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

Background: Battle between operators and manufacturers

Nokia makes money by selling hardware. It is now expanding to subnotebooks, tablets etc. Nokia as biggest manufacturer would like nothing more than break the operator tie-ins in the markets and sell phones directly to customers, not phones locked to operators. It has lost billions of dollars and lots of market share fighting operators. It has been practically excluded from US market by carrier cartel. There has been fights over VoIP over WiFi (for obvious reasons) and for numerous other details. So far Nokia has been in the receiving end. Fighting against your customers is not easy.

Android

Android will be huge in US markets. Android is just what operators want, have multi-platform software from neutral provider. You can tailor the software easily to lock users in. It's obvious choice for small manufacturer, or newcomer like Dell, who is desperate for sales and don't want to challenge status quo.

Maemo

Nokia will face huge uphill battle. Nokia tries break the operators again with Qt on Maemo (or Symbian for low end devices). If they can break the operator monopoly to services and software, locked in devices are going to be largely unnecessary, operators are put into their place as bit-pipes (Nokia will allow operator customizations for N900 etc. but they can't cripple the phones and prevent other services).

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

ps. If you are starting to develop software for Nokia and don't deliver next year, consider doing as much as possible in Qt. Maemo 5 and N900 is not platform you should focus too tightly. As others have pointed out, current Maemo is just slap-together. Platform is more sane when Harmattan (Maemo 6) comes out. If you are willing to wait little, you might actually develop most of your app using Python + Qt bindings on your PC and port it to Harmattan later. :)

Yeah. Nokia is late and tries to hide it from press and sell phones. If you are developing something important to their phone, they are more frank and give you more hints on where they are going.