Patiently Waiting to be Excited

After a few months off the grid, I thought it best to offer a short post to show Jay, Andre and the rest of the MNB gang that I’m still around…

With my next upgrade coming up in the first few months of 2011, I’ve been pondering my options for my next handset. I’m keen to stick with a Nokia handset, and was hoping that by the time 18 months had passed after buying my N900 that something that truly excites me would come along. I’ll share some of my thinking with you…

Video: MeeGo Handset UI running on Archos 5it (Gen7)

The video below shows an Archos 5 PMP with MeeGo handset UI.

This isn’t as smooth as the MeeGo handset experience seen on the PC smart tablet a couple of weeks ago.

However, it is nice to see MeeGo on a growing number of different types of devices.

Video: Nokia N900 and AR Drone with MeeGo – developing with Qt – best development platform?

Man I so totally want one of these AR Drones!

Check it out with the  powered Nokia N900. You’ve got not only a phone controlled quadropter, it sends live video feedback directly to the phone.

That’s not the cool thing. This is a project by Kate Alhola to learn MeeGo and Qt Quick whilst having fun with flying gadgets.

The original blogpost is very informative, covering things such as how to make modern apps with Qt Quick components, making MeeGo versions of iPhone applications as well as dispelling the myth that Maemo is not dead and people should still develop for it, albeit with Qt.

The best option today is to develop with maemo5 with Qt and Qt Quick and when a MeeGo handset is released, just deploy your application for it, it is that easy.

There’s also mention of a “MeeGo base device”. I don’t know if that’s N900 or a special MeeGo device for Nokia internally. Finally an interesting note on Qt as the best development platform where (cheesiness) the only limit is your imagination. Well that’s good, and hopefully more developers see it this way.

Indamixx Music MeeGo tablet on Sale – 699 USD (not for general public really)

The professional grade musician’s tablet from Indamixx – MeeGo powered Indamixx 2 Beta is available for purchasing!

There are two models available, for 699 and 799 USD. Oddly, the cheaper version comes with 250GB HDD (vs 160GB)

Other specifications include:

• – Transmission 5.0 OS (MeeGo Version)
• 1.66 GHz Intel Atom CPU (N450)
• 2GB RAM

Note – this is probably not the MeeGo tablet experience consumers are looking for, but it may be for those in the music industry (though I don’t know how much of it could simply be an app on a vanilla tablet itself).

Poll: IF Nokia Smartphones could have ANY but only ONE OS, which should it be?

A frequent suggestion in blog comments relating to Nokia is to go with Android/WP7 and when it was available, to go buy Palm for WebOS. Why? Nokia has in house, Symbian and Maemo, the latter of which has become MeeGo – though the phone side has no presence on the market since there are no purpose built MeeGo phones.

Well in this transition stage where Symbian is waiting for the major UI change and MeeGo is still waiting to escape the birth canal, frustration rests upon some users and onlookers of Symbian^3 (the only real Nokia smartphone choice atm) as not having the same glitsy glamour and UI appeal of its competition. Nokia is always praised for the hardware, though last year with N900 got rapturous awe for its powerful and potential filled software – but that’s now canned for MeeGo.

Therefore, is it rightly so that Nokia should look to others as a temporary measure? Or is this not suitable for Nokia’s long term success? Does a successful phone manufacturer need it’s own operating system to survive? There’s a lot resting on the events that unfold for Nokia in 2011.

In an ideal world where anything could happen – If Nokia Smartphones could have any but only one Operating System, what would you like it to be?

My Dream Nokia #8: Nokia N9 MeeGo Phone Slider Concept with edge to edge display

My Dream Nokia Number 8 comes by way of Jim who found these concept MeeGo Phone Photos on the MeeGo forum. They’re designed by a guy called “SuperHero” who is an old user of Linux, the Nokia n900 and a programmer.

It is titled Nokia N9. There are no details other than what can be observed from design.

I think they look pretty slick. There are 9 images in total, one in particular showing the slide out QWERTY which is somewhat curved in action like early Xperias from Sony Ericsson though looking much nicer.

The screen seems huge, with near edge to edge, borderless display.

Rumours: Nokia’s MeeGo Tablet to Launch in Q3 2011

Nokia N900000. Had Nokia made a Maemo 5 tablet, I would have bought one. Powerful browsing, Qt apps, extreme multitasking - pure win!

 

Take this with a bucket of salt.

Nokia’s MeeGo tablet will be reaching Nokia fans from late 2011 according to knowyourmobile‘s anonymous source.

There are no further details, other than it’ll run on MeeGo. Their Nokia insider apparently says this information is correct. Could this be the Z500 “ARM based MeeGo Tablet” that Eldar tweeted about back in June, which later leaked itself on the Ovi Store?

Well this is the first “confirmation” of any rough date estimates for any Nokia MeeGo device. The MeeGo phone as far as we know is still pretty much a “2011” story.

Video: MeeGo handset UI on a tablet – looks great!

Here’s a cool video, it’s MeeGo Handset UI on a tablet.

Although MeeGo handset is no where near ready (both Vanilla and Nokia’s secret version that’s supposedly going to be amazing and have a different UI “Pattern”) it translates great on a bigger touch screen, despite the comments that a Phone and Tablet should have separate UI.

I guess the Maemo now MeeGo experience has always been tablet focused first (being developed on the “internet tablets).

I’d love 10” tablet with MeeGo handset UI vanilla or Nokia’s (well based on the leaked Nokia UI, though I have no idea if the supposed Amazing one will look anything like that). There’s no sign at the moment of any tablet sporting the pre-alpha tablet UI which impressed us all back in June this year.

Video: Super Mario demo with pure QML from Web Developer new to QML/Qt “very easy to learn”.

Here’s a video from that Jim found showing the product (Super Mario) of a web developer who moved to the Qt/QML environment. They found it very easy to learn which is great since MeeGo and Symbian apps will share Qt based apps.

Here’s a game I made with pure QML (no C++), costs around 4 days. QML is very easy to learn, I was a web developer and had no experience whatsoever with QML or Qt, but made this game while I learn the languge. Very easy and pleasant. The video is a bit laggy because of the recording software, the game itself runs smoothly. PS: The game has a small bug of detecting platform, you will see in the video.

Controls by left, right, z key. Not counting graphics and audio it’s 7 QML files which sums up around 12KB.

dz902

Nokia’s MeeGo to have new UI Paradigm, break away from traditional like WP7; MeeGo will ship only when it is ready and AMAZING!

Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia SVP design speaks at Le Web conference about the new Nokia MeeGo UI. There’s also a Q&A and a little post interview video. In the Q&A when asked about when, and if better than iPhone, Marko says 2011, only when MeeGo and this supposed new paradigm or “pattern” in the UI is AMAZING! I’m so happy to hear that. I’ve maintained that unless MeeGo is remarkable/awesome it is fail. It can’t just be a catch up (which Marko talks about). Bring something new and innovate.

There’s a little bit of a transcript for the first video and a lot more for the second video which tells us a lot more about what’s coming in MeeGo and the general mobile environment, discussing WP7, iPhone and the Cupertino Distortion Field and Android. There’s the usual Nokia Android question which is not bluntly denied, opening the question (to me anyway) about WP7 on Nokia. We’ve already got a Nokia powered windows machine with Booklet 3G.

This is quite a long post but there’s quite a few nuggets of MeeGo info to digest.