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Join Rene and Matt Miller of NokiaExperts.com for Round Robin Symbian and Maemo vs. iPhone, Apple vs. Nokia patent lawsuits, Fake Steve vs. AT&T, App Store's new look, App Store's still broken, and the Google Phone (NOT!). Listen in!

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You -- iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

TiPb-verse, the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin starts NOW! And for me, it starts with what's likely the biggest challenge -- Nokia and its dual platforms of Symbian S60 and Maemo as represented by the N97-mini and the netbook-that-thinks-its-a-smartphone, N900. Hugely popular everywhere that's not North America, it wasn't in last year's Round Robin, and truth-be-told, I've barely ever seen it before.

To get some extra help, I've got a post up at NokiaExperts.com, where I'm really hoping to get my understanding expanded a notch (or ten).

Dieter Bohn, on duty for Palm webOS has likewise triumphantly returned to TiPb's iPhone forums, and you folks really need to get in there an get him up to date on all things iPhone 3GS and 3.x.

(As extra incentive, remember that every day you post a reply on those threads (or the other Round Robin threads) you get another chance to win on of six (6!) smartphones -- one per site!)

To get things kicked off right, we've got a video after the break where likely the best man on earth for the job, Matt Miller gives me a guided tour of the N97-mini and N900, helps me with the interface, and reveals the awesome power of the platforms.

Next up, I spend the week figuring out what Symbian S60 and Maemo mean in relation to the iPhone, the smartphone space in general, and to new users considering their first platform, or veterans considering making the switch. That'll all be summed up right here on Friday. Can't. Wait.

[YouTube Link]

Nokia's latest latest and greatest, the N900, is being shown off at Nokia World, and it again has our own NokiaExpert, Matt Miller, all shades of excited.

While some have complained about it's meager 3 rows of keys (3 rows too many for me, but I know many others like physical keyboards...) most are really excited about it's Maemo (Linux-based) operating system, and it's new user interface.

In fact, antonioj, who sent the link our way, thinks it might be enough to pressure Apple into refreshing the 2007-era iPhone UI...

Nokia has announced a new, Maemo-powered N900 which our good friend Matt Miller of NokiaExperts.com is beaming about in an iPhone and Palm Pre competitive sort of way:

I have to say I have not been this excited about a Nokia product for quite some time and with the T-Mobile USA 3G support I will definitely be picking one up as soon as I can. The N900 fixes all that is wrong with the N97 and then throws on a slick Maemo UI and feature set that should have most any geek drooling.

32GB, OpenGL 2.0, ARM Cortex A8, 800x600 screen, 5mp camera... Pretty clear that Nokia is doing their usual hardware magic, many specs closely mirroring the iPhone 3GS, in fact (though what's up with 1GB of application memory?!) And Maemo 5 UI...

Does this mean Nokia is abandoning Symbian on the high end for this hot new Debian Linux-based OS? Will they be able to really come up with a user experience that can take mind share away from the iPhone and Palm Pre? And will this device finally give them some sort of presence in the North American market?