Nokia Trades Symbian For MeeGo In N-Series Smartphones 184
An anonymous reader writes "Nokia announced that moving forward, MeeGo would be the default operating system in the N series of smartphones (original Reuters report). Symbian will still be used in low-end devices from Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. The move to MeeGo is a demonstration of support for the open source mobile OS, but considering the handset user experience hasn't been rolled out and likely won't be rolled out in time for its vague June deadline outlined at MeeGo.com, could the decision be premature?"
As an N900 user... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm just hoping the Maemo phone doesn't get completely locked out of Meego. Yes, there is a Meego image currently available, but does have some missing functionality(unless you want to operate it as an overpowered N810).
Re:As an N900 user... (Score:5, Informative)
The late June release that is expected will have an "open" and "closed" release. The "open" image will run on the N900 but omit some firmware and OpenGL/BME drivers. The closed image will include those, and will require a valid IMEI for the N900, and should provide 100% hardware functionality.
With luck the BME will be replaced, since it just controls a chip with plenty of publicly available documentation. OpenGL, well... until Imagination stops acting like Nvidia we're SOL.
Re: (Score:2)
What is needed is for someone to come up with a way to extract the binary blob from the original firmware so the already licensed copy can be reused in an otherwise open source upgrade.
Re:As an N900 user... (Score:5, Informative)
It seems that a volunteer company (some "Nokia" if you've ever heard of them) has already done that [maemo.org] (5th post down). No real need to do it again..
I'm hoping that they keep the open nature of Maemo/Meego on these new phones. The N900 is the first phone I've had in ages which doesn't crash all the time. Not as slick as an iphone yet, but definitely much more flexible. Nothing quite as fun as controlling your phone from it's web server via WiFi...
Re:As an N900 user... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a multitool, and something I've waited to have happen since the N770 (which I have as well).
It has EDGE, 3G(T-mobile-friendly bands), 802.11b/g, IR, plenty of storage and it's open.
The only missing part is that Nokia really hates Perl, loves Python, or both.
Hardly premature. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nokia is moving to MeeGo with their next device, but it will be a strange hybrid between Maemo and MeeGo, featuring the UI and Qt Toolkits prominently, but still using the Maemo backend. Future devices after that will use a pure MeeGo front-end.
Even then, they're already prepping Qt 4.7 for Maemo5 which means the core toolkit intended for MeeGo devices is available on a released device.
That said, it can't come soon enough. A well built, fully open and far more stable standard Linux stack is where I wanted devices to be years ago. Better late than never I suppose.
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Plus it might be really not such a big deal. After all, both MeeGo and Symbian are moving towards UI based on Qt, and using it as their main API for apps.
"Heavyweight" MeeGo backend will drive their "mobile computing" devices, while traditionally more lightweight (but also more limited / moving forward more intermittently) Symbian will be on on the mainstream bulk of affordable devices, still offering something pretty close.
It's what they are doing already. S40 still lives (actually, is the largest part of
Re:Hardly premature. (Score:5, Interesting)
First, S40 is not Symbian (the latter is only 20% of what Nokia makes). Secondly, Nokia almost has a larger part of smartphone market than all the other players combined (where do you see strictly "technology" advances now anyway?)
But most importantly...well, I guess you think it's just horrible that Nokia focuses, for a long time, on as broad spectrum of the market as possible, right? Not only on "premium" people living in "premium" places, segment about which some manufacturers only care about; such a shame. That tends to spread resources.
Nokia contributed greatly to close to 5 billion mobile subscribers that the world has now; for many of those people their first real means of communication, a great shift for humanity, that sort of "crap". Unfortunatelly - feelings and expectations of "investors" overlook such long term societal effects (a thing which will also bring new opportunities for "investments"...) - oh well, as long as they are comfortably profitable it's fine (and we'll see how some dispute ends up regarding possible freeriders on, also, Nokia R&D); BTW, not so breathtaking bottom line might be also because Nokia actually owns over a dozen of their manufacturing facilities, most of them not in China, half in the EU, and one even quite close to Cupertino. But I guess you think not outsourcing to sweatshops is also "fucked"...
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My main phone isn't even a Nokia, FYI (though it might be soon, we'll see). And what I talk about is very much present and future; just not perceived through impressions from very few & quite atypical markets.
I suspect it's possible that you might be for a surprise with marketshare numbers at the end of year, especially since you seem to particularly blinded anti-nokia...smth ("every manufacturer makes better phones than nokia" said just like that, really?). But I guess you will just dismiss it via "tho
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The phone does have a portrait mode, it can even switch automatically.
But certain applications like text editors and most web sites in the browser are much better served with the landscape mode and that's what they use.
The 180g does give you some extras like a real slide out keyboard.
All together I'm extremely happy with this very reliable and flexible tool.
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N900 is just linux plus phone.
And there you have it. A real Linux, to be more specific, in a pocketable form factor (it's not that long when everybody's regular mobile phone was that size), with WLAN and 3G. Anybody (be they pro- or anti-Linux) reading /. should understand the implications.
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That it has an unresponsive touch screen? that it had to include a stylus?
Nonsense - you don't have to use a stylus. But I prefer the option of using one.
The N900 (and 5800, N97) have resistive touchscreens. Downsides are you have to apply a tiny amount of pressure (I'm sure most people can manage) and it lacks multitouch (I don't miss it though - "one mouse button is simpler", remember?) Advantages are you can use a stylus, or indeed anything you like, for extra precision, and also to avoid smearing dirty
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Nokia used to be the leader in smart phones till the iphone was launched.
The original Iphone lacked things that years old cheap feature phones had. How do you calculate it beat Nokia in all areas? It's arguable that it was even a smartphone.
And if you mean it had a touchscreen, sure - so there's at least one thing that Apple did before Nokia. Big deal. How does that outdo all the things that Nokia did first? What about all the areas since - the original Iphone was 2007, haven't you got a more recent example
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And if you mean it had a touchscreen, sure - so there's at least one thing that Apple did before Nokia.
It is not even the case. [wikipedia.org]
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I have a high end smartphone that I need to recharge almost daily, I reckon however that *many* users do prefer high-end smart phones whose battery lasts at least one week.
Nokia is not fucked up in the "high end smart phone" market per se, they are fucked up in the fashion/cool high-end phone market.
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Nokia's adamant refusal to phase out the S40/S60 Symbian crap is the reason why they are fucked in the high profit smart phone market.
Yeah, at 50% market share. Terrible!
They are now far from a technology leader, ... Smart phones no longer imply Nokia's stuff.
So what does it imply? And there's no one clear leader - some features appear first from other manufacturers, some from Nokia.
everyone knows that they are just selling cheap stuff that does less
Well firstly, they do well in the high end too (as I say,
Re:Hardly premature. (Score:4, Interesting)
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You and a few more folks on slashdot, but not 99% of mobile phone users. I want my phone to check email, sync my calendar, make/receive call, and most importantly work without me having to tinker with it. While there maybe a hardcore group of hobby hackers that think this is cool, trust me, the vast majority of don't really care about the openness factor.
Re:Hardly premature. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is how it should be, in the end.
The vast majority, rather, are ignorant of what being totally closed means for them and their data. Of course, that's also what gives us the continued dominance of Windows. The openness -is- good and is totally orthogonal to the concept of the previously mentioned functional system that works without having to tinker.
We can have both, to dismiss such things (especially on a site like Slashdot) strikes me as a little silly.
It is more like Nokia Linux (Score:5, Informative)
This is not someone's pet project, it is Nokia and its flagship multimedia phone platform (E(nterprise) series stays on Symbian).
I am sure they will put stability and power usage to first place. After all, this is the company who takes huge beating because they insisted and still insist on "code with discipline" on mobile platform. Most of the parts of Symbian which developers hate is actually a specific way to code for mobile platform to use less power and stay stable. They expect(ed) some company who manages to do "talk" and "smart" on single CPU without problems to let them code like they code for desktop. It doesn't happen of course.
N series on the other hand, is flexible and they can say "lets put 2 CPUs", "lets put 512MB RAM" as they are multimedia/high end phones with high price flexibility. I guess that and massive multimedia support already existing on Linux along with developers is the major reason for this decision.
Don't let their liberal "no app store" fool you. If your app doesn't act fine on Symbian, it is gone. It won't slow down or anything. Flooding memory? "Memory full, please close some applications" and guess what? It closes it before it alerts. I am sure they won't let things like that happen on Linux too.
So, it is not something like desktop linux fitting on phone. Just like iOS isn't some NeXT/BSD compiled for ARM either.
Re:It is more like Nokia Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Except that there -will- be, like there is for Maemo, a community repository where less stable software can be made available.
Sure you won't get into the Ovi store or whatnot, but you will be able to make your software available without having to pass strict checklists if you really, really want to put it out there. Assuming your carrier or non-Nokia handset vendor isn't being an ass.
Ovi store isn't app store either (Score:2)
Ovi Store just demands an actual person (verifiable) to pay some small amount of mone to publish their stuff, it is not controlled by anyone except some generic security checks.
The key here is "Symbian Signed", I am sure they will (have to) implement it on Maemo too. Or a very funny and joke like thing like actual app store with their string checking interns may happen.
I think the real deal (talk/sms/emergency call/ring) will run in its own process and/or even CPU and somehow will be untouchable.
I really do
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There will be a "DRM" mode, but there will also be an "Open" mode. The goal is to answer the whiny calls of media companies and the like and give them a "secure" platform, but not screw over those who use devices like the N900, which implements zero DRM. I fully plan on ensuring any device I buy can be switched to (
Re:It is more like Nokia Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Flooding memory? "Memory full, please close some applications" and guess what? It closes it before it alerts. I am sure they won't let things like that happen on Linux too.
I have a Maemo device, and it has the same brain-dead out-of-memory behaviour as desktop Linux - when you run out of memory (easy due to the way Linux does lazy allocation), it kills a random process. Somehow, the Maemo kernel manages to always pick the one with the most unsaved data.
Just like iOS isn't some NeXT/BSD compiled for ARM either.
Actually, it is at the kernel level, and you get all of the nice mobile features on the desktop too. A couple examples are the new out-of-memory killer and sudden app termination. When the kernel runs out of memory, it suspends programs that try to allocate memory and sends a Mach message to a program that has a little bit of wired memory to handle it. On OS X, this prompts you to kill some apps and then resume the suspended ones. I'm not sure what it does on the iPhone. In both cases, the kernel keeps track of apps that advertise that they have no unsaved state and will kill them itself in low memory conditions.
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You and a few more folks on slashdot, but not 99% of mobile phone users.
So maybe most people aren't buying N900s - but note they are still mostly buying Nokia phones (including Symbian).
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Hey, with over 300+ developers at their last conference, it is almost a tidal wave!
Some points (Score:2, Informative)
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Yeah, but we've been fairly fearful that Maemo/MeeGo was being held back by Symbian heads inside Nokia, obviously all the old codgers have been overruled. It's awesome if Nokia merely elevates their N series. In fact, they has well better maintain a clear tech lead over their competitors, as that buys them all their public hardware beta testing. And you just know support for Android apps as second class citizens will arrive shortly.
So, by next year.... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You are thinking 2010, the year when N900 blew everything else out of the water. A (very incomplete) list of software that it runs already includes busybox, bash, GNU utils, apt-get, emacs, vim, texlive, python, gnuplot, ssh -X, mplayer (!), fennec (firefox with full plugin support), midori, lynx, pidgin, conky... Its main limitation is, hands down, the amount of RAM, and even here, with its puny 128M, it performs very similarly to somewhat cleaner and faster Android. It is a fair tradeoff, Android being a
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I love Meamo. I have a Nokia 770 that, unfortunately, bricked itself a while back. It was probably my all time favorite gadget and to this day, it sits on my shelf in the hope that one day I'll plug in its power adapter and the little blue line at the bottom will make it all the way across the screen.
But let's not get carried away. I also happen to be the very happy owner of a Motorola Droid running my own special custom version of Android. It's not a toy. It runs every one of the command line apps y
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Except that Android is neither Linux nor GNU anymore, and feels more closed than open.
I want a real Linux phone, not some Java mutation.
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With MeeGo, being in netbooks, cellphones and maybe other devices maybe more cellphone makers join the platform, plus all the N models that could release Nokia next year.
And Andro
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Weren't there some Chinese "clones" already? Which might be the idea, and even more so for Symbian actually - it's probably the easiest and least expensive way, for many Chinese manufacturers, to have a full smartphone instead of weird sofware they offer now.
And shouldn't be that much of a problem - from what I heard people like to buy "original" anyway, if they can. But effects of scale might get interesting.
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It has 256MB not 128MB.
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it wasn't usable for the 95% of the population
It is painfully clear that you never used one or know anything about it. It is dead easy to use, with or without unlocking. Installing texlive is not easy. Making phone calls, using SMS, email, chat, web browser, media player, transferring files, using GUI config -- dead simple and very much idiot-proof. It's not FSF we are talking here, it's Nokia.
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...managed to be a critical failure because it wasn't usable for the % of the population...
...whose carrier uses CDMA. I, and I am sure many others, would sacrifice serious $$$ for an N900 on Verizon's network. But the clash of OSS and Verizon's totally controlled userspace would create a rift in reality no government could fix. sigh
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I'm not terribly familiar with the cellphone situation outside of the US, but it's been my understanding that the rest of the world uses GSM (And gets better service at a lower cost, but that's another rant for a different day.) for the most part. While the US market is large and nice to have, it's not the be-all-end-all that the US would like to think of itself as. Even if Verizon were to offer the N900, I can't imagine it suddenly joining the millions-sold club.
The N900 is a device made for the /. crowd,
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I don't change my oil simply because of the hassle of disposing of the old oil...
There are plenty of linux based phones out there, and people have no trouble using them... I have seen people using the N900, various android based phones, and various other linux based phones... People also use all kinds of embedded linux devices such as DVRs with no problem.
Having a linux based device doesn't make that device difficult to use.
Having a device with a poorly designed UI makes that device difficult to use, what O
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That Slashdot article is wrong.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/idc-and-gartner-award-smartphone-growth-prizes-to-apple-and-goog/ [engadget.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A lot of people in the media seem to want Nokia to fail, but the N900 is in fact highly successful in its market segment. When it was launched, Nokia said Maemo wasn't ready for mass consumption yet, and now say that it is exceeding sales expectations. According to Engadget, it sold 100 000 in the first five weeks, not months.
What Nokia also said is that the next product *will* be ready for mass consumption, so we can safely expect significantly stronger sales based on their surprisingly honest statements
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iPhone NeXT/BSD but doesn't change anything (Score:2)
Lets say Nokia makes sales records with this "Maemo" thing, would anyone bother? I mean will it change that idiot device manufacturer/game programmer mind?
iPhone minus SJobs/App Store gives you NeXT/BSD with frameworks comparable to GNUStep. Guys who didn't give a sh*t to OS X/Mac which exists for long time bought Macs to run XCode, live all that torture at app store hell and code pretty advanced stuff. What happens on Mac Desktop? I can tell as a Desktop user: Nothing. Games/desktop apps don't magically ap
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Well, while Qt dev environment for Maemo is available for Linux - if you want to target also Symbian (which generally will be a very good idea), it's...Windows only so far. So, yeah.
OTOH some of the targets might get interesting. There's a nice video of MeeGo tablet floating around, "netbooks" aren't out of the question. It might get some people away from their Win machine for a while; and so on.
Aww shit, throw down (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it's an OSS mobile dream come true, but also :
(1) Nokia ships more advanced hardware than any other phone maker.
(2) Nokia is the biggest phone maker in the world.
(3) Nokia has maintained user interface loyalty since before Apple even rehired Jobs.
We've been bullshitting about "the year of Linux on the desktop" here since the beginning, but well this might actually be the year of Linux on the mobile. Maemo/MeeGo require special apps for UI purposed, like all mobile devices, but unlike iPhone, Android, and Palm they don't require those apps be owned by Apple or be rewritten in Java or whatever.
N900's are currently fairly raw, but they are fucking bad ass. I'd assume that Meego will bring rotation, after that, the only shit that annoys me is :
(1) the integrated aim and msn suck, although sms, skype, and sip are solid,
(2) few games dispite being the only phone with solid GL, and
(3) no cups/gs printing.
On what other phone would you bitch about the lack of fucking printing?
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On what other phone would you bitch about the lack of fucking printing?
You can always pull one of these [docucrunch.com]. Hehe.
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the integrated aim and msn suck
That's because there is no integrated AIM and MSN as far as Nokia is concerned. These are installable as open source libpurple plugins to work with telepathy-haze, but no official support is provided, besides occasionally noticing that something is wrong in working with the framework, when it is only exposed by these add-ons.
An officially supported solution would need an agreement with the proprietary service providers; and you can bet they won't allow reverse-engineered protocol stacks.
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That's false, two native telepathy backends for MSN are available: pecan and butterfly.
Both work fine as far as I can tell. Butterfly is the most feature-complete one and is the one linux desktops use, but it's quite more heavyweight than the other.
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Not even "high end" - look at the 5230, below 150 bucks without contract. Not that much more expensive from dedicated GPS units, but with free & easy map updates. Plus, even if Ovi Maps can work completelly offline, it's nice to have the possibility of traffic updates, et al; smartphone, media player, etc. virtually thrown in for free.
It's firmly in middle segment now; don't be surprised by some interesting numbers at the end of year.
I really like the way Nokia has been going. (Score:3, Interesting)
Qt's cross platformness is awesome.
Meego is a horribly lame name though, I liked maemo a lot better, name wise. Now if only I could afford a phone with maemo/meego on it. I currently have a couple symbian phones, and an older maemo tablet, which is pretty neat, but hurting for ram and a keyboard.
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Now if only I could afford a phone with maemo/meego on it.
For me its not so much about money, its about availability. There's the N900 and that's it.
Hardware wise it's not good enough anymore. If i change phone I want the hardware to be at least as good at the N8 and record 720p and things like that.
In fact.. Meego (yes the name sucks) on the N8 would be sufficient. By sufficient i mean it would be an awesome device :P
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Careful what you wish for - N8 has ARM11 CPU. Which is fine for Symbian, but Meego... (I suppose it will change only in a year or so - S^4 basically breaks binary compatibility anyway; and even then many devices might be on, say, Cortex A5, I guess)
Plus, this news seems to mean that the next N device, and that means N8 successor, will be on Meego, no? ;p (also, weren't there some Chinese clones already? ;) )
N800 Symbian?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
What's the article talking about when it says "the last N-series phone to feature Symbian is the N800?" I thought the N800 was a Maemo device.
Re:N800 Symbian?!? (Score:4, Informative)
Android (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Android (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, to an OS wholly controlled by Google, not developed in anything resembling an open fashion, and forcing a pseudo-Java runtime with kernel extensions, a filesystem that were never meant to be open source in the first place, and a custom framebuffer system that isn't compatible with anything that already exists on Linux.
No thanks, I'd rather go for a system that has more in common with modern, open Linux distributions.
Garbage collection? Code better if you're using C/C++, or use Python. Sandboxing? Can be done without a pseudo-Java VM.
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yep.
Re:Android (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot can be very hypocritical sometimes.
eg. People in this thread are saying the n900 sucks because it's currently running the open source GTK toolkit instead of the open source QT toolkit. People are being modded to +5 for pointing this out. In the meantime Android runs neither! It uses a propriety toolkit that only supports Java. Androids Google application stack is closed source. There's tutorials out there on how to get root on an Android (requires a warranty voiding re-flash). Root on the Nokia means getting rootsh from the official maemo repository.
Despite this, it would seem people here hate Maemo and love Android. I don't get it.
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it's easy. Like people support their country of origin team in the soccer world cup, they're going to support their company of origin (= the one they own a phone at).
Stupid, but predictable human behavior.
Sense is only secondary, as long as it sounds "logical enough" on the moment to boast your "team" and diss the "other teams", they're going to post it. I'm sure i'm doing that mistake too from time to time, but I hope not too often, at least I certainly try to take things with criticism from every directio
Re:Android (Score:5, Insightful)
As a commercial Maemo developer (go ahead and laugh) I have to say I agree that Nokia should just give up and switch over to Android. They don't know what the hell they're trying to do with Maemo/MeeGo or the N900. The whole experience has been bitterly disappointing, like sitting around on a waiting list for months to get my new super exotic sports car, only to discover they neglected to install three of the pistons, and the transmission doesn't shift into reverse. It's really beautiful, but it doesn't run worth a damn, and it's basically useless.
However, as an experienced C++ and Qt developer trying to grapple with Android for the sake of taking my product to a platform that doesn't have its head shoved completely up its own ass, I find there' s just nothing to love about Android at all. Qt kicks this thing's ass all over the place, and this feels like trying to build a skyscraper out of LEGO instead of concrete and steel. It's just a damn shame Nokia have fucked all of this up so completely, and they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever competing. We're all stuck playing with Tinker Toys if we want to make any money. Or giving Apple a shit ton of money.
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Well, Nokia clearly stated that Maemo was a work-in-progress (step 4 out of 5), I expected the N900's APIs to be the running target that they are (although the device itself
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Nokia knows exactly what they're going to do with Maemo/MeeGo. They're going to make as much community-driven software stack as possible, this will drive down development costs for non-core applications. Meanwhile, they will, for example, roll out Ovi-services on top of that to bring in extra cash. Kind of what Apple is doing with their iTunes and AppStore and other content selling services. And don't think only music, videos or e-prints, it will be much more than that.
It's really a beautiful win-win situat
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Move from Maemo to Meego + move from GTK+ to Qt is what has been breaking apart the platform.
Re:Android (Score:4, Insightful)
Hahaha. You’re right about garbage collection and sandboxing. But you’re still silly. :)
In case you don’t know: They are the ones developing Qt. They invested tons of money into it and Linux.
I want a real Linux OS. Not some Java abomination. And so do they.
And Qt is a widget toolkit. Not a programming environment. It’s not responsible for those things. The language is. If you want those things you can still write it in a non-C/C++ language.
Hell, just install a JVM on it, and you can have all the Java, garbage collection and sandboxing you want. Also there are lots of Java apps so you can stay all-Java if you want.
The other way around is not possible. And this freedom of choice is exactly why they chose Linux with Qt.
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Not to mention you'll have an actual Java JVM with a mature implementation of JIT and not the Google re-imagining that is Dalvik.
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That's about equivalent to saying Redhat should dump their distribution and try to sell Android instead.
Android may have a place on the Meego/Maemo platforms, but that would be as a port of the vm so it can run Android apps as well as, and alongside, everything else.
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Sony Ericsson have a finger in each pie and are still very much involved in Symbian - posted from a Vivaz running ^1
Well, duh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Try this: develop on Symbian for a while. Then develop on Qt for a while. See?
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Why not both? [nokia.com]
meeGo = Mi-go? (Score:3, Interesting)
It was the official strategy since Day 1! (Score:2)
The whole story behind Nokia "abandoning" Symbian for MeeGo is just plain stupid. This was supposed to happen since day one and it was well documented [nokia.com] for some time now. Why is it breaking now?!
Anyway, the point is moot since it won't matter much for developers. This is the genius plan of Nokia and it strikes me that many here haven't quite understood it. By combining Symbian and MeeGo under the same development toolkit (the fantastic Qt) it won't matter much for developers since with minor tweaks of their
Bad name.. (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder. (Score:2)
N900 kicks Android butt (Score:3, Interesting)
What's with this Linux thing and the n900? Sure, it's a linux netbook that fits in a pocket, but it's an AMAZING phone! Why is everyone ignoring this? I have one, and the Skype, google talk, contact list all-in-one is the most useful functionality I can imagine. I use it all the time. The QWERTY keyboard is great for texting and emails, it has a real browser, it DOES have useful regular user type apps, like Foreca Weather, Facebook, and less useful ones, like Latitude and n900 Fly :)
What else? It integrates with my google calendar, it lets me share video live, upload pictures to social networking sites, and even tell me, where I need to go. I also own an Android phone (v1.5), and Maemo kicks Android butt. I'm sure Android 2 is better, but Maemo on N900 is polished. What is boggling my mind is why Nokia doesn't seem to see it. Why did they dilute it with MeeGo? And why aren't they screaming about it from every ad?! It's Linux on mobile, it's ready, for chrissake!! Oh, yea, and give it a bigger battery.
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True, Symbian has been open source for a while but it also is an antiquated dinosaur which should've been taken out to the pasture and taken out of its misery long ago.
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It has some things nicely covered - enabling really inexpensive devices, squeezing a lot from what little resources they might have; or power management. And should get more pleasant with the shift to Qt.
Dino? (Score:5, Insightful)
As Symbian handsets have amazing low power usage, stableness and performance so they can even work with single CPU, I really want to learn what part of them is "dinosour" besides the famous C: D: drive issue (which dates back to Psion).
UI was problematic and they purchased Qt for it and implementing it in a way that, people will code _single UI_ for both Symbian/Linux which has nothing to do with eachother.
I still think we overrate "mobile developers" and their constant whining but, it is another issue. I mean, Opera/Nimbuzz/Fring can somehow code their best featured stuff for Symbian... I don't hear a word from them.
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It got a pretty bad internal API. From what I know, multithreading is horrible. And so is lots of other stuff. Because it’s just tacked-on. It has that Windows ME feeling. You know: When the architecture does not fit the expected feature set anymore, but is used anyway. (Maybe that’s why MEeGo is named that way. ;)
Also Opera/Nimbuzz/Fring are no argument for its quality. Because by the same logic, IE’s Trident must be a great engine, because every major website works in it.
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Mandatory car comparison:
Android: All-purpose SUV with some nice features. Works well everywhere, provided you don't put an underpowered motor inside. Average at parking in cities. Comes with many different engines.
IOS: Truck with exactly the same engine in every model. Has a lot of fan-made cranes and tools for various tasks. Sucks at navigating city small streets, isn't very goot in off-road either. But you have to own one to impress the neighbour, even if you're using a sedan for actual shuttling. Don't
Re:Open source is the key? (Score:4, Insightful)
My Symbian smart phones have been multitasking since, I suppose, 2005? Earlier? My Psion could do real multitasking long before that.
iOS4 has half-arsed multitasking as of yesterday. Colour me unimpressed.
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I did multitasking on the very first Symbian smart phone. And that was earlier than 2004.
I had a file manager. A MP3 player. A removable storage card. A video player. Instant messaging (IM+). E-Mail. 3D Games. Java. SSH. Lots of other stuff. It was a real computer in every aspect.
The only thing that it lacked, was speed and storage size.
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"Symbian will still be used in low-end devices from Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson."
plus it's not going into low-end (that is the space of S30 and, more and more, S40), it takes over middle-range (which was coming for a few years; and is now very clear with devices like, say, Nokia 5230 - touchscreen smartphone with fully free (offline) turn-by-turn navigation for less than $150 without contract as of now; and it's not even the cheapest one)
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Re:Open source is the key? (Score:4, Informative)
Don't be too surprised by Symbian breaking this year the "100 million devices sold annually" barrier, and generally maintaining quite well its half of smartphone market. Nokia finally really started pushing it in the mainstream class.
So called "junk" also enables this, allowing very modestly priced devices with greast power management. And Symbian^4 has Qt as its main API.
You might call it apocalypse of the undead if you really wish to, but I would be suprised if Symbian won't remain a major player for a very long time. Plus zombies are cool.
Re:Very pleased (Score:5, Insightful)
Join the club.
I'm rather skeptic and after the "N900 experience" (read: serious lack of commercial apps, treated by Nokia as a second-class device, the whole (ongoing) Ovi Store debacle, ...) I'm not sure I'll ever buy a Nokia device again.
And that's coming from someone who's been a steady Nokia customer since the late 90's.
Re:Very pleased (Score:5, Insightful)
Well yeah. If you want an app store the n900 isn't the phone for you and you'll be unhappy with it.
In the meantime i love my n900. It seems to be able to do almost everything my full Linux machine can do. I have the GCC toolchain on the phone, openSLL client and server, all the old console emulators. Tutorials to install these features are provided on the official maemo forums.
Yeah it's unpolished. It doesn't even hide its shell from the applications menu. That's also why i love it.
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True.
With all the downsides it's still a useful tool. I lost count of how often I used it to do all kinds of server maintenance while I was on the road. And if you need more power there's always the ability to switch over to fully grown Debian.
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There's no app store because it's a new platform. This will in all probability change when Symbian becomes mid-range and Meego becomes top-range and both use QT for the GUI.
It's unpolished because it's a new platform yet the nerds still wanted to beta test it in their thousands and the platform was later tidied up for mass consumption. I assume we've forgotten Android 1.0?
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Android 1.0 was never meant for masses. Neither was n900. Nokia made this VERY clear about a year before the phone was released.
If you paid any attention to nokia's lineups, they rarely make "one model for all". Instead they have a lot of specialized models that individually do not sell many copies, but make a perfect fit for a certain niche. And they have the logistics chain to make that kind of manufacturing and design profitable. That is what sets them apart from all other mobile phone makers, and that i
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And I'm very happy with it.
Just to see how it worked I later bought a prepaid SIM and I must say the regular phone part works great too.
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What are you blabbing about? The thing has the whole set of Linux apps avaliable for it. And since when does “flagship device” equal “second-class device”?
Also the Ovi Store is just a dummy. It’s there to be able to say they have an “app store” to the Appletards*. But there never was a point to an “app store” on full operating systems. Just as there is no point to an app store for your Linux or Windows desktop. And just as there was nobody who felt a nee
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Do you see something about "getting attached" in just being a steady customer for over a decade?
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For the most part I've just always been more comfortable with Nokia devices although at times I used separate phones for business and personal purposes. With the exception of the Maemo devices' lack of user-friendliness they simply deliver the "it just works" experience Apple usually claims for itself.
E.g., around 1999/2000 I had a 3210 and later a 6210 for personal use and an Alcatel One Touch Com for business use.
For those who don't know the OTC: It offered extremely reliable pen input, a note/drawing app
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Far more interestingly, symbian is used in japanese phones as well, and those literally wipe the floor with anything west has to offer when it comes to functionality and usability, albeit japanese cell usage patterns are known to be quite different from western (they use them more for mail, chatting and paying with what essentially amounts to NFC).
Symbian as an OS is perfectly fine. The epic whine of mobile devs has very little to do with modern incarnations of the OS, and far more with just the need to ven
Nothing happens to N8 (Score:2)
N8 will be running Symbian 3 right? A lot of models of middle end devices will be running Symbian 3 too. And by a "lot", I mean some unheard numbers in industry. It is not just Nokia either, as Symbian can be implemented by _anyone_, a lot of stuff will come from Asia too.
So, you are some Asian manufacturer stuck with J2ME and some weird OS. You use Symbian 3, have ultra modern UI, multi tasking, applications and also World's most customisable (ask any operator) operating system.
The problem here, as usual i
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to be honest we all weren't all that sure if they were going to support maemo/meego or drop it at some point.
the N900 is a nice device but its not THE ultimate device. the N8 is better hardware than the N900 yet runs symbian.
Nokia could choose a zillion different ways. And still, we won't be satisfied until the next Meego device comes out.
And we're all waiting for Nokia at the corner here. The next Linux based device they make better kick some butts. That is, compete directly with the iPhone while at the sa
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N8 is not completelly a better hardware, it has ARM11. Which is fine for Symbian, and one of its strenghts (when S^4 might, I guess, make the shift in a year due to essentially breaking binary compatibility, I wouldn't be surprised by some Cortex A5 phones beside A8 or A9); but it doesn't really fit Meego...
Nokia modus operandi is rather clear. They still sell quite a lot of S30 devices after all, their mainstray from around a decade ago. S40 is their biggest chunk now, but very clearly being pushed "down"