Isn't the release date supposed to be around October 1st?

Anyway, yes, I know Fremantle is already a very powerful platform, but it is still not perfect (missing proper portrait mode support, some important parts are still closed source, ...). And even Nokia has stated that it is just an intermediate step towards something bigger, so I'm guessing there are a lot more nice things on the way. If this is coming out in, say, six months, I wouldn't like support on the phone being dropped so soon.

it should not, but in the mean time cortex-9 may be shipping in some form or other, and nokia may want to launch products based on it. And i am not sure how compatible cortex-9 will be with cortex-8.

basically, harmattan may not need any hardware bump, but nokia always wants to ship new hardware to keep the money flowing, they are in the business of selling things, after all...

Don't forget there might very well be Intel based linux devices from Nokia in the future. If this bloodline includes Maemo 6 devices (which is a missing part of the puzzle), current Fremantle class HW might be sentenced to Mer, too.

Big obstacle in Maemo 6 on N900 may be supposed openess of the former.
According to various sources Maemo 6 may have completely open GSM stack and probably camera stuff. We don't know how open source code may work on closed hardware parts of N900.

this situation for me is a bit...stressful...i need a new phone...and i want the N900 coz it has everything i want, but on the other hand i hear about Maemo 6 coming in a year and probably not working on the N900...so i have no idea wheter to buy a crap phone (like some S40 device) and live with it a year+ to wait for Maemo 6 or grab now the N900 with Maemo 5...i just don't want the N900 to end up being something like a N96 (no big success)...and when i buy a new phone, i always buy it so that it will last 3 years...gee..so far to me it looks Maemo 6 will have a new UI, better apps and community support... but hey, if i buy the N900 (which is one of the best phones, if not the best, out there), i won't make a mistake, right? i know that we will know everything at the summit in one month..but im just upset about it a bit lol

First of all the n900 is not a 'crap' phone. One year is a lot in regards to technology and even that is not sure. It took almost 3 years for a hardware upgrade from n800 to n900. I hear that omap 3 is pretty advanced and the next generation is only an incremental update.

If i were you i would definitely buy the n900 especially since members in this forum have been waiting for ever for a hardware upgrade!

Sorry my bad i did not read the comment well enough.

@Jack6428

From various posts on Qt related forums looks like Maemo 6 interface should be very similar to current. Just engine behind it will be different. On the beginning apps also will be coming slowly and community support will be also better for Maemo 5. 3 years maybe no, you should get solid 2 years from N900.
And maybe Maemo 6 will be working on it.

Although I'm not really seeing intel CPUs on the direct roadmap, which could be used in phones (even Atom uses much too much energy).

So that might be even a step further (or I oversaw some mobile processor announcements from Intel).

Too late for what?

Hang on, I don't think the situation is that Maemo 6 probably won't work on the N900. At this point we're just guessing, and there's a good chance that it might work.