What can we realistically expect

Questions & Answers about the Nokia N900

= The MeeGo project has announced support for the N900. What does it really mean for my N900 ?

What that blog post talks about is MeeGo vanilla support announced by the MeeGo project. This is not Harmattan support with Harmattan apps by Nokia. It's Nokia and not the MeeGo project who has the word on Nokia deliveries.

Note : Define MeeGo vanilla.

Still, N900 users concerned about "the future of the N900" now know that their hardware is in the real track for future support. More answers to come as the Harmattan alpha release approaches.

Source : Qgil

How many application running on MeeGo 1 will be able to run on Maemo 5 ?

And I repeat -- for what of the new software runs on N900 -- I simply do not know. Looking at the characteristics of our hardware and other plans, not all, I'm sure! But certainly many many apps will run.

Is there any designed obsolescence for the N900 ?

Nokia only sell hardware why would they considering device backward compatibility.

This argument combined with the argument of the 'designed obsolescence' also pops up regularly.

It is true that 'Nokia sells hardware' but this is just part of the story. Nokia develops a consumer offering based on devices, software and services. Harware is very important in this strategy and so are the software platforms, the application developer ecosystem and the Ovi services. As opposed to a specific device, software and services can be continuous and evolutionary. They can support very well the very important job of customer retention.

If the owners of a Nokia XXX are happy with this offering, one day they will move to Nokia XXY, or perhaps Nokia YYY. They will recommend Nokia to their relatives and friends, etc.

If the owner of a Nokia XXX is unhappy because one or more of the pieces described above doesn't work, they will start their walk away to other competitors.

So you might get WONTFIXES and FIXED in [next release], and that [next release] might or might not be available for your next device. But don't think that Nokia doesn't care about bugs in current releases and about the satisfaction of the users getting those bugs.

Why can we get all the drivers for the N900 ?

Setting pure OSS expectations on Maemo/N900 ignoring the business aspects Nokia has to deal with (e.g. giving away interesting information to competitors) is probably not a good business.

Why can't you promise the N900 will get MeeGo 1 ?

Intel and Nokia are still discussing the last details about the MeeGo architecture. In technical terms this means that still today nobody knows what exactly the MeeGo OS will consist of. Imagine a month ago, two months ago, three...

... (You have to consider) the jump from Maemo 5 to Harmattan/MeeGo, which represents a deep change in the OS plus a total rewrite of the applications.

Still, the chance is there. The sooner you demand an answer the easiest is to get a conservative silence. The closer we get to Harmattan / MeeGo stable releases the easiest is to give accurate technical and business answers.

The N900 has a OMAP3 and it has been said that the next device will be using the same. What technical reasons are there that would make the availability of MeeGo 1 on N900 an unreasonable expectation?

Nobody is saying the expectation is unreasonable. Only the timing could be more reasonable.

For instance, "pretty much the same hardware" is a guess before the hardware details of a new device are announced. Yes, it will be based on OMAP3 but there are more elements in the hardware equation.

Questions & Answers about Maemo 5

What is the deal with Ovi Store for Maemo 5 ?

Updates coming here, too ....

Why is Ovi Suite still not working with Maemo 5 ?

Improving all the time. N900 is still young, and as a new platform not everything works. Symbian has been around for years, so it is further in many areas.

Can we expect Java support in Maemo 5 ?

Not officially supported in Maemo 5. If someone brings it fine, but not us. We have been always consistent on this.

Can we expect hardware accelerated flash 10 in Maemo 5 ?

We can't happily add to our roadmaps technologies owned by others. In a normal world the first one announcing support plans of Adobe Flash in ARM platforms would be Adobe.

Why free Ovi Maps for Symbian has been annouced and there is still nothing for Maemo 5 ?

In developer terms, Symbian had already navigation implemented and removing the payment step was simple. Maemo didn't have navigation implemented so no matter what new policies come, the implementation must be developed first.

Source : Nokia Conversation

Now that Nokia has announced MeeGo 1, what is the support for Maemo 5 ?

Is there still applications being developped at Nokia for Maemo 5 ?

YouTube video of a new game. (See source)

We haven't been very forthcoming about the content being created for the next releases of maemo 5. I can assure you, there is a lot of great content being developed, and you should be able to get your hands on it soonish.

Source : Konttori

The Fremantle team, lead by people like konttori, keeps working on new updates. Fixing, polishing and bringing new features to Maemo 5.

Of course we put a lot of attention on Harmattan/MeeGo/Step 5 since this is what we need to do in order to be and stay in the premier league.

Looking at http://www.octofish.net/bugjar/ we can see that 29 application/platform bugs were resolved as FIXED. It was 30 the week before.

A report of how many Maemo 5 bugs have been resolved as FIXED would be a useful fact, including of course the target release (Fremantle or Harmattan). More flesh for the wiki page?

We just launched N900. It is a brand new device. More updates and new software coming all the time. Even more now because of MeeGo, I strongly believe.

Honestly, I'm a bit puzzled why this MeeGo announcement was interpreted so that we would be abandoning N900. Who said so? What is it in the MeeGo that makes you think so? -- I'm trying to do my best to explain why the opposite is true.

Is there a roadmap for Maemo 5

Roadmap page is a great idea in my opinion, the only issue being in it the dates, which we don't want to commit to. But I'm sure a roadmap can be built without such. I'll take the action of following that up.

Source : Konttori

There are official plans and there are tentative plans. They haven't been communicated, but they exist.

Questions & Answers about Meego

Who is responsible for MeeGo ?

The MeeGo project is the responsible of the MeeGo releases and hardware *they* support for *their* releases. The current supporters of MeeGo are Intel, Nokia and the Linux Foundation.

Source : Qgil

What devices will be supported by MeeGo ?

The current supporters of MeeGo are Intel, Nokia and the Linux Foundation. The (Linux Fondation) has no own hardware so has nothing to support. Intel has chipsets and development boards (there is no Netbook from Intel, they are from vendors using Intel chipsets) and Nokia has devices (no ARM development board from Nokia). Hence the logical conclusion of announcing support for Atom boards and the N900 at this point. This will change if other vendors appear offering official support for the hardware they are responsible of.

Source : Qgil

What steps is Nokia taking for open source drivers on MeeGo ?

Basically, Nokia puts considerable effort pushing hardware vendors in that direction. Open source drivers play well with the Nokia chipset strategy and with Linux development. But of course these companies need to make business, so asking them to open their IPR without suggesting any alternative is not the best approach.

Note : Define IPR

MeeGo, with Intel as initial founder (a company with good track offering open drivers), is one of the biggest and most concrete public actions Nokia could push in that direction.

Source : Qgil

Closed hardware driver are problematic only when the owners don't provide updated versions for new releases. The MeeGo project is working hard to have those drivers owners on board.

Source : Qgil

Is the UX Componant of MeeGo device-specific

No matter how many UX changes vendors do, they need to provide the official MeeGo API if they want to call their product a MeeGo device.

Note : Define UX and API

Source : Qgil

Questions & Answers about Harmattan

Harmattant is still using deb, will it mean it is less compatible with other MeeGo instances ?

I bet the MeeGo build infrastructure (OBS) will minimize the rpm/deb hassle for developers. I expect the average user not to even bother about this.

Source : Qgil

When will you release any news on Harmattant ?

... I said in the oldest 'Harmattan in the N900' thread that there were new things in the pipeline and that before a Harmattan alpha release (promised for 1Q2010, working on it) it was really premature to discuss or announce anything.

Harmattan/MeeGo are in pre-alpha state, we haven't even put together an early SDK for the most adventurous developers, we haven't given any hardware details about the next device...

Source : Qgil

I cannot tell you when do we ship the next device. I cannot tell you how much it costs. I cannot tell the exact features because we are still working on them. I cannot tell you what is the delta between Maemo5 and Maemo6/MeeGo 1.0 because it is not fully clear yet. And we tell you about the new products when we are ready to tell. Business decisions. I cannot tell you how much of the Maemo6 characteristics will run on old devices when the new devices finally ship. But go and follow Harmattan plans at Maemo.org. See also the new UI framework forming up.

Source : Ari Jaaski