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#7
Originally Posted by lma View Post
Thanks for pointing this out, somehow I never thought to compare them. I'm not sure what it says that it took so long[1] to reach this point. I appreciate the end-of-lining of Hildon and Maemo itself must have had a dampening effect, but I thought other factors like wider device distribution, more device capabilities & APIs, Qt etc would more than offset that. Is Fremantle less appealing to developers after all?

[1] about a year or a year and a half depending on whether you count from device availability or SDK release and extras-devel launch
As benny points out, Extras is a more difficult (but IMHO worthier) target with Fremantle due to the testing process (and yes, there are about 130 apps/content in there ATM).

Second, don't forget backports. Some apps got Diablo versions from people developing on Fremantle. So the difference in apps only decreased when an author decided/was forced to publish only for the N900. When the N900 was released, the Diablo app count was IIRC around 400.

Of course the PR1.2 delay and the MeeGo-Harmattan non-support did not help the long term plans of Maemo developers.

Coincidentally there is a 'huge battle' going on MeeGo land about this topic as it seems a lot of folks believe a community Extras that enhances particular devices is unnecessary in MeeGo and if there is a need, it should be handled/coordinated by the vendors themselves.
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