Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

The N9 was born under odd circumstances. It was unloved by its parent and omitted from major markets for fear that it would cannibalize the sale of another product. It has a fresh and wonderfully simple UI and praised by reviewers worldwide who nevertheless pronounced it a dead os walking.

The N9’s current weakness is apps but commercial developers are not interested as Elop has dealt it a death blow with no more Meego phones hence apps like Collins/Oxford dictionaries and MS Office editors are unlikely to appear. There are some good commercial games released but the N9 will need more than a few nifty games to survive. It is clear from the onset that the N9 will have to depend on an enthusiastic user community for apps just like the N900 which was discontinued and abandoned by Nokia.

But do we have a Meego-Harmattan user community? The short answer is “No.” There is a cohesive Maemo community but this group is resisting the transition to Harmattan although their N900 phones have been discontinued and can only get less with attrition. They have not ported most of their apps over and are still talking about creating new apps for their discontinued N900 like old men clinging to their last strands of hair.

A case-in-point is the FM radio app. The N9 has FM radio hardware but no app. The API for this was done but hard for non-programmers as it could only be used in developer mode with command lines. Then somebody cobbled a rough GUI for it. It was workable but rough and had no presets. Then the app is just left like that although it is the only FM app for N9. There was no interest to polish the app but someone else is doing a very nice FM radio app for the defunct N900 called QRadio. The only way to describe this is pathetic. I’m not referring to the developer who heroically spent an afternoon to write the GUI but the legions of hapless N9 owners who are still waiting for a decent FM Radio app.

Most of the N9 apps coming out are repeats, too specialized, region specific, does a simple function or just pointless. There seem to be little interest in doing essential apps like a wi-fi analyzer or QR code reader but there seem to be an inordinate amount of timers. App development is now dependent on a new crop of novice developers who can only produce simple stuff at the moment. I’m not denigrating their efforts but where are the ones who can really contribute? Are they too engrossed in their N900s?

The N9 is the spiritual successor to the N900 but the Maemo community has not embraced the new platform. This is a devastating blow to the N9 which was depending on this community’s support for a kickstart in life, to sell massively and gain a foothold. The worldwide success of N9 may cause Nokia to rethink its WP7 only strategy. A new N9 community will eventually build up but is there time before the curtain falls?

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Exactly what I want to say but I want to keep calm and wait a bit longer

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

I know that Lardman currently works on port of his QR code reader for Harmattan. :)

Also, the "original" Maemo community didn't form overnight.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Can you port mieru or cbrPager to harmattan ?
I don't like the current comic book reader of N9 ( Meecomic)

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

I hope for a stardict app for n9 that can use the dictionary data on my Oxford advanced learner dictionary CDROM

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Isn't "Meego-Harmattan" "Maemo6"? So in a sense this is the "Meego-Harmattan" user community, right? Plus the devs here are working for your platform (I don't have an N9), there's even an ongoing Meego Coding Competition.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

The N9 is not the successor to the N900. The N950 might possibly have been (if they'd slapped a real Maemo desktop on it), but the N9 is a botched, stymied, neutered little ****** baby who was DOA and has nothing going for it. This is not like with the N900 - you knew before you even bought it that the N9 was a dead end.

Also, where do you get off making demands for anything from a group of unpaid enthusiasts who are free to do (or not do) whatever they want? Your anger should be solely directed at Nokia.

I will stick with my N900's to the end of time - or at the very least I certainly won't look to the N9 as a possible replacement. Nokia is dead to me. Let them go the Windoze route and see if I care.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

I'm actually working on a Harmattan GUI for Mieru right now at this very moment. :)
You can even check my progress on the Mieru project Github page.

I might even do a release this weekend, if everything goes right. :)

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

N900 was a dead end device even before released too :) Harmattan was announced a few month before N900 if I remember it correctly.

I have N900 but I don't use it - the Harmattan UI is nice one but you can still feel the old Maemo roots there.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

You seem to be forgetting that for the community to transition to Harmattan, the members of the community needs an N9(50). But most of us do not have one. This is partly due to the price and partly because many have migrated to other platforms (android) disgusted with Nokia.

Also if I remember correctly, for the N900, lots of devices were distributed to developers at various conferences. This is not really the case for the N9. EDIT: It seems I am mistaken. See pycage's post below

All you can do is hope that slowly over time an enthusiastic community forms around your beloved N9. No use calling this community "old men clinging to their last strands of hair".

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

meego community? lol
you're looking at it..

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

There is not so much of MeeGo on this N9 ;). I think Maemo6 is better name for this and maemo.org is right place to the n9/N950 be.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

You're wrong. It IS the case and Nokia already gave away more N9 at conferences than N900s. They gave away 300 N900s at the Maemo Conference in Amsterdam. An even higher number of N9s was given away at Qt Dev Days 2011 in Munich. And Qt Dev Days in San Francisco are yet to start.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

I don't know, but I feel like there are (were) s few million n900s sold.

And only so much as a couple hundred thousand n9s. It is REALLY limited in supply.

I think supply was strangled so much that demand diminished instead of increasing.

That and the completely out of this world price.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Yes, but in a time of two years. The N9 has been on sale for about a month now.

Is it limited in supply? Given you're in a supported country, you can just walk into a phone store, and get a subsidized N9 with contract. That was hardly possible with the N900, which was mostly only available in online stores.
In unsupported countries, the N9 can be bought in online stores. So, actually the supply situation is IMHO better than it was with the N900.

This remains to be seen.

The N900 started at 650 € as well. Prices are already falling as with most smartphones after a few weeks on sale.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Wrong, there was def. ramp-up issues in the 1st mth or so after shipping from factory was announced.
But it was confirmed as getting to normal capacity about a mth or so back.
See the epic N9 thread, was posted by a user who has contacts at soumi (the primary factory)
My mem's hazy, but it was up to about 6000/day IIRC, easily shattering Eldar's rumor of 92k.

These initial constraints def. did have an impact on pricing, & the fact that it was brand new on the market. (good street prices always take a while)
But there's no doubt pricing's been getting better, & availability's become way more widespread (for the 30-odd countries it's destined).
A kind of deja vu seems to happening for the white N9 though, hopefully it'll ramp-up very soon.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Friends, my purpose is not to demand anything from the Maemo community. If they do not want to transition to N9 there is nothing we can do about it. I just want to point out that the N9 is in danger due to very haphazard growth of the app store. Only massive sale of N9 can save the Harmattan platform now and for this to happen users expect to have some essential apps. Smartphone users are not a patient lot as there are so many alternatives now. I'm not demanding anything, I'm only hoping the Maemo community pitch in to help with their expertise and apps which can be ported over. Otherwise Elop will have an easy victory.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

I would have thought about transitioning to an N9, if it were at all possible for me to get one on contract.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

http://forum.meego.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7 ?

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

What transition? I really want a N9 but its not released yet in my country.Please send me one.Regarding what you call 'appstore' it was not built overnight for N900.Since you have one N9 with you now,you cant be impatient and make a hue and cry over here.Why dont you send MAG and all the cssu team two N9's each.And dont forget to donate one to lxp.:D

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

I think you must've actually stopped searching for what's out there.
Do you actually know all the places to look for what's around?

IME I'm seeing a very handy array of apps constantly coming out.
Enough to keep me occupied until I realise I want something else.

It's certainly better than the N900 was this early in it's life-cycle.
Did you actually own/use a N900 heavily?

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

OFFTOPIC: does the N9 have a community repo like Extras/Testing/Devel? Or do we have to rely on Ovi and other web-based app stores?

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

apps.formeego.org
Still in testing but it'll follow the same formula that was done with maemo community apps.
Folks can help test for an apps QA, before the app is finally migrated to stable etc.

http://apps.formeego.org/staging/app.../meepasswords/
http://apps.formeego.org/staging/app.../Office/qtodo/
http://wiki.meego.com/MeeGo_Apps/Community_QA

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Here not even one carrier is selling the n9, mind you. It is only sold through other partners, so it's rather expensive. It is, actually, only cheaper than the Galaxy S2 (since iPhone 4S isn't available yet).

The rumor about the number of units sold has been squashed, IMO, but the n900 had fairly good in number of units sold. We can be sure it sold more than 100k in 5 weeks (source http://www.phonearena.com/news/10000...-weeks_id11565)

The n9 probably took this long to produce this amount.

And at least you can be sure that supply is pretty good around here, Nokia stores and other retailers seen to have then in supply all the time. But at about U$900 it should be on the shelves

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

The N900 was an experimental product and Nokia never aimed it as a mass market product. Although Nokia doesn't share sales figures I think it would be fair to say that the N9 will exceed sales of N900 by far. There are probably more N9s out there now than N900s. I say this because I can see N9s in the hands of ordinary users and even those getting their first smartphone but the owner of a N900 is almost always a knowledgeable geek or power user.

Practically all N900 developers gave their apps away for free. This is probably because there was little potential to commercialize their apps due to the small installed base. However the situation has changed as the N9 is a true mass market product. Hence N9 developers should not think they have to give away their apps for free. They are fully entitled to charge for their apps which now have commercial potential.

As many N900 apps can be ported to N9 without much difficulty this is a good incentive for developers to earn some money from their previous effort. As the app pool is still small, their app may be the only one of its kind in the store and hence likely to sell well. Most N9 developers have to buy their own device except for those lucky enough to get a free N950 so they should be entitled to recoup their investment.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

This is not only literally incorrect, but so misstates the relationship between N9 and this community for the last six months that I think a clarification is in order.

Prior to 2/11, there was indeed a relationship where this community was depended on to support the N900. And this community supported it (and continues to support it) quite well. But with the N9 Nokia stepped away. It made virtually no outreach to this community prior to the N9 launch - the circumstances at the time, including Nokia's preference to turn the corner with MeeGo were summarized in Council's May blog posting .

When the N9 was formally announced, Council decided that the N9/950 sub-forum should be added in order to keep the forum organized. I don't think this has been mentioned before, but before the sub-forum was put up, we were asked to reconsider our decision so that N9 discussions could occur elsewhere, although the Nokia representative on hand was deferential to Council's decision. So N9 did not depend on the maemo community, but in that small instance we were asked to step back in lieu of the MeeGo community. Of course, there were ample other indications after the N9 announcement related to MeeGo that they need not be referenced.

Then, after MeeGo refused to host third party open-source community apps for N9 (and other MeeGo devices), N9 did not turn to, much less depend on, the Maemo community to address this issue. Instead Nokia supported another newly created site to do so. Overtures from me addressing the fragmentation of the community did not change that decision.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Nokia decided to put the bug tracker for N9 at developer.nokia.com. There was no discussion with maemo.org wrt bug tracker.

So I hope this sets the record straight for anyone who might read this thread. That said, please continue to provide comments and suggestions on if and how Harmattan, particularly the open mode issues, should be addressed in this community.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

thanks for the clarification. so this means that maemo.org is not really the place for the N9, from Nokia's POV. but how about the community?
i really had myself convinced that MeeGo-Harmattan (the N9's OS) is Maemo6 and i was hoping that if we embrace MeeGo-Harmattan and the N9 userbase, we could somehow gain back Nokia's support. i was intentionally pointing N9 users from the Philippines to check out TMO because the devs here are also working on apps for the N9 though the real motive was to try to increase the community's population so Nokia would notice N9-related activity and somehow reconsider their budget decisions. i did believe that i was not spreading misinformation, now i'm in doubt.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

nope, if WP would vanish overnight from the world leaving zero codebase left, that could save harmattan...


yeah, right :D

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Well, maemo.org was not the place for the N9 from Nokia POV in the past. The circumstances have changed again with MeeGo shutting down. So there is the question of embracing Harmattan now.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

i see no reason why we, the community, shouldn't. :)
so, how about a group hug? hehe

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

http://www.facebook.com/groups/261331570582020/
The United Nokia's N9xx (N900, N950, N9)
Well, this is the united group for all Nokia N9xx lovers and fans! This group is even open for the older Maemo based devices, for current Nokia's so called MeeGo devices (Maemo 6 Harmattan), for upcoming Maemo 7 Meltemi devices (if any...) and also for other systems using the Maemo like apps (for example Symbian Belle).

Let's not divide our small community to even smaller communities!

Any Ideas or Questions about the Nokia N9xx Devices are welcome.
Please feel FREE to post ;)

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

You seem to be forgetting the N8xx, 770 devices :(

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Surely creating a Facebook group is dividing the community! Not everyone uses Facebook...

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

@ejasmudar thanks for the information, i will change the description right away ;)
@pelago i'm sorry i havent thought about that before, but as we cannot get a domain (just like talk.maemo.org) facebook is our only solution, as the largest social network ;p

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

I don't use Facebook. Recently got a Diaspora account on joindiaspora.com though. I don't recommend using Facebook to anyone because of their disrespect to users' privacy.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

@shmerl we are getting out of topic somehow ;) i totally agree with you but keeping in contact with my friends/family is critical. As part of the minority of my "friends cycle" that agrees with you, i cant find any other way for such communication;p

You should really look who's behind maemo.org and who's behind apps.formeego.org. More or less the same people.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

Yes, we knew then the same people were doing the OBS and apps infrastructure on both sites and we like them a lot. There was still fragmentation because community N9 apps were to go to a new and different site than previous maemo apps. But this is not the place to discuss that decision.

The relevant point is to make clear to readers of this thread that, despite the implication one might have taken from OP, the N9 launch did not depend on maemo.org and no one from N9 has ever even said so. That clarified, I think we should huddle together and consider what to do with Harmattan in 2012.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

I get the impression things may be moving back to maemo.org a little. For example, the Harmattan Python wiki pages (maintained by a group within Nokia, I believe) recently moved from wiki.meego.com to wiki.maemo.org. It seems to me that at least some people at Nokia don't wish to rely on the meego.com infrastructure and would rather host their stuff at maemo.org.

Re: Do We Have a Meego-Harmattan User Community?
 

This is rather confusing and uncomfortable though. Too much hopping.