News & Views on MeeGo Development and MeeGo Devices
MeeGo Handset Day 1 is here! Check out the video below of it running on an Aava (atom-based) handset, the screenshots gallery, and the release notes.
A reminder that it’s still in its early stages, and only developers should be testing at this point in time.
Also, check out the official announcement over on the MeeGo website.
Above is a demo video of a pre-alpha version of MeeGo tablet edition, running on an Intel Moorestown-based device. The video appeared on YouTube last week, and the platform looks pretty impressive for being at such an early stage.
In other MeeGo tablet news, DigiTimes is reporting that Nokia are producing an ARM-based tablet due for release at the end of this year.
On Thursday, Nokia spokesman Doug Dawson stated in a Reuters article that “Going forward, N-series devices will be based on MeeGo.”. The currently unreleased N8 will be the last N-series device to run Symbian, and the rumoured N9 device is speculated to be the first MeeGo handset from Nokia – to be released in the final quarter of this year.
It’s great to see Nokia throwing more weight behind MeeGo, and dedicating a series of handsets to it. I’m looking forward to MeeGo Handset user experience details being released in the next few days.
Read more over at Ars Technica, All About Maemo, and Engadget.
For the last couple of hours I have been playing around with MeeGo v1.0 on my EeePC 1000HE netbook. I was pleased to find that it was a breeze to get going, and that all the hardware worked without issues (wifi, sound, bluetooth).
First impressions count, and MeeGo certainly delivers. The UI looks fantastic and is incredibly slick – it manages to maximise the precious screen real-estate whilst being highly responsive and intuitive. This certainly beats the competition, including Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Personally I’ve always disliked dock-style menus, but MeeGo has managed to blend the good looks of a dock, with unique and sensible functionality. Hardware accelerated video has been put to great use – task switching and menu transitions look great.
The MeeGo Myzone is the first screen presented to you once the OS has booted. It includes a summary of your calendar, tasks, email, popular app launchers, and very nicely presented status updates from your configured web accounts.
The main MeeGo toolbar provides quick access to: myzone, zones (workspaces), apps, status updates, people (instant messaging), internet, media, devices, bluetooth, networking, time/calendar, and the battery status.
Last.fm and Twitter web account integration is very slick, but the absence of Facebook is definitely noticed.
With all the recent QT hype and announcements, I was surprised to find almost all apps are GTK/gnome based, including:
Google Chrome or Chromium is provided as the web browser.
I think this is a good choice of programs, and the GTK theming has made them all suitable for the small screen. Many applications (Evolution/Banshee/Empathy) also have parts integrated in to the main MeeGo toolbar interface.
I was able to browse my network shares (sftp) using Nautilus, and was offered the opportunity to import data from the share.
The synchronisation features show great promise. I loaded my contacts from Google, and set up a bluetooth sync to my N900 mobile (although unfortunately the actual sync failed). More work is required here, but I love the way it is presented and the potential it shows.
I’m going to keep MeeGo on my netbook as a second operating system (alongside Ubuntu), but I probably won’t be using it extensively yet because I need to use extra applications and development tools which are available for me in the Ubuntu repositories. I would however suggest MeeGo to friends who are only looking to use their netbook for web surfing, email, and instant messaging.
MeeGo is a fresh and welcome addition to the selection of linux-based operating systems tailored for netbooks, and shows lots of promise – certainly one to keep an eye on.
If you’ve given MeeGo a spin, let me know your thoughts!
The Nokia Communications blog today confirmed that there will be no official MeeGo release for the Nokia N900. The information was tucked away at the bottom of a post for the new Maemo 5 update:
Moving away from the update and to look at MeeGo and the Nokia N900. Many of you have been asking whether the new MeeGo platform will be supported on the N900 once it’s device-ready. Although Nokia N900 devices are being used for platform development and testing purposes by those involved in the MeeGo project, we don’t have plans for a full scale commercial MeeGo upgrade on the Nokia N900. The reason? It’s really about ensuring that you have the best possible experience designed for the features on your Nokia N900 device. Nokia realises this news may be a disappointment for some, rest assured that Nokia will continue to support the core Maemo software on your Nokia N900, as evidenced by the PR 1.2 (V10.2010.19-1) update available today.
This does not mean that MeeGo will be unavailable for the device – it continues to be the test device for the ARM builds, and there will almost certainly be a development/community release available.
It is worth remembering that MeeGo applications developed with QT are likely to work on the N900 with the new Maemo 5 update anyway. Also, the next Nokia mobile phone running the Harmatten “MeeGo Instance” will not be a pure MeeGo device, but will support MeeGo applications.
Further reading: Engadget.
At the beginning of April, a Reuters article speculates that Nokia could be planning a MeeGo tablet in a form factor similar to that of Apple’s iPad.
MeeGo backing received a massive boost on April 12th, when the Linux Foundation announced supporting statements from Acer, Amino, Asianux, Asus, BMW Group, Collabora, Ltd., CS2C, DeviceVM, EA Mobile, Gameloft, Hancom, Linpus, Maemo Community Council, Mandriva, Metasys, Miracle, MontaVista Software, Novell, PixArt, Red Flag, ST-Ericsson, Tencent, TurboLinux, VietSoftware, Wind River, WTEC, and Xandros. More information about MeeGo at the Linux Collaboration Summit is available from Ars Technica.
In mid-April, Engadget reported on Intel’s MeeGo netbook demo at the Intel Developer Forum. The UI is still looking very moblin-esque, it will be interesting to see how similar or different the user interface ends up being between MeeGo netbook and mobile devices.
An article on Yahoo! News says that Intel are looking at MeeGo for entry-level atom-based desktops, but that it would also run on more mainstream laptops and desktop systems.
Engadget reports that one of the first rumoured MeeGo mobile devices, the LG GW990 has been ditched. This leaves only Nokia’s MeeGo compatible “Harmatten” device as a MeeGo phone we know is development.
Imad Sousou, Intel’s Open Source Technology Center Director, has just announced the first development builds of MeeGo for Intel Atom Netbook devices, Intel Atom Handheld (Moorestown) devices, and Nokia’s N900 ARM device are now available for download over at http://meego.com/downloads.
These images only contain development software up to the middleware level – no UI components are included as yet, so you will only be able to boot in to a terminal.
Reading-between-the-lines, it looks as if Intel has done it’s part, in providing the base OS infrastructure, but Nokia’s user interface contributions are yet to be seen?
Further information at: The MeeGo blog, Ars Technica, and Engadget.
Valtteri Halla, the Nokia member of the MeeGo Technical Steering Group, announced at the beginning of the month that Nokia and Intel plan to open the MeeGo repository by the end of this month.
One of the most interesting points in the blog post was that the source and binary repository will provide builds of MeeGo on Intel ATOM netbooks, and the Nokia N900 (ARM).
This means that even if there is no official MeeGo release provided to N900 users from Nokia, it will certainly be possible to install a development-grade copy on the device. I even have hopes that there might be a community maintained version if no official release emerges.
More information: Ars Technica, Engadget.
Although the merger of Maemo and Moblin has been announced, development of “Harmattan” (which would have been Maemo 6) is continuing. It is unclear exactly how Harmattan will be branded, it will not be known as Maemo, but it will be “MeeGo compatible” – using QT as it’s recommended application development framework.
Quim Gill posted some information on the Maemo forums:
For those caring about the platform in depth, Harmattan =! MeeGo. If we would make Harmattan identical to MeeGo then we would need to postpone dates and, really not for a good reason. Not a reason for app developers (the API is there anyway) and not a good reason for end users, who could not care less about packaging and some obscure middleware components. This is the only reason making Ari Jaaksi refer to Harmattan as a “MeeGo instance” instead of just “MeeGo product”.
This is why we are dropping the “Maemo 6″ *brand* while keeping all the Harmattan development full speed and in the same direction that it was.
It sounds as if Harmattan will be ‘an instance’ of MeeGo running on top of a Debian base. Other MeeGo instances will likely run on Intel’s Moblin base – as has already been announced.
Application developers who develop using QT should not have problems with either distribution, but there may be extra work involved in packaging for both ‘deb’ (Maemo) and ‘rpm’ (MeeGo) formats.
