zlacker

The Nokia N900 used to fill this spot between phone and PC for me. It has a slider keyboard and came with a Debian based Linux distro (Maemo) installed on it. Typing was much more comfortable than with a touchscreen and with a few changes to the Xorg keyboard config it was even suitable for programming. The padding madness wasn't there yet and even though the screen was very small by today's standards, it was used very effectively.

There was a small community of users who were building applications (mostly built with GTK+) that were often of higher quality than what I got used to on Android now. They could be installed via the App store equivalent or just using apt-get from the terminal.

There were some great "Whoa, this works?" moments, like running the full-blown Arduino IDE and flashing something via USB-OTG or writing a Python script that makes the phone act as a sonar. And everything almost with the ease of a Desktop-PC, just a bit slower :)

I went through four used N900s (they unfortunately aren't very durable) before I gave up and got myself an Android because the web became too bloated and slow. I still miss it every time I'm using my phone for anything different than calling someone or taking a photo. I just had to get that off my chest.

>>encypr+(OP)
I hear you. Coming from a desktop app development background, I never got into mobile development because from far away it looks so constrained. I dream of a phone where I can use its hardware in whatever way I want.

>>comput+d1
PostmarketOS seems promising...it doesn't have great hardware support right not but I see no reason that couldn't change.

>>tomber+O6
Hardware support is hard, that's why this normally fails, unfortunately.

>>theyin+ib
I do not doubt that at all. I know almost nothing about systems programming. If I did, I would almost certainly contribute.

>>encypr+(OP)
Still have an N900 in my bag, as a secondary phone in case I need a physical keyboard or a real GNU/Linux system in my pocket. I'd hoped the Neo900 project would have breathed new life into it, but its not looking likely.

>>tomber+fc
Lesson #1 about systems programming is the same as lesson #1 about internal Enterprise programming:

The fewer people who see a thing, the uglier the source is.

And as you go down the stack on mobile devices... there are very few people watching, indeed.

>>encypr+(OP)
Wait, you wrote that Python script? I remember playing around with that!

>>comput+d1
That's exactly the motivation behind this phone, which has a simple OS and a connector on the back of it for hardware expansion:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103809433/338898127?re...

It's less powerful than a smartphone, but designed from the ground up for hardware hacking.

disclaimer: I am part of the WiPhone project

>>skykoo+2u
Yes, nice to see that there are (former) Meamo users around :)

>>encypr+(OP)
if you like maemo, you should check out sailfish OS which is some kind of successor. I have the gemini PDA, which allows a few different OSs, others are android and debian. the company behind, planet computers is currently running their second indiegogo campain for a slightly altered device called the cosmo communicator. It adds backlit keys and other more "phone" features.

>>encypr+(OP)
As someone that had the privilege to see the start of it, it was a pity how everything went.

It if weren't for the whole Linux vs Symbian, plus rebooting devenvs multiple times across Symbian and Maemo history, things would have turned out much different.

But like all major corporations, politics play a big role.