Developer Justin Dolske has compiled Thunderbird (aka Shredder) on Maemo and checkout the results:
How’s it run? Fairly well, from my brief testing. The UI isn’t optimized for small-screen mobile usage, but it seemed responsive enough that I’ll try using it in coming days.
I’ve just had a crisis of convictions — returning my laptop to the publishing firm I’ve worked for since 2001 meant I needed to buy a computer quick.
And the deciding point came down to this: How much computing power did I need away from home?
You have to know that my friends expect me to separate from them when boarding the train to New York so I can sit in a laptop-friendly seat. They’ve also seen me skip a not-yet-full PATH (subway) train on the next leg into the city and wait five minutes for the next departure so I can open up the laptop for twelve more minutes of screen time.
Did I truly believe a weblet like the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet would suffice for my mobile computing?
Or has my fervent evangelism been tainted by way-cheap access to the Nokeys* I’ve used and by a top-of-the-line 17-inch laptop that my employer nefariously supplied me with, ensured its constant access by having me work at home two days a week?
Would I spend my suddenly scarce dollars for another laptop, intending to cart it most everywhere as I’ve been accustomed to for the last four years?
Or would I buy a sufficiently powerful desktop for less money and rely on my N810 for all my mobile computing?
This from someone who has written well over 90 percent of my ITT postings on a laptop. Who spends his free time looking at websites in Khmer (a script not supported by the Nokia weblets) and who works with multilingual texts every day. Whose eyes are aging and who consequently has a 14-point minimum font size set in his browser. Who installs on average one new program a week with a footprint of 30MB to 150MB.
Fabulous as the Nokia Internet Tablets are for spontaneous surfing, e-book reading, voip calls**, games, GPS geocaching, listening to music and watching video***, it’s not a full-service device. I can’t type 20 words per minutes on its keyboard, much less 100 wpm (as I do on a full keyboard). Can’t run any topic map software (needs Java). No great XML and XSLT editors. And so on. How much would this lack hurt me away from my desktop? Could I manage to do what I had to do on the run with one or another weblet?**** The walkaround web is wonderful but what about trips? Could I go days without a full-powered computer?
Ah, who am I fooling?
I bought the desktop, which was half the price of equivalently powered laptops. For any kind of on-the-go now, I’m a weblet guy, body and soul.
__________
* I’ve paid 99 Euros each for the 770, N800 and N810 as they appeared over these last three years (roughly $115 to $140) as part of Nokia’s seeding of the weblet development community. An N810 for $140 is a magnificent machine, there’s no doubt about it.
** I use Gizmo for my second line permanently now. When I’m on one- and two-hour conference calls, it’s really proved its usefulness by freeing up the main line for my wife’s calls.
*** TV mostly, via the HAVA player, Today in the kitchen and Charley Rose in bed.
**** OK, at the moment I have five NITs. But some of them I bought to give to family. Really! I just haven’t gotten around to it.
Why web pads, internet tablets and ultra-mobiles aren’t the same thing
Ari Jaaksi famously announced the walkaround web in November 2005 when he pointed out that surfing wasn’t stationary any more than phone calls were. Cellphones had untethered calling, and a device like the first Nokia Internet Tablet meant the internet was available anywhere we were. We didn’t need to go to a computer in a specific location to get to the web any more than we needed to find a payphone to make a phone call.
Henceforth, we could carry our web-access with us, the same way we carry our phones. Ari said it all when he wrote: “I surf in trains, in cafeterias, at airports, even while driving. I can go online anytime and anywhere I want.” He called his observations “bold” but they were in fact revolutionary in understanding how this changes not computing, not using the web, but how we organize our lives.
Long before I heard of the Nokia 770, I used a small, keyboardless WiFi-enabled tablet to access the internet from Bryant Park in New York City. The notion of the web away from the desk antedated Nokia’s efforts by many years. By my count, it produced at least eight web pads (the contemporary term) prior to the 770, all of which failed to establish themselves.
My most complete experience was with the Screen Media FreePad, from a Norwegian outfit. The FreePad had a 10.4-inch screen, 800 x 600 resolution, built-in WiFi and “cordless telephone services”; and it ran an embedded Linux. No disk drive; if you wanted, you could attach a USB keyboard.
The rest of FreePad’s hardware was feeble by today’s standards but practical for 2000. Even back then the group I was working with expected to buy the FreePad for just $800 (in quantity).[1]
Eight years ago, and only $800. WiFi was in its nascent stages then, but if you were describing an organization-wide device (as we were) and not a personal weblet,[2] that probably wasn’t what kept the FreePad from succeeding.
In Las Vegas, where the CTIA Wireless 2008 show is going on, Nokia officially announced its N810 Internet Tablet WiMAX Edition today at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.
Because WiMAX signals extend 2-3 miles — as compared to a few hundred feet for WiFi — WiMAX networks enable broadband internet connections (2-4 Mbps, with peaks of up to 10 Mbps) for users on the move.
The device will be “available in the United States during the summer of 2008 in areas where WiMAX connectivity is available.”
Nokia also announced an
upgraded OS2008 [that] introduces useful new features to the platform, including an enhanced e-mail client, support for Chinese character rendering in the browser and RSS feeds and Seamless Software Update functionality to eliminate manual software updates, making periodic updates of the operating system quick and easy. While standard on the Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition, current owners of Nokia N810 and N800 Internet Tablets with earlier operating systems will be able to upgrade their device to the revised operating system for free during the second quarter of 2008.
I’m not sure if this adds anything to what we already knew about the next OS release, but since Reggie is having all the fun in Las Vegas, I’m reduced to reading and re-reading the press release.
Here’s the obligatory statement of significance by an upper-level executive:
“By delivering the kind of open Internet experience that consumers previously only expected on a desktop PC, the Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition is a compelling example of how next generation broadband wireless technology will not only change the way people think about the Internet, it will change the very nature of the Internet itself,” said Ari Virtanen, Vice President of Convergence Products for Nokia.
“Much in the way that the evolution of the fixed Internet from dial-up to broadband enabled a host of new Internet services and changed people’s expectations of what an Internet experience should be, the transition to a broadband Internet experience set free from the constraints of a fixed network will spark the next wave of new mobile Internet services, and will forever change the perception of what the Internet can be.”
I think Ari means the walkaround web is a totally new experience and the new tablet will be the first to deliver it in this form. No argument there. (I guess if you’re in one of those WiMAX locations, we’re talking about the drive-around web, actually.)
Just so there’s no confusion about this new tablet: When not in range of a WiMAX network, the Nokia N810 WE can also “access the Internet over Wi-Fi or via conventional cellular data networks by pairing to a compatible mobile phone via Bluetooth technology.”
Nokia’s press release ambiguously notes that “a number of VoIP and IM clients are available, including Skype, Google Talk, and Gizmo5, which can also take advantage of the Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition’s built-in web cam for video calls.” Whether this statement includes Skype among the VoIP clients that can make cam calls depends upon how you parse the sentence. Clarification is already being sought on this.
Added later:
Where will you find WiMAX? Alex Vorn at World of Gadgets cites these locales in 2008: Baltimore, Washington DC and Chicago (with Boston “soon” and New York after that).
Engadget is running their annual Engadget awards and the Nokia N810 is nominated in the 2007 Handheld of the Year category. The Nokia N810 is currently trailing the Amazon Kindle by about 300 votes (as of writing).
You have until March 1st to vote for the N810 and your other favorite gadgets.
Despite the iPhone’s tremendous hype, we all know that it’s a small, small segment of the total mobile-phone market. According to IDC, a market research firm, iPhones comprise just 2 percent of smartphones — compared to the 63 percent powered by Symbian*.
Interesting then that in December, Google reported, it had more internet traffic from iPhones than any other mobile device.
Think this says something about how useful people find the walkaround web? Or why AT&T is giving free access to 10,000 WiFi hotspots to its broadband subscribers?
And why the Internet Tablet has an 800-pixel-wide screen but still fits in your pocket and weighs only 8 ounces?
Ari Jaaksi pointed out more than two years ago that with the arrival of the Internet Tablet the web wasn’t stationary any more. People with laptops aren’t walking around checking the web. And surfing the internet on a cellphone screen is just painful. Those were never harbingers of a web paradigm shift.
But we users of the Nokia 770, N800 and N810 know the truth of Ari’s statement. And iPhone users are learning it too. We need the web, wherever we are — not every second of the day, but at any moment of our day.
And a large screen, light weight and small size are absolute requirements.
I think we’re going to see a much wider commercial acceptance of this “useless” niche this year.
My good pal, Matt Miller, The Moble Gadgeteer blogger over at ZDNet, gives a good demo and detailed instructions on how to tether the Nokia N95’s integrated GPS and modem with the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, all via Bluetooth.
Basically, you need the Symarctic ExtGPS (beta) app installed on the N95 which will allow other devices (mac, pc, linux included) to use its GPS, a data plan to have the N95 connect to the internet, and Maemo Mapper. What is interesting is that both the GPS and modem are working together via one (or maybe two) Bluetooth connection(s) to the N800.
Amazon.com just released its Holiday Best Sellers list (from Nov. 15 through Dec. 19 Based on Units Ordered) and on the personal computer category, the Nokia Internet Tablet makes it to the Top 3 list:
In PCs, the top sellers included Apple MacBook, Nokia Internet Tablet PC and HP Pavilion Entertainment Notebook PC.
Check out the current prizes of the Nokia Internet Tablets at Amazon.com.
The iPhone is Time magazine’s number one entry in its Top 10 Gadgets list (50 Top 10 lists of 2007 too).
Me, I prefer the Nokia Internet Tablet, but the iPhone is an understandable first choice.*
Neither the Nokia N810 (almost, sorta, but not really released) and the N800 (a big surprise way back in January!) merited a place on the list.
I’ve said it before: With Skype cam calls, the internet tablet is a mind-blowing culture-changing device. (It would easily supplant the cordless Skype phone that’s number three on this list.) Think about it: walkaround visuals on a voip call. Not tethered to a computer, not paying exorbitant fees, not having to type a la IM, incredible display not a tiny phone screen, not restricted to just what the vendor will let you do. Like I said, mind-blowing.
Until then, it’s all potential, no paradigm-shift.
Knock, knock! eBay, Nokia, anybody there? What’s holding you up? Light the fuse, please.
__________
* This is what’s known in the writing business as understatement, a first-cousin of irony. I don’t think anyone stood in line for hours to be first to buy gadgets two through ten.
The New York Times has a GPS focus in its Circuits section today — ten articles about GPS devices, free-standing and built-in, from accessories (solar panel charger) to innovative use (pet locator) to data-tracker (think: where did I take this photo?).
Hundreds of column inches. Not a word on the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, by the way.
One article describes one family’s use of GPS in cellphones to help monitor their children’s whereabouts. It mostly describes Sprint’s $10 monthly Family Locator service (Verizon has something similar).
When Mr. Gray uses the service, he turns to his computer and clicks on the Sprint Web site to locate either child. “Within about a minute, an icon appears on a map showing where the phone is,” he said.
The story goes on to quote Charles S. Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. The location services complement “one of the main motivations adults have in giving their children cellphones — to get in touch with them in an emergency.” And GPS ties into this because, he notes, “it’s a comfort to have a bit more information.”
Parents may find an N810 a better present, if only because it combines location and internet calling with a full range of computing. And it seems to me that cam calls are bound to be more frequent and more reassuring on an internet tablet than using the costly telecom alternative.
