Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Problem is that they wont. :(

People still think more with their pockets. Even more because they can not grasp the difference between a new OS and some company finally letting you use the BT module that was inside of your phone for a "small price".

People think it is a nice idea to pay a bit more and get an "upgraded" machine because they are thinking that they made a GREAT deal. Heck, if Nokia would charge me 10e for M6 on my N900 I would sign up tomorrow. :P

I am deviating from the main topic of the thread now and talking more about psychology than about the technology under M6 and N900 but since there are a lot Nokia folks here, Hi Quim!! :D, maybe, just maybe, something might change...

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Interesting thread, but I've only managed to read half of it. All the other software and library versions aside (most of it is OSS, it can ported from and to pretty much everything) the key point in being able to support older hardware in a newer OS is the availability of drivers for the hardware. If the kernel boots on the hardware, the rest is basically details. So the question I have is whether the hardware of the N900 will be supported by Maemo 6 (noone can answer this one), or better, is the hardware of the N900 supported by the kind of drivers which are portable to newer kernel versions. If the drivers for the N900 are binary only and Nokia won't update them to Maemo 6 then basically the N900 is a dead end.

OTOH, I'm sure the entire software stack of Maemo 6 will likely work just as well on the older kernel revision of Maemo 5. I care more about community support and updates than the "official" ones. Is there any deeply technical reason why the software stack of Maemo 6 wouldn't run on a Maemo 5 kernel which has the proper hardware drivers available?

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

So far the biggest potential hurdle is the input hardware (and thus likely usage paradigm), Maemo 6 being multitouch.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Even that should be easy to overcome by just having an option to switch it off, no? I cannot really imagine a usage paradigm that would be so dependent on multitouch as to render it unusable/non-user-friendly if turned off.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Neither can I. Games could use the hard keyboard. Things like pinch zoom, just zoom with rocker at the top. Or swirl to zoom. There probably is something that can be done only with multitouch but I can't imagine multitouch being enough a reason to block putting maemo6 on the N900.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

If a lot of the apps that come with M6 are dependent on multitouch, you could stick with the ones currently in M5 that are not multitouch-oriented. Otherwise, a refresh of everything else may be nice, so it'd be nice if N900 users could upgrade to M6 for everything except the multitouch apps.

For re-binding to solve the multitouch problem, you could make it so you could hold down the volume button or shift key or whatnot while tapping the screen, and then release to create an "anchor point". Then, you could touch the screen again for the secondary point. Or, a key which toggles symmetrical pinching in which if you touch the right side of the screen, a mirror touch point is created symmetrically on the left side, making it pinch or zoom depending on if you moved towards or away from the center. I mean, most or all of the apps are going to be doing something like that any way, where the touch points are symmetrical in regard to the center of the screen. I can think of few instances where this won't be true. There's simply not enough screen space really to allow anything but that.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

maemo is ****ing awesome. who needs gimmicky pinching touch? oh yea....

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't single touch a subset of multitouch? If Maemo 6 will support multitouch it must also support single touch, right? So using a single touch hardware like the N900 means that the screen will only return single touch gestures, but that should not affect 99 percent of usability.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

I agree with your conclusion (I can't believe that the interface must require multiouch); but your logic doesn't "prove" anything, in fact the exact opposite.

Have you seen Superman 3? There's a scene in a bank where Richard Pryor has to insert two key cards simultaneously, 6 feet apart.

Now, let's reread your logic:

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

A naysayer is me!
I don't think nokia will bother to port maemo 6 to the n900 unless it can be done in 20 minutes.
Think about it: why would they spend time and resources reducing their potential market for the next device? (i guess few n900 owners would buy the next one if they can have maemo6 without)
Then again, hackers have also done amazing things until now. Maybe there might be a M6HE

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Man, I could not disagree more with this analogy...

If you explain it to me, in a software development way, on how it cant work, let's say multi-touch API's have a totally different way of implementing "touch" than the "single"-touch ones(which would already prove to be a miserable design), would be better understood...

There is always some dodgy hack to be applied to the software level that could compensate in some hardware deficiency (sometimes the opposite also holds true).

(Just getting out of the topic a bit)
N900 is spreading like wild fire here in my company, provided that the company I work for gives us free phones and the money for the n900 comes from our pockets, and many people that I know from my company is already thinking in developing with Qt or Python because of this device. So it means that Nokia gained momentum with it...

And it comes back to what worries me, is how Nokia will try to update its Maemo line. Nokia needs to give the ability for its users to update the software of their mobile computers without the necessity of buying another device...

And I am not talking about the N900, I am talking about when the update for M6 comes out. People are already waiting to update their phone with the latest software, not in a hackish way, and nothing screams more professional than having a computer that can be updated hassle free...

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

i think that the nokia n900 will get MAEMO 6 OS 8th or 10th firmware update for the phone with java suport and lot more space for installation and battery fix that lost alot longer and bugs fix.

Why? Nokia wont disappoint us nokian
and the current stage that it is in it only support multi touch,
i think that nokia is try to give us multitouch on the resistive screen+keybroad but it wont be perfect as capacitive screen right know in my option.
Its pretty much unstable as it is in production

just options

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

HangLoose

If you explain it to me, in a software development way, on how it cant work, let's say multi-touch API's have a totally different way of implementing "touch" than the "single"-touch ones(which would already prove to be a miserable design), would be better understood...

There is always some dodgy hack to be applied to the software level that could compensate in some hardware deficiency (sometimes the opposite also holds true).

(Just getting out of the topic a bit)


N900 is spreading like wild fire here in my company, provided that the company I work for gives us free phones and the money for the n900 comes from our pockets, and many people that I know from my company is already thinking in developing with Qt or Python because of this device. So it means that Nokia gained momentum with it...

And it comes back to what worries me, is how Nokia will try to update its Maemo line. Nokia needs to give the ability for its users to update the software of their mobile computers without the necessity of buying another device...

And I am not talking about the N900, I am talking about when the update for M6 comes out. People are already waiting to update their phone with the latest software, not in a hackish way, and nothing screams more professional than having a computer that can be updated hassle free...


I total agreed with you please nokia dont disappoint us

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

I hope Nokia updates the n900 with Maemo 6! I will be so disappointed if they do not. That would mean the n900 is already a dead end if it can not run the newer OS when it is available, what a waste if it is not happening. I would not buy another Nokia tablet if this is the case. The iPhone 1st generation, which is over 2 years old has been updated every time a new OS has been released. Come on Nokia don't disappoint us!!

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Not necessary. For one thing there's Mer. And even if you didn't want to run Mer, then Nokia's plan is for apps to be cross-platform as long as they are built using QT. So ideally you could take an app programmed in QT from Symbian or say Maemo 6 and run it in Maemo5. And vice versa in the future.

But yes, Nokia will have to make an interesting decision.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

I hope we see Maemo 6, but I don't expect it.

I happen to think that the market has evolved. Android devices are now being regularly updated by google, and even WinMob machines are now being upgraded (in some cases) to newer OS levels. iPhone of course has been doing this too, through hw revisions.

so all the key competition is ALREADY allowing OS updates on existing devices. Maemo is pushing the boundaries for openness and trying to push market share. for Nokia to cut off a large installed base by not updating the OS is in my view suicidal. We may as well head off to Android right now.

...

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

did you read this thread? specifically the post detailing how the 770, 800 and 810 were upgraded through the different maemo releases?

Is there any reason to think that they wouldn't do the same now?

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

From the way that they were talking about Maemo 6, I got the feeling that the n900 would have the same fate as the 770 Tablet...
Made me hesitate at first, but still got a n900...

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

wouldnt it make sense for nokia to let n900 owners upate to maemo6 when its avalible

if you can totally reflash the device wouldnt this be possible with something like maemo flasher??

surely it would be like upgrading xp - vista - windows7 exscuse the microsoft termanolagy

if nokia are using us as maemo beta testers wouldnt it make sense to let us upgrade to maemo6 and then they only have maemo6 to concentrate on development wise

to me it would make sense iam sure the n900 hardware wouldnt provide any problems

as the n900 is so like a computer i would think it would be possible

wether nokia would allow it though

would anyone buy it like a service pack :-) that another option and one where nokia is win win so surely they would like that

they dont loose if you keep maemo 5
they gain money if you buy the maemo6 service pack
they make money if you buy a new maemo6 device

sounds like the perfect compromuise to me

id be willing to pay 50-60 tops for maemo 6 service pack depending on what it offers over maemo 5

what about you peeps :-)

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

This is disappointing. To me it just seems like it would be cleaner for Nokia to deprecate Maemo 5 and force everyone to move to Maemo 6 when its released so that there is one Maemo application framework to have to support. While the transition might be tricky in the long run having more devices on few operating systems is better for everyone. In this day and age being forced to upgrade is something we're just used to doing.

This assumes there are no hw limitations preventing the upgrade.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

I agree, the more I think about how to
- keep the evolving community engaged
- easily provide new capability for the N900 without split development resources

it has to be "n900 supports Maemo 6".

trying to retrofit too much stuff to M5 is expensive.
yet making M6 available for N900 gives quick access to a large team of users who'll be incented & excited to continue developing apps, report bugs on the M6 platform. Many of these issues are unlikely to be HW dependent, so this benefits new devices too

This is what I expect from an open, linux environment -- supporting a variety of HW really shouldn't be hard. maemo is intended to support multiple devices. Support is being ADDED for things like multitouch, but not at the removal of single-touch.

Google (android), Apple (iPhone OS), Microsoft (WinMob) are all doing some amount of upgrading of existing HW with new OS versions. In their case it's purely a push - but it keeps buyin to the platform, and may reduce support issues.

yet maemo not only has this but as I said above an "army" of testers out there helping improve the environment. To not utilise this to me is to say the community isn't valued.

Re: Maemo 6 on N900
 

1++ (from 2010)

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

And yet again, someone requesting the new operating system for their older device.

Look, I want _official_ Harmattan ("M6") support for the N900 as much as everybody else, but: why are you not requesting Fremantle ("M5") support for the N810/N800?

Because the majority no longer cares about the N810. This community has been overrun by N900 owners.

And that's exactly what will happen when the N910 comes. Your N900 will be worthless (for Nokia/rest of the world -- you can of course keep using it, as much as I keep using my N810 for night reading since the N900 still doesn't beat it at that).


Having that in mind, consider if your arguments have really any value. The only valid argument IMHO is "as a good will gesture" which would, of course, be very good.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Actually that is a fair question. In fact how feasible is it to get maemo 5 ported to previous devices?

If we are demanding maemo 6 is back-ported to the n900 then it is only fair to demand maemo 5 to previous Nokia tablets.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Ok, I know I'm a N900 user, so maybe it's a bit skewed, but my opinion is that N800 was a bit of a flop (by comparison). Not a phone, limited usage, 250 GBP (I found references in launch-price GBP).

N900 is much more well rounded device, has the best hardware available, IS a phone and it was 500 GBP at launch.

I'm not trying to be a general poke in the back, but realistically speaking, N900 deserves a bit more attention than previous tablets, especially since it CAN run M6 easily considering it's being developed more or less on it, using the M5 as a base.

Don't get me wrong, if the next N900++ device will be just as the N900 but the screen covers more area, is 1280x720, the keyboard has numbers and so on, a-buying-I-will-go. Maybe Galileo? To soon?

It's not that much of an effort.

Also, frankly, how the UI looks is less of an interest to me. If Nokia asks for another 500GBP this year, the sales are not going to be great because nobody buys a Ferrari that expires next week.

This is already a problem of Nokia's in my view - they keep releasing phones like it's the model count that matters. Always releasing, always abandoning. I know people who long for the 7110. Not everyone wants HD color touch.

The IPhone gets a release per year (June, July, June) and the older versions are not forgotten in the least. They have their issues, but abandonment isn't one of them. I know people with the original version still installing stuff every day.

Just sayin'.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

The N8X0 didn't get Maemo 5 because Nokia hates you, it didn't because their hardware couldn't run it, specifically the 3D UI.

Now, if Maemo 6 for some reason doesn't run in the N900, perharps a way to solve the problem would be Nokia offering a massive discount on the sale of a new M6 device to N900 owners, for example, you send them your N900 unit and they mail you back a 60% discount voucher for the new device.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Except that there are probably a lot more N900s out there than there are N800/N810s. Also everyone assumes it will be like that relationship, and not like the relationship between the N800 and N810, which the N800 originally shipped with OS2007 and was later upgradable to OS2008 after the N810 came out.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Add in to the mix that the official reason Fremantle doesn't work in the N810 is because of the missing GPU. There's only ONE component in Fremantle using the GPU: the window manager. (The other components can't run because Fremantle is built for ARMv7, but that should be trivial to fix).

Now, the official reason for Harmattan not being available in the N900 is multitouch. Guess how many components and applications are using it? I'd be surprised if not ALL of them have some multitouch gesture.

If any, releasing, maintaining, documenting, and handling the UI differences for an official port of Harmattan for the N900 will be even more difficult for Nokia than releasing an official port of Fremantle for the N810.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Are you still getting security patches for the previous tablets? Because to me it seems like the biggest improvement IS the window manager. Do you really need Maemo 5 if you can't have that? I've never used the older ones, but based on screenshots they look fine for the purpose they serve.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

A LARGE discount (and I mean 40%+) on a M6 device may mitigate the impact, but you're still talking a big hit.

In terms of multitouch maemo as an OS is not (should not) be targetted at a single piece of hw. It should be a platform (like android) which can be extended to support new devices

* I would have thought maemo will end up supporting both capacitive and resistive displays
* Multitouch is an additional form of input - a non-multitouch capable display just won't generate those gestures
* For accessibility & usability reasons the interface must not entirely RELY on multitouch

Given this I don't see it as a reason why M6 can't support N900 (there may be other reasons)

So we're now presenting a set of options
* Continue broad support for M5 (personally I think this will be incomplete/restrictive & costly)
* support M6 on N900
* offer incentives for people to upgrade (reward early adopter community)

suspect nothing much will happen though :-(

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Nope, Symbian is optimized for running on a wide variety of hardware. Maemo is the best platform, and optimized for the best hardware. I'm guessing three variations, max.

What mobile review n900 - maemo 6
 

I was bored and waiting for a train so I decided to read the review of the n900 in the latest issue of What Mobile. The review was n't super enthusiastic score wise but actually summed up the phone's strengths well.

The thing that jumped out at me was that it clearly stated that the n900 will get Maemo 6 and that this would increase the life of the phone. For those of who want portrait pictures and ovi contacts not to mention turn by turn navigation this would be good news.

I assume this national UK magazine must have got this info from nokia but an official confirmation would ease a lot of worry

Re: What mobile review n900 - maemo 6
 

I think you should send them an e-mail. Any good journalist should give their source when there is no good reason to keep it secret.

Re: What mobile review n900 - maemo 6
 

Just done that - We'll see what happens

Re: What mobile review n900 - maemo 6
 

that was quick - thank you Jonathan



"Nokia has a policy on the (former) Internet Tablets to offer an upgrade to the following version of the OS, which has been the case on every device since the original 770 was released (back when it was OS 2007, 2008 etc).

We were told at Nokia World (last September) that this would continue on the N900 and its successors. It seems likely that the next two models (one which is going to be a netbook design) will have Maemo 6, upgradeable to 7. At this point, the N900 would be on 6 and theoretically have no further support.

Having said that, Nokia has usually continued support for longer than you'd expect. I suppose with Apple and Google/Android now offering free upgrades on an ongoing basis, Nokia will find it harder to simply say something is end of life as quickly as they have done before.

I hope this helps!

Regards,

Jonathan Morris
Editor, What Mobile magazine & online"

Re: What mobile review n900 - maemo 6
 

Excellent - that's the closest I have ever seen to solid info regarding M6 on the N900, thanks!

Re: What mobile review n900 - maemo 6
 

This is great news!

And I also find the netbook-design with maemo interesting.

Re: What mobile review n900 - maemo 6
 

Lots of interesting stuff in that text. Wouldn't mind to see this "netbook" either if it's true.