Nokia N900, initial thoughts from CTIA – 1196th Edition

nokian900-ctia nokia-n900-ctia

You can count 24 apps running in the pics if you look closely

I am one lucky guy, I know that, I get to attend the premier events around the world when it comes to mobile technology and I get to play with the latest and greatest devices. Sometimes devices I’m not at liberty to talk about for months. So when I was at CTIA last week in San Diego I made sure to take a look at the N900. My short introduction to it really hooked me. I’m a big fan of HootSuite, a web based Twitter app and I was happily shocked when Chanse Arrington got it running on his N900 without any hitch or tweaking of settings during the GoMo News Blender. I mean I was really impressed. Then the next day Joe Gallo had 24 apps running simultaneously on his N900. That’s not a typo, he really had 24 going.

On top of that I got to check out what seemed like a universal and all in one in box for all incoming messages. I have written about this in the past and hope what I saw was accurate.

Lastly I was more impressed with the contacts application then anything else. Presence seems to be built in according to what I’ve been told. Basically you input all your friends contact info including instant messaging ID’s like for Skype and Google Chat. Then when you look at that contact it will show if they are on line. Now this is a huge step in the right direction. For years I’ve been reading about presence and that it’s coming but this is the first time I’ve truly seen it implemented deep into a phones software. I’m hoping it will be expanded beyond just contacts but I’m happy about this as a place to start.

My only concern at the moment is the interoperability of 3rd party applications like emoze (a client) and Truphone with Maemo. Theoretically QT is supposed to solve this but the question is, will developers really migrate their apps over?

As a whole the N900 seems to be a stellar device that if all goes well may be Nokia’s very first mainstream tablet. I like to see Nokia heavily promote development of 3rd party apps so it has a chance to compete against other devices with extensive app stores. Great start Nokia!!!

UPDATE: So I just watched Ewan from MobileDeveloper.tv do an unboxing and once over and I’m sold. I am absolutely ready to get my hands on an N900? I can’t tell you how much I want one of these now to play with. It was a pre-release unit Ewan has and it was still smoking fast. It looked like it was burning up the OS and the web.

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Nokia N900, initial thoughts from CTIA – 1196th Edition

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