ESPOO, Finland – Maemo might seem like a new branch for Nokia, but it’s easy to forget it’s actually a project the company has been involved in for the last four years. Peter Schneider, head of technology marketing for Maemo devices at Nokia, underlined the point (several times) when he talked us through the latest happenings on Maemo this morning. Much of Peter’s talk was on the open source nature at the core of project and how the community of developers offers rapid and powerful solutions to common problems.
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Subtle flourishes of the N900

GLOBAL – Last week I posted an piece on how the N900 is designed to get better the more you use it, and over the past few days I’ve experienced yet more evidence of this first hand in the form of some subtle usability flourishes that I came across by happy accident… although they’ve clearly been designed with calculated and well-considered intent. Read on to find out more and to share your thoughts.

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Nokia N900 designed to get better the more you use it

GLOBAL – The honeymoon period you experience when you first get hold of a new device can often be filled with mini epiphanies and moments of adventurer’s delight (or in few cases, knuckle-biting despair), and in the case of the Nokia N900 the former is most certainly proving to be the case. It would seem I’m currently caught on a journey similar to that of Matthew Miller from NokiaExperts.com, who quite simply reports “the more I play with the device the more impressed I get”. I concur. Now, there’s a lovely logic about this, as one of the main things that’s most exciting about the upcoming N900 is the community aspect and vast scope of possibilities that an open source Maemo platform offers, both in terms of rapid distribution of innovative developments and the noble eagerness associated with sharing fresh treasures of information to help your fellow peer. It’s fair to say the N900 is designed to get better the more you use it.

With that in mind, Matthew recently highlighted a number of smart keyboard tips and lesser-known tricks, brought to our attention via the ever-quick-to-share Guru at Maemo-Guru.com, even prior to its launch. A great sign of things to come no doubt. So in the spirit of this fledgling community, read on to find out more about the N900’s QWERTY keyboard shortcuts, and to share your thoughts on what it might mean to how you might behave with the N900.

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Video: Getting started with the Nokia N900

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What extra functionality would you most like to see in the Nokia N900?

GLOBAL – Yesterday we posted a story calling for your suggestions on what we should do with the N900 when we finally get hold of ours. The response has been overwhelming – in less than 24 hours over 80 of you have shared your ideas, leaving heaps of smart suggestions (read them all here), and they’re still flooding in. Thank you, it’s an awesome response, and please keep those ideas coming. Alongside many great suggestions of what you’d like us to do with the Nokia N900, a bunch of you offered up some pre-launch feedback on functionality that you’d like to see in the N900. We thought this would make for a great reader poll, particularly as the N900 is built on the open source Linux-based Maemo platform, meaning that the development community is often eager to latch onto the best suggestions in order to bring them to life quickly, and into our open palms.

So, here’s a list of extra functionality that a number of you have said you would like to see for the Nokia N900, but which is the most important? Leave your vote, or if you have a suggestion that isn’t listed, select ‘other’ option and scribble down your what you’d like to see. And as always please share your comments below.

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Tell us what to do with the Nokia N900

GLOBAL – The excitement barometer monitoring the upcoming launch of the Nokia N900 is now swelling to bursting point. So as the needle bends and glass begins to bulge, we want to find out what it is that you want us to explore related to Nokia’s debut Maemo phone – we’re expecting to receive our very own N900 shortly, and want you to influence how we bring it to life here on Conversations.

Many of you have been peppering Conversations with great comments on the N900 – many in response to our recent piece highlighting the latest N900 video – but we’re keen to get your ideas on what we should do with the handset when we receive it. So please read on and share your thoughts on what you want to see us do with the N900 over the coming weeks.

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