The LG
GW990 got the lion's share of the attention, but Intel showed off a second
Moorestown-based MID (or giant smartphone, if you like) back at CES from Finnish startup Aava Mobile -- more a prototype reference design created to show off
Moblin 2.1's capabilities than a retail-ready product -- and it's back in force here at
MWC this week. What's really striking about this thing is just how much smaller it is than the GW990, probably a good 70 percent smaller by surface area while still managing a shell just 11.7mm thick. Besides Moblin, the proto fully supports Android (though we only saw it on Moblin at Intel's booth) and will naturally support
MeeGo going forward. It's got a front-facing cam, noise cancellation, compass, GPS, WiFi, and 3G plus that next-gen
Atom core, but don't plan on buying it any time soon -- Aava's stressing that this is just a starting point to get carriers and VARs off the ground. That's probably just as well, though, because the Moblin implementation on here was totally useless; the UI looked like little more than a proof of concept with awful, stuttery performance, bugs left and right, and... well, a distinct lack of features. Maybe we can get a sweet skin over MeeGo down the road, but shorter term, this could make a killer high-end Android device without totally encroaching on the
Mini 5's large-and-in-charge attitude. Follow the break for some video!
posted February 16th 2010 10:03AM
I feel like being an a**hole and type "*irst" lol
I am not impressed overall, I do however like the spped dail images on the dialer. He should have mention that instead of showing off how sluggish his machine was.
@swaggtech "seed dial" I hat typos
@swaggtech - seems kind of boring, doesn't it?
@swaggtech
the reason it is sluggish is because the ui is not as good as maemo. thats the exact reason that intel approached nokia in the meego platform merger. meego will be based on the moblin core and will use the qt UI that nokia has developed. its going to be ten time better than the n900 UI. nokia has never let us down on hardware design.
in the end maemo is the parent OS. its been around longer and has more support than moblin. also nokia is the sole developer of the UI. the main reason they nerged was to give developer a developement platform that a dev can right a application once and that app will run on any meego device. its basically the exact oppisite of android. all maemo moblin and meego applications will run across the entire line of products. this is major.!!!!!!!!
@Alexandertron
also worth mentioning is the fact that i have seen and used they current QT Ui on my N900. and any one can. i can assure you that it runs smooth as butter even on my N900.
downlaod it in the application manager its called widgets gallery(maemo 6 demo app)
Very very slow, but hey it's a prototype.
It's hard to get excited about a new GUI after seeing Winmo7. I just want more details on phones that'll be running that.
@PlatinumSkeet
These are just preview and proofs of concept elements of the UI framework running on a two week old one off prototype and unfinished software. The real thing should be amazing. WP7 is just a smartphone OS. Maemo/Moblin/MeeGo is much more poweful PC grade stuff. Far better app toolkit support, and fully open.
Aava(da) Kadarva!
But will it run Crysis?
@FroshKiller
Kill yourself...
Hmmm...that design looks very familiar...
Our cell phone company sucks so how can we sell phones?....Oh I know, lets make it look like an Apple iPhone. That way maybe some loser will buy it thinking its a iPhone!
@Moisture They did make it in 2 weeks according to the guy in the video, lol.
Any device that is open is better than any apple locked device, Apple and Microsoft are good at building around their system, you buy and remain a user because you stop asking if it can be better.
@dcboy123 Exactly.
as far as I know, Maemo6/Meego is themeable, but not skinnable. And good thing. Kudos to Microsoft for blocking skinning in WP7, too. Don't make a skin, just submit enhancements to the UI if its open source, or accept that its closed.
Not bad for a two week old firmware. And if its the mobile UI framework he was using, its actually an early Maemo6 UI setup, which will be the foundation of Meego's mobile UI, which we'll see later this year.
@christexaport Yea because last time they let someone skin their OS they (HTC) actually made it usable! Can't be dissed like that! Heavens forbid making a ugly OS pretty!
@theinternetstom
those UI skins made WinMo designers complacent. It'll happen to Android, too. Look at Sense, Blur, TouchWiz, and whoever else. If Android is open, and these UI elements improve thing, why not contribute them? Because they're greedy.
In the end, just make a standard UI that works fast and is common to all devices, or risk fragmentation and less emphasis on the real OS. My female friend used a TouchWiz Android phone she liked, but bought a TouchWiz featurephone by mistake thinking it was the same OS. Which is messed up for consumers and Android if it can't be differentiated from a cheap dumbphone.
@christexaport I really think that's one of androids strong points. It's the insides that count.
Fail...
Slow animations, cheap looking OS overall.
@TareG
"this is a very early prototype" says the demonstrator.
2 weeks of work on a UI !
Btw it's all about the hardware platform here (more details please ! ^^)
This is way more impressive than Windows 7 series phone.
Can you say... s ... L ... o ... w ....
These are the same guys that tried to make the iPhone killer before the iPhone. And by that I mean the MyOrigo's mydevice.
would this be a n900 update when it is bug free and fixed all the issues??
That's definitely one I didn't see coming. Nice.
And you figure developing in Python + Qt vs...what? =:-o
Coulnd't we just make this a KIRF post?