With each major variant in the Maemo Device line, Nokia enjoyed incrementally increasing success. Its conservative “test the waters cautiously with a toe tip” approach cultivated a small but determined community eager to demonstrate that mobility and open source were a match made in electronic heaven.
This is okay for skunkworks and limited release projects. Not so much for paradigm-shattering advents.
The relatively tiny Maemo citizenry found themselves strongly challenged by the Apple iPhone and its committed evangelists. Few in the burgeoning Apple ecosystem have been overly concerned with the default restrictions (that grow steadily stricter), including developers.
You see, commercial developers are largely concerned with one thing:
Sales figures.
