Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Respect

Through unimaginable hardships, we managed to pull a rabbit from the hat and get N9 done.
Schedule was just insanely tight, we got blows from all directions: Vanjoki leaving us, Ari leaving us, Elop dropping of meego from strategy, key developers leaving the company when we needed them the most.

Swipe UI, that we are now admiring, required every single application and framework to be rebuilt almost from scratch. All the blows and all the work in the course of 9 months. I never knew how much sweat and tears there needs to be to get this baby out.

What I want to say to the people who beared all that: Respect. You have my utmost respect and admiration. We didn't just do our best, we crafted the software to near perfection. Simplistic UI is easy to imagine, but extremely hard to execute. And execution includes design. Devil is in details and temptations are many. Keeping the boat steady on course needed a lot from you design and product management.

It's nothing short of miracle that the fruit of our labor is now admired by millions.

I am extremely proud of what I am holding in my hand right now. As a user, I'm loving every minute of using it and wouldn't change it for a thing.

All of maemo: I salute you. Job well done. Be proud.