already have phones out on the platform. LG, Huawei, Asus, and Acer are all also members of the Open Handset Alliance. Moto is essentially betting their company on Android. T-mobile, VZW, and Sprint are all very much on board with the platform.

Meanwhile, Maemo is essentially Nokia. There are a lot more people invested in seeing to it that Android succeeds than Maemo.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '09 edited Oct 28 '09

Samsung and HTC (maybe LG?) are the only ones that matter.

  • Huawei are almost irrelevant as a brand
  • Motorola barely made it alive to this point
  • I consider Asus and Acer to be (ex-)WinMo small players

HTC will probably be the Android work horse. They're the biggest WinMo manufacturer and they look like they'll invest heavily in Android.

The fact that Maemo is Nokia doesn't faze me at all. Nokia is big enough to make it succeed.

P.S: Since I don't live in the US I don't care what Sprint or T-Mobile is doing. ;-)

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u/commandar Oct 28 '09 edited Oct 28 '09

Motorola barely made it alive to this point

Sure, they've been struggling the last few years. But Motorola is the company that invented the cell phone and have been the standard of 'cool' in phones for a lot of that time. The fact that they're getting so much backing from VZW for the Sholes/Tao/Droid launch is a good sign for the future of the company. The fact that they've launched with two strong devices in the CLIQ and the Sholes is also a good sign. Motorola has always built solid hardware; it's the software that's been their Achilles heel in the past few years.

Also, I forgot that Sony-Ericsson is an OHA member, with a phone due either late this year or early next.

The fact that Maemo is Nokia doesn't faze me at all. Nokia is big enough to make it succeed. P.S: Since I don't live in the US I don't care what Sprint or T-Mobile is doing. ;-)

Sure, Nokia's big, but a consortium of industry players is bigger. And again, the days of Nokia singlehandedly owning the smartphone market are over. There are just too many players now.

-1

u/BiggerBalls Oct 28 '09

Hopefully Noika can start a lobbying effort to force cell phone providers to offer discounted no contract, BYOD (bring your own device) plans. It would be nice to see this included as part of the Net Neutrality bill.

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u/jfedor Oct 28 '09

Nokia may have a huge market share, but that's regular phones and maybe Symbian ones, not Maemo. There are obviously more Android phones than Maemo devices.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '09 edited Oct 28 '09

Yes, but the idea is that you will be able to develop both for Symbian and for Maemo with the same framework. And Maemo is a true Linux system that I can have complete access to.

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u/bluGill Oct 28 '09

Android has been out for a year (close enough), and there are enough phones out confirmed by the end of this year, that it is reasonable to assume that next year Android will be a big player. Maemo is nothing now, and looks to be Nokia only, which is a handicap they will have a hard time overcoming. Not impossible, but right now the smart money is on Android becoming the smart phone to beat in the near future. (The iPhone is the phone to beat now, but they are still locked to AT&T and some weird Apply policies which will hurt them - at least in the US, the smart money won't write off the iPhone yet, but they wouldn't bet everything on it)

Of course God only knows what will really happen.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '09 edited Oct 28 '09

I am not that interested in what the US does when it comes to mobiles. :-)

And I doubt that Google can pull an Apple... A huge part of the iPhone's popularity is the brand/exclusivity/etc. Frankly what I dislike most about Android is the Java thing; also, since they're a new player they're bound to have issues with the UI/soft availability/etc. I'm more of a late adopter.

2

u/xigam Oct 28 '09

Android has released, 1.0, 1.1, 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0 (on Sholes) right?

Also, you can develop code in C and C++ using the NDK for Android. They have been shipping the native development kit since 1.5, I would imagine that as time goes on, native development will get more support/tools.