Nokia Trades Symbian For MeeGo In N-Series Smartphones

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?"

Comments

As an N900 user...

[sethstorm]

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...

[Microlith]

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:As an N900 user...

[jrumney]

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.

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...

[rtfa-troll]

It seems that a volunteer company (some "Nokia" if you've ever heard of them) has already done that (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...

[sethstorm]

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.

Re:As an N900 user...

[MoralHazard]

The only missing part is that Nokia really hates Perl, loves Python, or both.

Yeah, some of us are throwing a party to celebrate, next week. We were going to invite you, but... Well, no offense, but nobody like a Perl programmer.

Hardly premature.

[Microlith]

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.

Re:Hardly premature.

[sznupi]

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 what Nokia sells, and the most popular mobile phone platform), still has a future. Even S30 ships quite a few units. The plan seemed to be from the beginning to have, top to bottom, MeeGo - Symbian - S40 - S30 lineup. In time, the price range of each category moves down.

Re:Hardly premature.

[ducomputergeek]

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.

[Microlith]

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.

Which is how it should be, in the end.

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.

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.

Re:Hardly premature.

[BlueBoxSW.com]

Hey, with over 300+ developers at their last conference, it is almost a tidal wave!

Re:Hardly premature.

[sznupi]

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"...

Re:Hardly premature.

[sznupi]

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 "those people don't count, they shouldn't be allowed to get such technology anyway!", etc....

Re:Hardly premature.

[Teun]

I don't see the N900 as backward, quite the contrary it's so advanced even Nokia admits it's possibly not suited for the casual user.

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.

Re:Hardly premature.

[gnomeza]

What?!

S40 is awesome low-end phone software*.

Fast, stable, simple and intuitive. S30 and S40 was the codebase when Nokia wrote the book on cellphone HCI.

I know people still using their 3210 and 3310 handsets.

Mod parent -1 (uninformed).

* Disclaimer: I worked on it.

Re:Hardly premature.

[TheRaven64]

And Symbian is an amazingly well-designed kernel for a mobile device. The Linux kernel is a huge step backwards in comparison to EXA2. The problem with Symbian is that much of the userland sucks, and switching to a new kernel won't help that. I'd love to buy a Symbian smartphone with an updated version of PIPS, a port of the FreeBSD userland, and X11.

Re:Hardly premature.

[Viski]

So advanced -- that it had to include a stylus?

FYI, most of the population on the Earth do not live in the USA. A stylus is simply the best tool for writing Asian syllabary languages.

N900 is just linux plus phone

Yes, that's pretty much correct. That makes the device pretty flexible, don't you think?

Re:Hardly premature.

[LinuxAndLube]

If my fart and booth apps work, I'm happy

Sent from my iPhone.

Re:Hardly premature.

[BlackCreek]

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.

Re:Hardly premature.

[Urkki]

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.

Re:Hardly premature.

[mdwh2]

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, 50% market share in smartphones). Nokia are also good across all price ranges (their market share overall in phones at 40%). Why is costing less a bad thing? Yes, everyone knows what good value they are.

The "does less" is debatable anyway (there are some things my 5800 doesn't do, but then there are some things the Iphones have lacked for years, despite costing far more); but also, not everyone needs a 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM and 3D chip in a phone (hell, even for netbooks, people aren't really bothered about using them for 3D gaming). Outside of the geek world, things like Internet access and applications (as well as, you know, being a phone) are more important than how many GHz you have in your phone.

Re:Hardly premature.

[mdwh2]

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? You can't define technology leader solely based on one single arbitrary feature! (Apple weren't first to have a touchscreen anyway.)

Plus, let's invoke the standard Apple defence when Apple do something years later (multitasking, 3G): "Nokia phones were better because of not having touchscreen. But by waiting, it meant they refined the technology, so they could do it better when they did release them. No I can't explain how it's better, you'll just have to trust me".

Releasing a 180g brick that doesn't even have UI in portrait mode and barely sold doesn't count.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. My 5800 isn't a brick (you must be thinking of the Ipad), it has a UI in portrait, automatically rotates to landscape, and has sold millions. Nokia overall sell many times more than Apple.

People change their phones every 1-2 yrs and Nokia has done nothing good in the last 3.

Yet you're still touting Apple based on the one thing they did before Nokia, that was 3 years ago?

Re:Hardly premature.

[mdwh2]

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 fingers over your screen. And things like gloves present no problems.

I don't think either one is better; they both each have their advantages. But if you want capacitive, Nokia have options for that too (e.g., the X6). That's the good thing about having a choice of phones in their range, rather than one-size-(doesn't)-fit-all.

Re:Hardly premature.

[mdwh2]

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).

Re:Hardly premature.

[sznupi]

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.

Re:Hardly premature.

[sznupi]

I know somebody who got, quite recently & in a reasonably prosperous place, 1208 handset (and would probably still choose some newer S30 one in the future, if needed). Not a luddite by any stretch - very fluent in PCs, et al. Just...likes the phone to be that way (also uses a dedicated portable media player and digicam)

Isn't 1100 still the bestselling single type of electronic device (nvm "phone") in history?

IIRC, S60 was also rather fine, building on the S40 UI concepts. Of course it got a bit sidelined with passage of time, such UI not so adaptable to the number of new features. At least Symbian^4 UI design proposals look like we might get something nice.

Re:Hardly premature.

[cartman]

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

Nokia makes a profit on all the phones it sells. It doesn't wish to surrender the low end of the market, because its profits would be reduced by doing so.

The only reason Apple and Google compete in smartphones only, is because the low end of the cell phone market had already been taken by the time they arrived, and there was limited opportunity for innovation there. However, Apple and Google would still like to gain poor people as customers if it were possible.

feelings and expectations of "investors" overlook such long term societal effects (a thing which will also bring new opportunities for "investments"...)

Investors do not overlook long-term consequences like those, because serving that market increases their profits, if consumers believe that owning a cell phone will have long-term benefits for themselves. The difference with a for-profit company is that the consumers decide what will be of benefit to them in the long term.

But I guess you think not outsourcing to sweatshops is also "fucked"...

I think boycotting the poor is fucked, which of course is the same thing as "not outsourcing to sweatshops".

Re:Hardly premature.

[sznupi]

Of course they make a profit in lower segments; the point is - it is necessarily much more limited. But their whole development, manufacturing, logistics, etc. (which aren't that much less expensive for low-end devices) has to serve it too. Plus it hugely complicates marketing - promoting one class of devices is easy, but how do you pitch clearly better, all around, class without making the lower segment look worse?

And the latter part would have consequences, because that segment is actually quite competitive; people demand great value for the price, aren't getting locked in any way to particular family of devices. There is huge opportunity for innovation there (within certain limitations of course - that makes it only harder)

"Investors" not overlooking long term (really long term) societal factors?... Where?...

And you're trying to be very dishonest in the last part... (it's funny how outsourcing and sweatshops are universally bad on /. otherwise...) Nokia owns their fabs, in many places throughout the world - is directly responsible for well being of their employees. That's a far cry from outsourcing to lowest bidder. And with their scale (almost half a billion mobile phones sold annually, one of the largest providers of cellular infrastructure), they certainly directly benefit, even when looking at a singuler example of China, quite a lot of people they employ.
Not to mention benefits their services and products bring.

Re:Open source is the key?

[lennier1]

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.

Some points

[spectrum-]

1. Symbian is opensource too! 2. MeeGo is only replacing Symbian on N series Nokia There are E,X and C and numbered SmartPhones also in Nokia'a range 4. Its not clear if Nokia are branchin off N series as a level above N97 style smartphones

Re:Some points

[Weezul]

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.

Re:Very pleased

[lennier1]

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:Open source is the key?

[sznupi]

"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)

So, by next year....

[gmuslera]

2011 will be the year of the Linux Smartphone?

Re:So, by next year....

[melikamp]

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 toy OS compared to Maemo.

Re:So, by next year....

[oakgrove]

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 you listed with aplomb and will run all of the thousands and thousands of others you didn't mention. I have rtorrent, elinks, vim, bash, ssh, and the list goes on and on. It can run X apps too as I can just start the vmc server and a viewer on localhost. But, for many X apps, there is a more or less equivalent Android app that is suited to the small capacitive screen so, I don't usually bother. I run my web browser with a desktop user agent so I get the same internet including full javascript that support on it that I get on my desktop and since the screen is 854 pixels wide, it is the great exception that horizontal scrolling is necessary.

I want Maemo/Meego to succeed. As a matter of fact, I want all the Unix based mobile systems to thrive even iOS. I don't really care about Winphone 7 as I think MS has made enough money on the desktop but that's just my bias creeping in. My point is, Maemo is great, Android is great. Neither are toys and the year of Linux on the cellphone is right here and now so we should all be happy.

Re:So, by next year....

[gmuslera]

I am thinking 2011. Nokia didnt put a lot of love supporting and expanding the N900 (btw, have one), plus is the only cellphone featuring maemo, not even other from the same company. In a lot of areas still beats badly any competitor, but need more support from app makers (and, btw, as already was pointed, is 256M what have of ram)

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 Android is gaining big momentum too (probably more now with the iOS4 debacle) and still have Linux somewhere down there.

Re:So, by next year....

[melikamp]

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.

Re:So, by next year....

[sznupi]

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.

Re:So, by next year....

[GaryOlson]

...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

Re:So, by next year....

[melikamp]

Oops, sorry about that. You are right.

Re:So, by next year....

[alvinrod]

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, which if you were to step outside of /. and take a good look around you would realize is a very small percentage of the population. The take-away from this is that you can't run the world's largest phone manufacturer and be successful marketing a device that only a minority of the world will love or be able to use. Yeah, it's easy enough for you or I to get by with, but a lot of people don't understand the extent to which the majority of the world's population are technically inept or apathetic. Hell, some Linux users are still skeptical about it being ready for the mass market on the desktop. Should we be surprised that it's not going to fly when put on a phone?

The geek crowd needs to realize that the average Joe is incapable of using Linux on a mobile device and absolutely has even less desire to learn. Fun car analogy: how many /. readers actually change their own oil? I suspect it's a minority, even though most of the community is probably able to do it or learn how to do it by themselves. I suspect that the majority of us just take it to a shop and pay someone else to do it just so we don't have to fuss with it. I imagine that's how most people feel about their phones. The want something that's very simple and works without a lot of grief. Anything else falls into the realm of crap with which they prefer not to deal.

Re:So, by next year....

[BasilBrush]

According to this Slashdot article Android phones outsold the iPhone in that quarter.

That Slashdot article is wrong.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/idc-and-gartner-award-smartphone-growth-prizes-to-apple-and-goog/

Re:So, by next year....

[badran]

Using Linux != Command Line

Re:So, by next year....

[SpazmodeusG]

It has 256MB not 128MB.

Re:So, by next year....

[Hurricane78]

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.

Re:So, by next year....

[EvilNTUser]

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 about the N900. It does have a real chance of changing the world for GNU/Linux (as opposed to Android/Linux).

And why wasn't the N900 ready for mass consumption? They haven't yet ported 100% of their features from Symbian, and most of the default applications are stuck in landscape mode due to their heritage. Don't trust the mainstream press on this. Despite reporters' bad conclusions about the cause, the UI in general is extremely well designed, and counting the number of apps in the Ovi repository is ridiculous given that the Maemo repository is full of apps.

Re:So, by next year....

[Bert64]

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 OS that UI runs on top of is largely irrelevant. If anything, windows mobile is much harder to use than typical linux based devices (which is why many windows mobile phones have a third party interface on top).

Having a linux based device just means that extra flexibility is available to those who want it and know how to use it, the fact that a command line is available to those of us who understand what it is doesn't mean that a typical user would ever have to use it.

There is also an important reason why linux based help forums and mailing lists etc, supply command line instructions and that's because it's simply the most efficient way. Supplying a list of commands for a user to paste is MUCH easier than trying to explain to a user how to navigate through a GUI... It's not that there aren't graphical ways of doing the same thing, it's simply more efficient and easier all round to supply CLI based instructions.

Re:So, by next year....

[ricegf]

First, N900 has 256 MB RAM and 768 MB swap - not 128 MB RAM as the grandposter (melikamp) stated.

To your (alvinrod's) point, Nokia's response to the Reuters article was laughter - see http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-n900-has-sold-well-in-excess-of-100000-handsets-gartner-figures-seriously-wrong-claims-source-2887458/. Nokia doesn't disclose sales figures, but the N900 has sold "well in excess" of 100,000.

But also far, far short of the Android tsunami. Granted.

Nokia has clearly stated since 2007 that they were on a 5 step plan to develop a revolutionary new phone. N770, N800, N810 and N900... that's 4. The next phone is the first in the Maemo / MeeGo line actually intended by Nokia for the masses. We'll see.

Of course, iPhans would say Apple jumped straight to step 5 in 2007... and I really can't argue that point, either. I'm just not a walled garden kind of guy.

(Full disclosure: I own an N900, my wife an Android-based Cliq, and several close friends own iPhones. They're all nice phones; pick what works best for you. I won't ridicule you. Promise. ;-)

Re:So, by next year....

[julian-lam]

Sure, the Chinese have clones - but it's only the hardware that's copied (very very expertly, by the way). The software is not installed on the chinese phones. In fact, the software that IS on is pretty shitty, but the only reason why they sell so well in China is because of this one reason: People in China want cheap phones, they'd rather pay $500 RMB as opposed to $500 USD. They're not interested in Maemo, or Meego, or all the cool things phones can do, they just want a cool looking phone. Believe it or not, Americans, the Chinese copycats are creating their clone phones for themselves, not for the curious few Americans who buy them.

Re:So, by next year....

[sznupi]

What I glanced once from writings of Nokia anthropologist after stumbling onto his site (can't find the exact posts, the website seems to be in a bit of a mess right now; this one touches on the subjest but is not fully what I have in mind), it's not as clear.

After all, what you mention is also: people liking a product so much that they are willing, for lack of funds, to risk with a "fake"; they do like having the real thing, if they can. There was also another trend emerging - copying the industrial design, but not logos; in the direction of a product which can stand on its own, with manufacturers gaining some legitimacy.
If an OS (I'm mostly thinking about Symbian, it fits much better to segment ruled by costs) becomes easily available for inclusion into their phones, that could be interesting. To be fair, it's probably more about the supplier of SoCs enabling those cheap phones (IIRC one large, fabless, Taiwanese manufacturer)

Re:So, by next year....

[sznupi]

Wouldn't it better (on so many levels... ;p ) to say that it jumped straight to step i5? ;)

Aww shit, throw down

[Weezul]

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?

Re:Aww shit, throw down

[oakgrove]

On what other phone would you bitch about the lack of fucking printing?

You can always pull one of these. Hehe.

Re:Aww shit, throw down

[sznupi]

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.

Re:Aww shit, throw down

[21mhz]

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.

Re:Aww shit, throw down

[loufoque]

These are installable as open source libpurple plugins to work with telepathy-haze

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.

Re:Aww shit, throw down

[Weezul]

I've experienced serious problems using all three telepathy MSN plugins, admittedly before PR1.2. I'm unsure if the issues are telepathy or the plugins.

Re:Aww shit, throw down

[IICV]

(2) few games dispite being the only phone with solid GL, and

May I present you with: DrNokSNES. Just grab ROM dumps of your favorite SNES games (that you own, of course) and they'll be with you everywhere. Controlling them on the N900's keyboard is a bit wonky* (but then everything is), so I mainly stick to turn based games like the Final Fantasies or Tactics Ogre.

It's a leetle bit buggy, but once you figure out how to work it you'll be good to go.

*If you're feeling especially geeky, you can hook a Wiimote up to your N900 and play almost anything that way.

Re:Aww shit, throw down

[Weezul]

I've got an ssh script that prints just fine, sans overhead too, but ..

The whole point of local cups is integrated printing, i.e. the N900's native applications like email, pdf reader, ovi maps, conversations, and contacts all need printing support.

Re:Open source is the key?

[sznupi]

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.

I really like the way Nokia has been going.

[mirix]

Open maemo/meego, Qt, symbian (which is kinda long in the tooth, but still has a place, and sells a ton). Polar opposite of what some phone outfits do. *I* own the fucking phone, not some guy in Cupertino.

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.

Re:I really like the way Nokia has been going.

[kangsterizer]

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

Re:I really like the way Nokia has been going.

[sznupi]

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? ;) )

Re:I really like the way Nokia has been going.

[kangsterizer]

yes they say the next one will be on meego but that's in a while
i'm aware of the lower cpu ^^

Re:I really like the way Nokia has been going.

[sznupi]

Perhaps not really "a while" - previous devices of the line were released roughly once a year.

Re:I really like the way Nokia has been going.

[kangsterizer]

end of 2010 is a while for me :)
Especially as i'd like a new phone and am not satisfied with current offerings :P
(and i change phone rarely enough)

It is more like Nokia Linux

[Ilgaz]

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

[Microlith]

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.

Re:It is more like Nokia Linux

[Jaffa]

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.

Actually, there's lots of evidence that the community's QA process is a lot more stringent than Ovi's; and results in software which is better, doesn't drain the battery, doesn't waste rootfs space and generally behaves a lot better.

The biggest obstacle to Ovi inclusion (even with the recently announced opening of it to individuals) are:

• VAT registration
• No dependency on libraries in the community repos
• No Python (a comparitively large number of third party apps for Maemo are written in Python

Re:It is more like Nokia Linux

[TheRaven64]

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.

N800 Symbian?!?

[kabloom]

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?!?

[the linux geek]

It's being confused with the N8-00, which was (for obvious and sane purposes) renamed the N8. It's the flagship Symbian^3 device.

Dino?

[Ilgaz]

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.

Re:Dino?

[Hurricane78]

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.

Android

[cheesybagel]

If Nokia had any brains left, it would switch their smartphones to Android, like their old competitor Sony Ericsson has been doing. Qt is nice for what it is, but the technology is old hat. Where is garbage collection and sandboxing?

Re:Android

[Microlith]

If Nokia had any brains left, it would switch their smartphones to Android

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.

Re:Android

[dysonlu]

If Nokia had NO brain at all, it would switch to Android, abandoning their still dominant platform (~40% worldwide marketshare), giving up control on the OS and becoming just another me-too phone manufacturer, just another Sony Ericsson.

Re:Android

[SpazmodeusG]

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.

Re:Android

[Spugglefink]

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.

Re:Android

[Hurricane78]

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.

Re:Android

[AlXtreme]

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.

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 is superb, anything but useless).

N900/Maemo is a dream for us freedom-loving hippies but if you expected to make a living from it you're a few years and a few million sales early. Changes don't happen overnight and Nokia has decided very recently to go in the QT/MeeGo direction, let's see how that works out first.

I'm glad that there is some proper competition in the Linux smartphone market, Google doesn't need to own my phone too.

Re:Android

[Anonymous Coward]

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 situation. Nokia delivers a hackable, good product to the hands of millions of nerds and hundreds of millions of other people. They are quite free to do, pardon my French, more or less whatever the fuck they want. Meanwhile Nokia gets all kinds of business benefits.

And anyway, I'm not sure what exactly is your beef with Maemo. Maemo/MeeGo stack is currently emerging tech that's about to break to the market big time. It's not setup.exe-productized for mom and pop developers, yet. What did you expect at the moment? Use the emulator in the absence of hardware, and be sure to contact European side of Nokia for specific support questions to get something done. This might help you.

That's my take. Maybe you agree or maybe not, but consider it food for thought anyway.

Re:Android

[kangsterizer]

yep.

Re:Android

[kangsterizer]

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 direction.

Re:Android

[loufoque]

They don't know what the hell they're trying to do with Maemo/MeeGo or the N900.

Move from Maemo to Meego + move from GTK+ to Qt is what has been breaking apart the platform.

Re:Android

[Znork]

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.

Re:Android

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Hell, just install a JVM on it, and you can have all the Java, garbage collection and sandboxing you want.

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.

Re:Android

[ChunderDownunder]

Sony Ericsson have a finger in each pie and are still very much involved in Symbian - posted from a Vivaz running ^1

Re:Android

[cecom]

Garbage collection? Code better if you're using C/C++, or use Python. Sandboxing? Can be done without a pseudo-Java VM.

Excuse me, I haven't laughed like that in a long time. Of course the solution is "just code better" - I wonder why nobody has ever thought of that.

The notion that Python is somehow preferable to Java is also funny (single-threaded, un-optimizable and using reference-counted GC - yes, that must be the future).

The real reason Nokia will not use Android is that it makes them into just another hardware handset manufacturer. "Who, Nokia, isn't that a small HTC spin-off in Taiwan?"

Re:Android

[sznupi]

There's also something to say about explaining stupid behaviours of "other people" by some predictable instincts, while perceiving oneself ("team") as only sometimes falling into the same trap. Oh, wait... ;)

(and generalisations - for example Nokia is not my main mobile phones (I have an old secondary one that's good for the limited role it has), and yet I apparently "supported" them in this thread - being perceived as some kind of diehard fan by some, while IMHO just trying to see the whole picture; which is of course, TBH, exactly what you wrote about and even more about my little rebuke above :P )

Re:Android

[sznupi]

Is something stopping you from releasing that Qt app for Maemo also on Symbian?

Re:So what about the upcomming N8?

[spectrum-]

N8 is nothing all that dramatic. Symbian ^3 is just an evolutionary rather than revolutionary departure from Symbian ^1 (aka S60 v5). Symbian ^4 is due towards the end of the year which is apparently much more advanced. Also bear in mind Nokia isn't the only brand using Symbian. Sony Ericsson and Samsung both use it. So Symbian is in acurrently somewhat transitional phase. I wouldn't bank on it not remaining very popular in the medium to long term. Symbian certainly dropped the ball on interface and GUI innovation but it's code is tried and tested and considered rock solid at the back end. I wouldn't write it off yet nor consider its future based on N8 or some current phones with a few issues. Lets also not forget that despite some bad press the N97 has sold really well.

Nothing happens to N8

[Ilgaz]

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 is "The Register" which was/is British but hasn't got a slightest clue about British based/invented Symbian which has roots in Psion. They became some kind of "reverse iFanboys" too. They only watch iPhone scene, just to bitch about it.

I don't want to feed the trolls but, it is Symbian who will have the majority, not MeeGo.

Re:Nothing happens to N8

[ricegf]

Yes, Symbian owns the lion's share of the world smartphone market, and will for several years yet. Nokia's grand strategy to move the Symbian development world to QT 4 is good for Symbian, but even better for MeeGo - QT-based Symbian apps can also be delivered to MeeGo with a simple recompile, and MeeGo's 30+ corporate partners will help mature the next generation platform while Symbian continues to bring in the cash for Nokia.

Good strategy.

Not to discount iOS and Android, both with very visible and strong market momentum, but Nokia's approach has a pretty good shot at maintaining the volume sales crown for years while providing a very long and smooth transition to a mainstream and source-compatible successor to Symbian. Profitability from the low end over the long run is the bigger challenge, IMHO.

Time will tell.

Re:Nothing happens to N8

[sznupi]

"Low end" is not very meaningful in this case (and such timeframe) anyway. S30 is it now, S40 will be soon; For Symbian to go to "low" there'd need to be yet another massive shift (Morph? ;) ). And anyway, Nokia seems to be doing not bad with brining the world lots of affordable devices.

Ovi store isn't app store either

[Ilgaz]

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 don't think they will let someone "ATDT (some island)" in any form, with root access or not. We speak about millions of devices here.

Re:Ovi store isn't app store either

[Microlith]

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.

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 (and will quickly be switched to) a no-DRM mode.

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.

You can send an SMS from the device right now via dbus. The call stack in Maemo is closed, but they're using oFono in MeeGo. I have no doubt the OS will give the user control but to say that it -must- be locked down in some fashion and they -must- deny the user control is nonsense.

Re:Ovi store isn't app store either

[Microlith]

I suppose I should clarify.

In the "DRM" mode, only the "extras" repository is available (and any a vendor may add,) and promotion to that requires your program be reviewed (in a far more open process than anything Apple can offer.) Abusive software like you mentioned is unlikely to pass muster.

The "unstable" repositories will only be addable in no-DRM mode, and you're on your own.

Well, duh!

[blind biker]

Try this: develop on Symbian for a while. Then develop on Qt for a while. See?

Re:Well, duh!

[sznupi]

Why not both?

Re:Open source is the key?

[edivad]

Symbian is a dead OS. The kernel code is junk, and the userspace API is just braindead. Symbian is the kind of Open Source path taken by dying companies. Open Source by desperation. Good bye Symbian, you sure won't be missed.

iPhone NeXT/BSD but doesn't change anything

[Ilgaz]

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 appear and in fact, mac game market is even shrinking even with the Intel switch ending the endian/sse/altivec madness.

What I mean is, the Windows platform dominance doesn't change, the respect to the "real OS" doesn't go higher, products doesn't jump from mobile to desktop, companies doesn't say "so, lets support this neat OS".

If anyone thinks this will somehow increase Linux support, my bet is Maemo will work flawlessly with Windows Desktop _first_. It will be the reality until Nokia (and partners) get rid of the idiots who has World's least problematic and truly multiplatform SDK (Qt) in hand and still manages to ship Windows only apps _coded in Qt_.

Re:iPhone NeXT/BSD but doesn't change anything

[sznupi]

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.

Re:Open source is the key?

[sznupi]

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:So what about the upcomming N8?

[Luckyo]

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 vent that they have to program for the platform that has such tight rules and regulations on how to code for it. You can usually tell that this is the case when whining focuses on problems that are long gone from modern symbian.

Re:Open source is the key?

[Luckyo]

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 even try to park it in the busy center without a private reserved space.
Blackberry: The sedan you use for actual shuttling when mileage counts. Is not cool in any way and if you only own a sedan, people with trucks think you're poor.
Symbian: The european-style city car. Small, and of limited utility but runs wonderfully even with underpowered engines and can be parked pretty much anywhere.

Re:So what about the upcomming N8?

[teh31337one]

N8 will be the last "flagship" model running Symbian ^3 http://gizmodo.com/5571633/nokia-ditching-symbian-for-n+series-phones

meeGo = Mi-go?

[Lehk228]

how about R'lyeh OS?

Re:meeGo = Mi-go?

[martinux]

how about R'lyeh OS?

Will there be an O'R'lyeh book on coding for the OS? What will they put on the cover?

Re:Open source is the key?

[saihung]

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.

Great

[Dionysus]

I got a N97, and although happy with the hardware, is really unhappy about the Symbian OS. Slow response, bad UI (whether you are comparing to iPhone or the new Android or N900). Hopefully, they remove the ridiculous C/D/E drives and just use the unix unified file layout. If they hadn't done this, my next phone probably wouldn't be a Nokia phone.

Re:Very pleased

[SpazmodeusG]

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.

Re:Very pleased

[lennier1]

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.

Re:Very pleased

[sznupi]

Do you see something about "getting attached" in just being a steady customer for over a decade?

Re:Very pleased

[Yer Mum]

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?

Re:Open source is the key?

[aliquis]

That was an utterly useless car analogy, as they always tend to be, and doesn't make any sense at all.

Truck? Cranes? Small streets? Parking in cities?

We're talking phones, better talk about and compare things they actually do.

Re:Open source is the key?

[aliquis]

Meanwhile AmigaOS has been multitasking since 1985(4?)

Oh, the joy to have an Amiga-styled phone running AROS on ARM (more development needed ..) or MorphOS on PPC + built-in UAE for ADF-images ;)

Genesi? Are you listening? We need PPC-phones, or well, I do, can't speak for everyone else ;)

The intention was to post the first sentence as AC, but well, a tinker/hackers phone for fun computing would had been a sweet thing and UNIX-style OSes isn't necessarily my idea of the perfect tinkering/hack-style phone. The nanonote seems like close to the ideal portable computing platform to me, would have needed more ram, wifi, 3g and way more support from it's users though.

My ideal idea of making computing fun again would had been to base the OS of something like Syllable, get the Haiku and AROS developers on-board to do, well, implement whatever was good with BeOS and AmigaOS, like maybe some BeOS compatible APIs or what not, try to convince the developer of SkyOS what a great idea it would be and so on :D. Then finally we could have something like but way better than OS X ;). GCC and Posix compatibility would find its way into the OS as it always does and we'd have a nice platform again =P
(Though I can't say I know shit about the foundations of either of those OSes, their differences and what parts are better than any other. I just know they are small and hobbyist style and each try to bring a somewhat similar experience but all on their own which makes them less likely to succeed.)

It was the official strategy since Day 1!

[Kensai7]

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 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 code they will eventually target both platforms.

No other platform provides such capability right now, except for the awfully weak JRE.

Bad name..

[malkavian]

Well, bad phonetically for those of us that've read the Lovecraft books.. Somehow having a Mi-go in the phone may not be such a great thing!

Re:Open source is the key?

[Hurricane78]

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.

Re:Very pleased

[Hurricane78]

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 need for a app store back in and before 2004, when the first Symbian smart phones came to the market.
You just went to Google and typed “Symbian $myAppKeywords”. Up came and come countless sites listing tons of Symbian apps, allowing download and linking to the manufacturer’s site.
And then you can also just search for MIDP (Java) software. Which again lists you lots of sites with lots of apps.

* It’s really just Applethink in an Apple world, where there is a point to a single app store.

Re:Very pleased

[hyartep]

n900 was never going to be mainstream product. that's why it was not advertised much.

it was supposed to be next step toward maemo6, which should have been 1st mainstream nokia with maemo.

things are now more complicated, because of meego and transition from maemo to meego. next device will have meego branding but technologically it will be something between maemo and meego (e.g. maemo is debian, meego is fedora, next nokia device will be meego, but based on debian).

Re:Very pleased

[lennier1]

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, full text search through contacts/text messages/mails without borders) with a comfort which practically no other smartphone offered at that time (unless you wanted to shell out a ton of money for the first WinCE phones and bluescreens in your pocket).

But it took until 2004 to sway me away from the OTC and the 3660 when the 7710 came with its superior Symbian Series 90 platform (which although abandoned continues its legacy with today's Hildon in the N900).

It boils down to deciding what works best for oneself and to me that usually was Nokia but at least to me they've burnt a lot of bridges by constantly shooting themself in the foot thanks to bad decisions (and sometimes abandoning superior products along the way).

Re:Very pleased

[Luckyo]

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 is why they are by far the biggest mobile phone maker. You obviously won't hit apple's level of profit with that design philosophy, but you will make a lot of people your die-hard fans who will know that you are actually catering to their exact needs rather then make one-size-fits-all blob that works fine for most, but doesn't really excel at anything.

That's n900 for you. A model that will sell maybe a million or so only, but it will find its audience and make them very happy and satisfied. And then nokia will do what it always did - polish the concept and perfect it, while continuing to sell relatively small amounts at a modest profit. And then eventually it becomes yet another success story like n95.

Re:Very pleased

[mxh83]

And about the portrait mode http://nokiamobileblog.com/nokia-n900-portrait-mode-n900-update-to-bring-portrait-mode/
Nokia has not made complete UIs for portrait mode. Certain screens have been designed only in landscape

Stop acting all surprised !

[LaRainette]

I REALLY don't see what is so complicated about Nokia's strategy but nobody seems to get it...

For f**k's sake Engadget seems to be the only website who reporting correctly about this, and it is Nokia related (like their nemesis) !

Symbian^3 is an evolution of Symbian S60 5th ed, even though a lot has been changed on the graphical point of view, it is supposed to be full featured stable and light and it is aimed at low-mid range smartphones in the end. Symbian ^3 will roll on Nokia N8 in July-Aug 2010 and offer some bad ass value !
Meego is their High End OS. It will roll on Nokia N9 in late 2010.

I really don't see what's complicated, and I really don't see how what you report is news : it was announced countless times by Nokia. If this is about making this official at least stop acting all surprised !

Re:Stop acting all surprised !

[kangsterizer]

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 same time retaining the advantages of being a lot more open than android (which makes N900's small success).

I mean like installing pidgin or aircrack or whatnot if you feel like it is pure awesomeness for a programmer, nerd or geek whatever u call it.
Besides, while doing this, still being able to use it "like and iphone" as in nice, lagfree and easy, for when you actually need the phone to be reliable.. that's double awesomeness.

That's something no one delivered yet.

Re:Stop acting all surprised !

[sznupi]

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" and with Symbian firmly going into middle-segment (c'mon, a thing like 5230 for less than $150 without contract?). Now Meego goes on the top - Nokia toying with it for a few years, with the last effort (doesn't really seem worse than a first semi-serious effort at almost anything) actually being a phone, was a good hint.

Re:Stop acting all surprised !

[kangsterizer]

yes, yes the cpu, i think you're tracking my posts lol

Re:Stop acting all surprised !

[LaRainette]

What I meant in my post and I'm willing to acknowledge it wasn't very clear was : Nokia has been saying they would do :
High end => MeeGo
Low-mid end => Symbian^3 (and then of course Symbian^4)

for months ! Why not just believe the guys when they officially state their development policy ?

Re:Stop acting all surprised !

[sznupi]

Not low, that's where S40 will be for a long time (even where S30 is still - check out 1280 or the most basic C1, very recent devices)

Re:Stop acting all surprised !

[sznupi]

Or probably just opened two subthreads at roughly the same time - and it's you who posted similar points in a row! ;p (I don't really look at the names of posters)

I wonder.

[vegiVamp]

Does this mean I'll be able to upgrade my N97 ? I love the hardware, but I'm sick and tired of crappy Symbian.

Good Thing

[cjb110]

tbh I think this is a good thing. Meamo died because there was just 3 devices that ever used it, so all the promise it had as an OS were stunted. With this descision MeeGo will *have* to evolve and at least keep up with Android and iOS.

Nokia have always had a problem with their ranges, they produce so many models that whats supposed to be high-end has less features than the middle phone of the other range...see the N and E ranges for quite a few examples of this.
This will give the ranges a consistent and global difference.

Having said all that, Symbian S60 and ^3 still has (and had for a while) features that other phones are only just getting!

Re:Good Thing

[sznupi]

"Died"? More like merged with one other team (and probably a provider of SoCs for some future top N device - "smartphone Atom" a generation or two away from now might be, perhaps, bearable...), hence the name change - not really a neccessary thing, but I gues "expected" during such mergers.

And Infra Red. And Replaceable battery. And...

[Anonymous Coward]

And Infra Red. And Replaceable battery. And WiFi bridge. And Tethering. And do you want any more?

Plus, the N900 is not the top of the line. The N900, like the N770,800 and 810 are proof-of-concept toys, where their openness allows Nokia to see where users take the platform, rather than hire a marketing company to BS them Where They Want To Go Today.

Re:Very pleased

[Teun]

I bought the N900 without a phone (SIM) card, purely to be used as a micro computer with WIFI. and SIP (VOIP)

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.

Re:Very pleased

[mdwh2]

I entirely agree with this point, and it's frustrating to hear claims that there are more apps on the Iphone, when this is just based on app store counts (when on Apple, you can't distribute anywhere else).

Windows manages just fine after all without a Microsoft App Store, and it would be absurd to claim there are more Iphone apps than Windows apps. The irony is that if Microsoft started at app store for Windows, it would probably be ridiculed by people on Slashdot, whilst Apple's app store is loved...

Re:Very pleased

[Dusty101]

Just as there is no point to an app store for your Linux or Windows desktop.

Perhaps you'd prefer the term "repository", then?

Re:Open source is the key?

[edivad]

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.

Used to be 55% in 2007, 50% in 2009 and now is 44% in Q1 2010.
I'd like to be the adversary of anyone holding ground like that.

N900 kicks Android butt

[janimal]

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.

Re:Open source is the key?

[sznupi]

And yet that means its numbers are growing by the greatest value; it's not a zero sum game, the market is getting new players (still; expect bada OS to be bigger than most other quite soon) and expanding. The latter part is what Nokia is agressively doing just very recently btw (look at the current prices of 5230, without contract)

Do whatever you want...

[Qubit]

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.

Or feel free to install Dalvik on it instead, if that's what floats your boat.

The way I'm seeing it, Google is leveraging the Linux kernel, Java, and some other bits and pieces to make a specialized OS for mobile phones that they call Android.

Nokia (and Intel) are looking to the future and seeing that as the hardware improves, there's no particular reason not to just run a stock Linux kernel, GNU userland, and then layer some mobile-device improvements on top.

QT may be part of the core system, and is supported on all MeeGo devices, but that shouldn't stop you from installing libs for GTK+, Java, or whatever else you want on your mobile MeeGo device. Android isn't designed for that kind of use, but MeeGo is.

On a separate note, given that Intel has a team working on Android on x86 and a team (or two) working on MeeGo, I wonder if they'll throw any effort into making an Android compatibility layer for MeeGo.

Re:So what about the upcomming N8?

[Luckyo]

Consider the fact that main reason why apple's iphone was literally buried alive on japanese market ins pite of huge apple fanbase (pretty much everyone in there uses ipods) was lack of payment option on the phone. It's simply such a major feature on a phone, it's like getting a wallet without credit card pockets. It's just what phones do in that culture.

It should also be noted that Nokia, Samsung and Motorola at very least seem very interested in NFC as a form of payment option, and are trying to get it to work in the west. It's mainly stalled by banks and operators fighting over who gets how big of a piece of that cake. The tech is largely ready to be deployed.

Resistive sucks

[Nicolas MONNET]

IF you put it in your pocket without locking it first, it registers dozens of unwanted cliks.

No such thing happens with a capacitive screen.

Capacitive sucks

[sznupi]

IF you put it in your hand with glows on, it doesn't register anything.

No such thing happens with a resistive screen; which also works perfectly with long fingernails.

(really, which of our posts is more "true" / did you really miss in parent post that Nokia offers capacitive too?)