Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

You have no idea buddy. Take a read:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/09/m...de-capacitive/

This is not rumour. Maemo 6 is multitouch. And Maemo6 will be compatible with N900 but don't hold your breath with multitouch on it. It wont happen on N900. May be the next Maemo device.

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

There will be maemo 6 for N900 you wait and See :D

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

Maemo 6 devices will have multitouch, yes. There _may_ however be other Maemo 5 devices before that. And to say the _next_ device will have multitouch or capacitive screen is pure speculation. And I would like you to provide a link where someone from Nokia actually confirms that there will be an official Maemo 6 update to N900 because that's what I was talking about.

Disclaimer: Just in case my location gives you any ideas, I'm not in any way affiliated with Nokia and have no insider information on this.

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

there is no official answer if n900 will get maemo6 support from nokia, they have stated many times in interviews that its too early to say either way

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

Great rumor topic, as nothing has been confirmed yet.

I'm hoping that the 'next' upgrade in hardware which also brings maemo6 will have multitouch capabilties, but on one of the newer resistive technologies!

There is allready much more out there then resistive or capacative, like hybrid screens you can use a normal stylus on, but also your finger or finger nail. Saw a video about this a while back. :)

As for multitouch, resistive, capacative, n900 with maemo6, etc. I believe not much if anything has been confirmed.

One thing I remember is that I believe at the summit they mentioned multitouch in maemo6.

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

No official confirmation but the hardware of the next N-series will be very similar to N900. Therefore N900 would get to use maemo 6 hacker edition or something. Just like the previous generation hacker edition.

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

wow that resistive multitouch is awesome..

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

The multitouch will almost certainly be a no-go for N900 should they make Maemo 6 available for it as the resistive panel is not made by Stantum (at least the controller in N900 is a pretty standard TI 4-wire resistive touch controller and the very fine, almost invisible line pattern present in Stantum panels is absent. The line pattern on the N97 is not that subtle, it serves some other purpose in case anyone's wondering).

However, if the interface takes its user commands as events as the Xserver usually does these days, it may very well be possible to tie single-finger gestures from the touch framework to provide the same input to the UI components as a true multitouch input from the captouch controller. I'm not sure how the circular motion zoom is implemented in detail, though, but it implements exactly the same effect as a captouch pinch - zoom in on the center of the gesture. A test of this concept, by any chance? :P

Other than the touch implementation, assuming the hardware differences will be slight instead of the OOHH-so-satisfying-to-even-think-of ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore @ 1+ GHz dreams Maemo 6 should be quite easily made available on the N900 as well. It's just a matter of checking what input devices are available on boot and generating the input events based on that. Should the first Maemo 6 devices not have a physical keyboard, it must naturally be provided by the captouch-managing parts of the drivers instead of the physical keyboard controlling parts of the SW. Maemo is a quite true Linux, implementing this shouldn't be a problem.

And yes: me wants Maemo 6 on N900! Yes! Even if it means giving some of the slickest functionality up.

Edit: Typomaster 2000 rescanned the text :P

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

Totally agreed man.:D

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

Please stop promising this then. When someone asks if they will get an OS update on their device they most probably mean an official one. And if they are simply answered "yes" by someone who seems to know what he's talking about they will expect it. This way at some point we'll have a lot of angry people complaining that "Nokia promised we would get an OS update!! They lied to us!!"

Edit: By OS update here I mean specifically Fremantle -> Harmattan

Re: Maemo6 as update for N900?
 

It has been stated that it's OMAP3, so Cortex-A9 is not an option (A9's would be OMAP4). The 3440 is IMHO unlikely as the 3430 already is on the edge with regard to power consumption. IMO they either keep the 3430 (I hope not), or move on to 36xx that would mean a 720MHz with a comparable power envelope or (less likely) a 1GHz.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Threads merged.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

This is from NOkia.
http://www.nokia.com/press/press-rel...newsid=1358666

Nokia Devices & Services operational priorities
In addition to providing its key financial targets, Nokia also outlined key Devices & Services operational priorities for 2010. These are:
- Improve our user experience;
- Re-engineer our Symbian user interface; deliver a major product milestone before mid-year 2010, and another major product milestone before the end of 2010;
- Deliver our first Maemo 6-powered mobile computer, with an iconic user experience, in the second half of 2010;
- Significantly increase the proportion of touch and/or QWERTY devices in our smartphone portfolio;
- Scale up our Services business by expanding geographically and in partnership with more operators;
- Provide third party developers with better tools to create applications and content for our Ovi ecosystem;
- Further optimize the industry's lowest cost end-to-end business model in Mobile Phones; and
- Continue to build on our affordable and localized services offerings for emerging market consumers.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

I think that the main concern is not only if N900 will be upgraded to Maemo 6 or not, but if the official Nokia software provided with Maemo 5 will be improved with new features and enhancements.

If you take a look at Bugzilla, most of the enhancements (spetially related to GUI non conformant with Hildon style) or improvements are "won't fix" until Harmattan.

So, does it mean that we won't see any enhancement to the N900 software stack? If there is no such upgrade to Maemo 6, it is.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Doubtful. Save for a minor update or two, Nokia will forget about the N900 users and focus only on Maemo 6, which most likely won't work on the N900. Its the same stupid story with the prior tablets. Make, ship, then forget & move on.

Its like buying a Dell that will only run XP, nothing else, and if you want Windows Vista you have to buy a new Dell, and if you want Windows 7 you have to get yet another Dell. Its a crappy model.

Maemo 3 -> N800
Maemo 4 -> N810
Maemo 5 -> N900
Maemo 6 -> N920
Maemo 7 -> N950 (or whatever, N1000 just looks silly)

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

That is so wrong on many levels than I won't even reply but just unsubscribe from the thread. D'oh!

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Makes me worry as well, especially since the just posted aims for 2010 quite clearly make Maemo 6 and a device it runs on a main target. Should I or shouldn't I buy a N900 now or wait another 18 months (hey, it said second half 2010 which means summer 2011 :p)... Damn, it always hurts so much to shell out another 500 bucks every half a year... :D

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Without knowinhg the bugs you're referring to it's impossible for me to give any answer beyond "Maemo 5 will have updates". Please ask in those bugs adding me to the CC or link them here. Thanks!

To rjzak, this has been discussed and all goes down to the mistake of comparing a stable x86 architecture for the more stable category of laptop/PC with the fast evolving OMAP architecture and mobile devices. This time the hurdle is the jump from resistive to capacitive sceen, from single touch to multitouch. In principle this is technically easier to bridge than an OMAP incompatible jump.

As said before several time, this debate is too especulative for my taste before a first Harmattan release showing what are the UI changes. In principle most middleware don't have big issues jumping to/from Maemo 5/6.

At the end the equation today is simple: if you like the N900 and you have the money, buy it. If not, look for something else, now or in the future, from Maemo or from someone else. I'm confident that if you are reading these lines now you are going to be happy with Maemo. :)

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Wrong.

(You would have a point if you were talking about Symbian devices, though.)

The first tablet, the N770 shipped with OS2005 ("Maemo 1"), which was later upgraded to next version, OS2006. Afterwards, Nokia launched the second tablet, the N800, with OS2007; and due to feedback from users, incorporated elements from 2007 with the 2006 edition, thus creating the OS2007 Hacker Edition for the N770.

Eventually, the N810 was launched, with OS2008 ("Maemo 4" AKA Chinook), and the N800 was also upgraded to this OS. Another Hacker Edition was made for the N770, with parts of the new OS. Time passed and an updated version of OS2008 (Maemo 4.1? AKA Diablo) was launched for the N8x0 devices.

It was decided to skip the next release, Elefantia, and integrate its features on its sucessor, Fremantle (this caused a somewhat long period where nothing new was seen on the NIT horizon after Diablo). Which brings us to today, with Fremantle running on N900 hardware.

So there.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

n900 is fresh :) and ultra cool. M6 device will be announced somewhere in the mid of next year and will ship God knows how many months afterwards .. n900 makes sense from all aspects.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Just an example:
- Bug 5625 (RSS Feed Reader): Feed list (Folder tree) uses non-finger friendly classic scrollbars
[...]
Comment #1 from Andre Klapper (maemo.org) 2009-10-20 20:41:46 GMT+3 [reply]
According to the Spec the folder tree uses a GTK Tree View.
It is not planned to change this for Fremantle - keeping this open for Harmattan.
[...]

They are usually related to non-finger friendly UI's or lack of features.

Regards

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Got something similar as a reply to a bug, related to the GUI, but not multitouch. The same guy though. I am not sure, why they are so anal about this topic. Either way, a road map for Maemo 5 would be nice, to see what we can rely on and on what not.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Thanks, answered: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5625#c6

It's a problem in an application (that happens to be open source, by the way). In the times of Harmattan, N900 users will have several choices for a RSS Feed Reader anyway.

osfight.de, I can provide concrete explanations if you provide concrete bug numbers.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Of course, I think lots of alternatives will appear any time soon. But for average-joe user, upgrades and improvements are expected, even if it implies changing a default application for a better one.

In the case of the example, the RSS feed reader is absolutely under featured and the UI is a mess, so I would expect to be substituted for a better application if it can't be fixed.

It's the same concept of a Linux distribution. With every release, some of the applications are improved, others are replaced with better alternatives.

If the N900 wouldn't receive an upgrade to Maemo 6, at least this kind of improvements/replacements should be done.

Thank you, anyway, for your responses and clarifications. I appreciate very much your work.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

I've just placed my order for my N900 and I can only say that I feel most emphatically that I hope Maemo6 will be available in its full glory on the N900. I would hate to purchase a device that will be outmoded for no good reason, like a common WindowsMobile device! I purchased Maemo for new paradigms in mobile OSes, and I'd hate to see it not to be able to upgrade to the latest and greatest without buying new hardware.

Sure, I can see how some features may not work the same way on the N900 if the next maemo device has new hardware, but that's no reason to hold back an update. The N900 would simply not have a program version that has say, capacitive multitouch support in its repository.

Nokia N900 will Run Maemo 6
 

Do anybody knows will N900 be able to run upcoming Maemo 6 ? :)

Re: Nokia N900 will Run Maemo 6
 

farrukhgondal - the short answer is that nobody outside of Nokia knows and Nokia hasn't made an official announcement

Everyone Else - Be nice, remember that English may not be farrukhgondal's native language.

P.S. I had also hoped that it was an announcement. :(

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Threads merged.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Going by history, I'd expect it to. Previous models were upgradeable. But hardware requirements depend on the final feature set and functions of Maemo 6. I'm sure Nokia is trying to stay within the constraints of the N900 hardware, but sometimes the software will decide what hardware is necessary. Evidently, the hardware platform hasn't been set in stone at the moment. If it were, Nokia could simply give an answer, but they haven't, so we'll wait.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Not necessarily. You might be surprised how far in advance N900 hardware was set in stone prior to it even being publicly acknowledged by Nokia. ;)

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Texrat, I thought about that myself. Hardware is tested for 1-3 years, and hardened way faster than my theory lets on. Makes me think it is strategy to protect sales. Makes me think it won't, now that I think of it. But I hold out hope...

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Ugh nokia... Learn a thing or two from Apple.

If the hardware supports it (Which it does) then release the freaking update. I don't enjoy going hungry because you didn't want to release the update.

Release the update when you're ready.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

My question is not if N900 will be upgraded to M6. If Nokia is saying that it can't be done either you people don't buy N900 and get over it or be happy with what you have. Since the beginning it was "hinted" that probably N900 would not support M6 anyway so get over it.

I bought N900 and I am happy with it.

BUT... I would like to know if M6 will be a more a release that will see just incremental updates, instead of revolutionary ones like M5->M6. When M7 comes out would the devices that used M6 be capable of using M7?

If not, the excuse that "we dont know what the future holds and be happy with what you have" doesnt hold anymore. After all, it is marketed as a mobile computer and I can do this with my computers. Also iPhonies/Droidz can do the same...

People will just flock to other platforms if they can get a "new OS" for €9.99.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Good point! Even if I had the option to PAY to upgrade I would still be happy. I'm not at all for china needing to mass produce another million units and pump that much death into the air because Nokia wasn't willing to release it to current users.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

I'd have to agree, and if the new hardware is basically the same except for multi-touch, maybe a compass, etc... It's pretty easy to retrofit it anyway in the N900 and keep binary compatibility with some little check for the very specific features.

Of course if the CPU jumps to 2Ghz and we get a SLI 3D card things might be too different to consider it ;-)

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Not too sure about that. Might be they want to push some new UI elements that rely on multi-touch... How would you make them run on an N900? Yes, you could always argue that they could check if the hardware's available and then provide either this or that interface/gesture... but that's not what Nokia usually does. They concentrate on one solution and deliver. (I'm not saying this is good. It's just the way it usually is.)

I'm glad this thread exists, though. Now the N900 is out and the first firmware upgrade will soon be released, what else would we have to talk about? ;)

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Great thread. The bigger problem I foresee with Maemo 6 is not whether we'll be able to run it or not on the N900(we sure will, eventually), rather whether we'll be able to run Maemo 5 software on Maemo 6 unmodified or not. Basically unless Maemo 6 will have a built in Maemo 5 emulator (much like xp support for windows 7), all the hard work of the community will be wiped out as far as Maemo 5 apps concerned: the cycle of porting will be forced to continue.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

If enough people ever wake up and realize they're not really getting that, then what?

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Qt development is the cure.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

This is a totally different question. Feel free opening a new thread to discuss it. fwiw we are saying that Maemo 5 Qt 4.6 apps will run in Maemo 6 and we are discussing with GTK+ and Hildon maintainers how to get their Maemo 5 API ported to Maemo 6. For the rest is mostly about porting bindings, I guess.