I think these two phrases reflect a basic problem. The first is the idea of a platform. People don't buy platforms, they buy products. How many users of the iPhone know who makes its CPU, what speed it runs at, or what OS runs on top of it? They are interested in what the iPhone can do for them. If they need it to do something that it can't do out of the box, they'll look in the iPhone store and, if it's not there, they will either trade it in for a different phone or give up.

This brings up the second phrase which I will rephrase as "what do advanced users want?" For me the answer is a rich suite of applications which the N900 seriously lacks at the moment. In fact, I can't think of a single thing that the N900 has to offer an advanced user right now which can't be matched or bettered by another phone.

Granted, there is a great deal of potential in the OS but Joe Average is looking for results. I don't buy a car based on how it can potentially be tuned to perform, I buy it based on how it performs when I drive it away from the dealer. A car tuner might look at what he could do to a car when deciding what to buy, a developer might look at what he can do to a phone when deciding what to buy, but Joe Average is into immediate gratification.

Next year the answer might be different. All the advanced developers will have created applications that advanced users lust after while Nokia will have improved the UI so that Joe Average can see the advantages. Next year. Not now.