MWKN Weekly News: 15 August 2011


Linux Foundation statement on apps.meego.com -> apps.formeego.org

Brian Warner, one of the Linux Foundation's few members who are visible within the MeeGo Project, answered questions during the Community Office IRC meeting and followed up with an email statement:

A number of people refer to apps.formeego.com, but - at least in your editor's eyes - the .org suffix will be the canonical URL for the service.


Official: No plans for Nokia N9 to be launched into US, UK or German retail channels

A slew of rumours, and then official Nokia statements, have confirmed that Nokia won't be launching the N9 in various key markets; providing cookie-cutter statements to the press along the following lines:

Those eager to get their hands on it will still be able to do so, with retailers such as play.com and Expansys offering pre-orders. However, import devices are often at a hefty price tag (a price of over £500 has been seen for a 16GB black model), and the availability and visibility of the device will be much reduced.

In any case, this is a foolish decision, which some have put down to a desire to not compete with the key markets for Nokia's upcoming Windows Phone devices; and others have put down to supply chain and logistical issues.

For subsidised availability in the UK, "jedibeeftix" has (allegedly) emailed Stephen Elop and had a response which says "operators will make decisions about which products will be made available". This is fairly self-evident as a response, of course operators decide what devices they'll make available; but Elop doesn't say whether all their range of devices will be on offer for operators to choose between, nor whether devices will be offered to operators at consistent pricing, nor whether or not particular models might be more heavily pushed by Nokia.



In this edition...

1. Front Page
   • Linux Foundation statement on apps.meego.com -> apps.formeego.org
   • Official: No plans for Nokia N9 to be launched into US, UK or German retail channels
2. Applications
   • Reduced character support for N900 users in Greece
   • Built-in CLI tool for triggering Harmattan's "Sharing" UI
   • Warnings for various Harmattan apps
   • Customising the Harmattan swipe model
3. Development
   • Fixing Qt Quick launching bugs in Harmattan
   • Infrastructure work on MeeGo OBS to address weekend stability issues
   • Trying to build a flashlight/torch app for harmattan
   • Harmattan Icon Generator updated to allow bespoke colour choice
4. Community
   • MeeGo Community Office meeting - IT and apps.formeego.org
   • Meeting log from Maemo Community Council, maemo.org staff & Nokia
   • Shining a light on GPL violations within an app on maemo.org
5. Devices
   • Temporarily bypassing Harmattan Aegis restrictions
   • Ovi Store client beta for N950 Harmattan
6. In the Wild
   • Interview with Chris Weber; Nokia US customers, he's the reason you wont be getting an N9
7. Announcements
   • GaberIn, a football keepy-uppey minigame for Harmattan
   • Stark theme for Harmattan
   • Integral - calculus on the N900
   • ...and 4 more