Not really - the Mozilla Foundation have jacked it in with regard to further Minimo development.

The current Minimo build on 770 is usable but far from a finished product. Antonio Gomes did his best with Minimo - not sure if he's still working on it though as the last update was late Nov 2006. Hopefully he'll continue working on Minimo, but not sure if he's willing or able to get involved with the core development, which has now ceased.

AFAIK there is someone working on a web browser for the 770/N800 caled NetSurf. I'm sure it was mentioned in these forums before--but the point I want to make is that minimo being dead does not mean the end of the road for improved browsing on the 770.
IMO what would be best would be some programmers to get together, try and get rid of the Hildon prison (again, someone from these forums was working on this... lost the reference though), fix Canola and a browser like NetSurf to work with this configuration, and well that's pretty much it for my needs--a nicer, faster 770 with better multimedia and web browsing capabilities

First post (N800 arrives tomorrow!)...

I'm surprised no one is mentioning the possibility of a Webcore (khtml) based Browser? Nokia are actively developing it for Symbian (with good results I believe) and with Webcore powering Apple's iPhone's browser it certainly looks capable of running on a portable device.

Has anyone asked Ari about this?

Frankly, I think that asking Nokia to give us more software that is prone to licensing restrictions is akin to shooting ourselves in the foot... IMHO.

I don't agree with this, because I think of these devices as computers. If this was the case then why would somewhy buy an unfinished product like the N800 now? People want Skype, Opera 9, better flash support, etc. These won't be available until summer (if at all).

I said it at the time, but it's worth repeating: NetSurf is not a viable Opera replacement. Moaning about AJAX performance in Opera? The lack of any JavaScript in NetSurf will really piss you off...

A KHTML/WebKit-based browser is the best non-Opera option, IMHO.

Cheers,

Andrew

I did - first comment in his recent "roadmap" post. Didn't get a response though.

They're not (Windows) PCs though, where much of the apps you mention are ported for free because the user base is so vast. Nokia are almost certainly funding the ports of these apps themselves, as there is little in it for Opera to port their browser, or Adobe to port Flash. Nokia need these applications in order to sell the devices, the software vendors aren't doing out of the goodness of their hearts.

The economics of the Internet Tablet is very different to a normal computer, and application upgrades being produced into the future is not going to happen while it still costs Nokia to put those upgrades on the device. They can only justify such an expense when there is a reasonable business case for doing so, and with the 770 that business case is now very weak. Eventually the same may happen to the N800 if it ends up being incompatible with the successor product and/or the closed source licensing deals are per device.

Um, I did, but I didn't know enough to know whether he was dodging the question or not. He promises better browsing though. (See post later today.)

I always thought it was strange to have a closed source browser at the heart of an Internet Tablet which relies so heavily on open source technology. I suppose when Nokia were choosing a browser Opera had a more mature, light weight engine.

Perhaps the fact you didn't get a clear answer suggests it's something they are playing with in the lab...