In last three days (Nov 18-20) there was a Maemo/Qt workshop in Copenhagen. Since I had an opportunity to be there, I would like to share with you some things that we heard and saw there. Sorry if there is nothing new for You.

On the first day, there were several lectures about Maemo platform in general. Quim was doing his presentations straight from N900, which was really impressive (and by presentations I mean several pdfs and webpages open). Leave your laptop at home...

It was very much emphasized that Maemo 5 is just a step 4 out of 5 and right now it is a transition from Innovators to Early Adopters (?). On the other hand, we heard several times that next Maemo will be huge/mainstream (and we are talking Nokia huge/mainstream). It seems, that even though there was some confusion about role of Maemo (the N-series fuss), it is really supposed to be the next flagship platform. As one marketing guy said: Maemo is a game chnager and a long term investment by Nokia.


The next device, running Harmattan, will feature a capacitive, multi-touch, WVGA (800x480) screen. The core of Maemo 6, useful for testing, will be installable on N900, although it won't be fully functional (hardware difference). It will go along the path introduced by the fifth edition (multiple desktops, now scrollable in 2D, widgets, Qt, IM integration).
What I really liked is the philosophy that will be present in the next Maemo(s): you get the device with support for DRM and blocked enough to protect the system. But you will be able to unlock it/gain root and play with it as you wish. It is nice to hear, that those two paths are thought of from the beginning.

Regarding, heavily discussed OVI Store issues, I have already mentioned the things we heard. My impression is that some people inside Nokia would like to change the OVI (Store) philosophy, but for the time being it will still be aimed into medium/large companies. This is also my general observation: there is Maemo team that is focused on community and there is Nokia, The Corporation. I wonder how they get along.
Games in Ovi Store will remain separate from other applications, and we can expect building a strong brand for them, a replacement for N-Gage.

We have tried to get some info about Qt in Maemo 6, but it has proven to be difficult. Eventually we were told that we (developers) shouldn't worry about this, but just keep writing in Qt. But yes, there will be DirectUI in Maemo 6, although it is not Maemo specific. No technical details, as the guy doing the training was specifically asked not to give them. The good news is that we should see a nice documentation for Qt/APIs pretty soon (next week or so).

There were about 130 people, developers from companies and universities. The Qt training was a basic one, starting with hello world and ending with simple web browser implemented. For me, Qt is working like a charm on N900 and it was said that this will be soon the main environment for both Maemo and Symbian and we should focus on it.

Really nice event, thank you Quim and all the Nokia/Maemo team for organizing it.

PS. Everyone at the event got a nice little gift. Guess what