In my ideal world, Maemo/Meego and Palm's WebOS (not LG's bastardization of it) would be today's Android and iOS.

Apple would have inevitably done their own thing, but it would have been really nice to have two widely used, mature and open mobile Linux platforms.

They should have partnered not only with Intel, but with Palm, RIM or whatever other then-giant to rival Android. Those two went their own ways with WebOS and buying QNX, so maybe they could have agreed to form a consortium for an open and interoperable mobile OS

WebOS died in HP, after they bought Palm. I'm genuinely impressed at HP: somehow they always have the future in their hands... and kill it.

I loved my N900, and my N800 before that, and I would have loved to have seen successors. Ultimately, I ended up switching to Android because I was tired of things only available as apps. Since then, web technologies have gotten better, and it's become much more feasible to use almost exclusively websites.

> it's become much more feasible to use almost exclusively websites.

And that's precisely why companies nerf their web sites and put a little popup that says "<service> works better on the app".

Worth remembering it was the Microsoft partnership with Nokia that intentionally killed it.

TITCR.

Hit ctrl-f and typed Meego as soon as I saw this thread, hoping I'd be the first. Alas.

The N9 was literally a vision from an alternate timeline where a mobile platform from a major manufacturer was somehow hackable, polished, and secure. Favorite phone I've ever owned and I used it until it started to malfunction.

Had a Jolla for a bit, too. It was nice to see them try to keep the basic ideas going but unfortunately it was a pain in the ass to use thanks to their decision to go with a radio that only supported GSM/EDGE in the US. Had to carry around a MiFi just to give it acceptable data service.

I think the idea with Jolla is that if Nokia ever did an about-face, they were ready to be reabsorbed and get things back on the right track. Unfortunately, though we do once again have a "Nokia", it's just another Android white label with no interest in maintaining its own leading-edge smartphone platform.

When I saw the title, my first thought was also MeeGo. While I don't believe it would have been all that great had it not been abandoned, MeeGo absolutely should not have been discarded in such a disgraceful manner.

I was gonna say Meego. They killed it just as it was getting to a usable state. One of the last chances we had to get a proper third option in the mobile market.