Quim Gil of Nokia's
Maemo team has dropped some knowledge on the folks chatting up the upcoming
MeeGo release in the official Maemo forums, and it sounds like there are at least a couple critical points to be aware of for
N900 owners and would-be ROM flashers when the first developer preview drops next week. To quote Gil, "nothing beautiful, stable or fully featured" will be a part of that initial release -- and to be more blunt about it, "99% of you don't want to install that release in your N900." The good news, though, is that Nokia seems to be aware of the importance of a dual-boot solution to MeeGo devs working with N900s in the long term, and Gil reports that a proper setup for that "will come at some point" -- it's just not on their short-term radar. We can totally understand that; we've no doubt there's still tons of reconciliation to manage between the legacy Maemo and Moblin ecosystems, and that's presumably priority one as they march toward a May release of what's being billed as a MeeGo 1.0 release.
Speculation had been building that the next cut of Maemo 5 -- PR1.2 -- might have MeeGo dual boot capability, but it's not to be. That said, PR1.2's still got plenty of tweaks that should be of interest to N900 owners, including a totally revamped landscape on-screen keyboard, onboard memory wipe capability (thank goodness), and an option to enable auto-rotation in the device's settings. The forums are all abuzz over both topics, naturally -- and since a proper PR1.2 release for N900 is still just a twinkle in Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo's eye, you may as well have a peek, right?
[Thanks, Akinwale]
posted March 27th 2010 1:46AM
@jarek
I see your point and I don't have a problem with Nokia succeeding in the low-end market. However, in the past they could do the both - dominate the entry level market AND produce attractive high-end products. That's also the position I would like too see them today, rather than just "giving up".
@Carniphage
Yes, how dare they provide choices to the consumer! they should definitely pick one OS and shove it down everyone's throats! Boo to having options! Yay to tunnel vision!
While we are at it, all cars should only come in light blue because that is my favorite color, pants should only be available in denim, subchannels on digital tv should be eliminated, vanilla coke should be the only cola flavor, and hightop sneakers are the only type of shoes that anyone really needs for any type of occasion!
It is confusing to me when a company offers more than one item! Instead of narrowing down features that I would need and choosing what I feel is best for me, I decide to look elsewhere.
@Robbie Hottie
Hi Robbie,
Nokia's N-Series sales have taken a nose-dive since the days of the N95 - these figures are published by Nokia.
Perhaps you can explain better than me why Nokia's message is not hitting home with consumers.
The idea of dual-booting a mobile phone, is to me as bizarre as dual-booting a toaster. I don't understand why Nokia cannot develop a single OS technology and throw all their resources into that, instead of offering Symbian, and Maemo and Meego and whatever else they plan to offer next.
I don't see this as a large company offering consumer choice. I see is as critical and painful indecision. This company should be telling the world exactly how the mobile phone should be.
Instead they are panicking, trying to please everyone, and succeeding in creating a confusing mess that appeals to a geeky hard core, but turns-off the typical consumer.
At some point, they will figure this out.
But it might be too late by then.
C.
@pachi72
you seem to forget there is a world outside of America and we don't need your custom for Nokia. As much as i'd want nokia to be important in te US, the more important Markets are China, followed in the distance by a long way, India.
who here is more interested in the meego and moblin oses than the phone? some people (like me) have an obbsession with using stange oses in virtualbox, and hacking the better oses into netbooks. but i was actually wondering if this meego was going to be availavle as an .iso/.img for desktop/netbook installation, like moblin. because i was under the impression the moblin and maemo were the parents of meego. i might have that confused, so correct me if possible.
@steve19137, yes, you will be able to get core images of the MeeGo just like you can get Maemo and Moblin. Moblin and Maemo are the parents of the MeeGo platform, although at present state it's more Maemo than Moblin - the full merger won't happen this year (Nokia will be releasing a Harmattan device, which is Maemo 6, late this year, and even tho they'll be calling it MeeGo, it won't be a real MeeGo). The first preview to be available in the following weeks will actually be Maemo modified enough to be able to accommodate some of the Moblin parts, but the full merger is still months away.
Where is the 'del' key ?!
I see two blank keys, why isn't one of them a backspace key ?
Mr MeeGo. I may be blind but I can still see you.
@pachi72
well multiOSes works for Nokia. When one of the challengers gets to be tops globally and outsell its next competitor two to one, then you talk about what isn't working.
@hated one
judging by the large amount of American membership in Maemo.org and all of the local meetups, I seriously doubt you're right. I'm posting this from my N900...
I don't like Nokia.Nokia just like a brick.But the quality of their phones are quite good.
@kgsbca
i have to stop and call bullshit here.
"If you have to watch a video to learn how to use the device, then it is not intuitive. An intuitive interface means the average person (not someone very experienced in Linux) would have no trouble using it without reading a manual or watching a video. Don't compare it to a PC, I wouldn't, I am comparing it to Android and WebOS phones, neither of which did I need to watch a video or read the manual to become relatively comfortable with the device."
i have never used linux before. this was my very first linux device and it was a snap to use. i never watched videos about it (most videos are about peoples impressions anyway, more than tutorials) and i even deleted the default video shortcut right away when i was customizing my device (only later did i watch it and thats just because i was curious what it was). As for WebOS, you have to be lying. How would you possibly know what to do with the gesture area without watching a video or reading about it? I had a Pre the day it came out and I definitely had to learn how to use it. Don't get me wrong, I loved it! But it absolutely has a learning curve to it. You can't tell me if I just handed you a Pre for the first time without the box and manual, that you would just pick it up and start flicking windows away, moving back, pulling up the menu, etc. You probably wouldn't even know the gesture area did anything!
"I don't have a problem with a company introducing a new UI, as you suggest, but I don't think it's just me that would rather use something else."
Then use something else. But I love my n900 with maemo. Since you seem to prefer Andriod so much, buy an Android phone. I don't get it!
"N900s aren't exactly flying off the shelves, even though it is pretty impressive hardware."
so you are privy to sales numbers? im surprised at the number of people who recognize my phone and ask me about how i like it. even the gas station attendant who is an older gentleman and doesn't even have a phone knew which one it was! that combined with the fact that online stores intermittently run out of stock for a couple days here and there tells me that they may be selling more of these than you think. everyone thought for a long time that no one was buying the 5800 but they have sold millions!
"I say go ahead, keep on improving the Maemo or MeeGo, but if you're going to make a truly open system, let it run any OS."
you obviously know very little about architectures. you need to learn about arm, x86, mips, etc and why emulators are used. furthermore, most devices seem to have similar specs right now anyway. so why would you want to buy a device and change the OS as a consumer? It's great for enthusiasts, but as a consumer just buy the phone with the OS you like on it. If you are barely capable of googling an xterm command, what makes you think you'll understand how to install a different operating system on a phone anyway?!?!?!!?
yes, there are many things that could be improved on the n900. but for the most part, i would never be able to go back to another phone after using this one. and for the record, it is by far the most user friendly phone i have used considering its capabilities! usually the more complex(/capable) a device is, the more complex it is to use it. not so with the n900. and whatever you were trying to do in xterm, someone from the community probably posted a gui for it anyway.
@Robbie Hottie
grr. engadget comment system fail. i clearly clicked reply. oh well...
@Robbie Hottie ok, you're right, I did read a little about WebOS when it was announced, and did see that the swipe gesture is key. But I read a lot less about the Pre than I did about the N900. My point is that it was easier for ME to learn how to use the Pre (and the G1 and the Nexus that I bought, to address your suggestion I buy one of those) than the N900. And I wasn't suggesting that nobody would prefer Maemo, just that not everybody who owns an N900 would. I have used a lot of different OS's on many different handhelds and desktops, and I would never say that one is better for everyone. I can understand and appreciate that some people would prefer Maemo, but some will also prefer WebOS or Android (there are even some would would prefer WinMo, but I don't want to start another thread about them). I didn't say that Nokia should get rid of Maemo or Meego, but just let their open hardware support other OSs. And I do know about different CPU architectures, as that was a big part of my job, but guess what? The N900 uses the same CPU (a TI OMAP 3430) as the Palm Pre, and both are ARM Cortex A8 devices, which is also the same architecture chip used in the Droid. So it's not going to be a stretch for Nokia to get either OS to run on the N900.
I'm glad you're happy with the N900. As a Nokia shareholder, I hope you can convince many others to buy it.