Hi chaps,

Does anyone reckon that the upcoming N900 device will support OTA updates and being upgraded from 5 to 6 ? Some people imply it will, others say it wont, some say it will be up to the telco you get it from.

What are your thoughts ?

Olly

apt-get dist-upgrade -> only wants a connection so I think it should be possible if it is supported.

Wow, upgrades will be as easy as apt-get ? Nice.

That is probably how it would work technically. But I think Nokia hasn't yet said whether they will support N900 with Maemo 6. (IIRC, in some of the interview videos I've seen here the comment was "We don't know yet")

It depends whether these updates will be available in official repos, and whether the hardware will be able to run the next Maemo incarnation. I personally don't know if either is true.

Yeah. It's how I understood the update process to work though. simply apt-get upgrade etc.

As for 5 -> 6 don't know don't care will cross the bridge once I get there.

Which is the same thing they were saying about Fremantle on N8x0 last year, not exactly encouraging.

Yep. Hopefully this question will be answered soon. This is an area where Apple is doing a lot better, making new OS releases available for also the older iPhones. This means developers can always develop for the latest OS version but still have the whole existing base of devices available.

I don't like the way Apple does business but. I agree 100% with you...

And specially if Nokia wants to sell the device as a "mobile computer". Then let me update to the latest OS... Cos otherwise it is just a cell phone.

Look at what has changed with Maemo5 that can't be run on N810. While some software could still be used on N810, HW features of N900 are in use in many applications. You would not have a proper camera application with appropriate image quality, as much of work is split between both HW and software implementations. In order to support 640x480 camera in N810, a full software image processing stack would be needed but end result would not be good anyway as front-end camera is simply not the one for photographic purposes.

There are many examples like that, including many optimizations for performance of multimedia which are not applicable to N810 hardware (Neon-specific).

As very early conclusion I would say in case some new functionality is dependant on HW features, it is almost impossible to reliably allow it supported on previous products. If such a "past generation device" project would be created, it essentially means split in both functionality and UI experience, i.e. doubled effort.

Now, real question is how to scope proper content that can be supported on "past generation device"? This exercise as an input into effort estimation is probably worth to perform.