I recently bought my N900. I've been googling alot, but cannot find any Nokia "news" channel.

I mean there maemo.org - but that seems to be primarily community developers and is riddled with rumours and uncertainty.

Where can I go to read new from Nokia? Their roadmap for the device? What their funded developers are doing? ( I mean open software is great, but you are more motivated if it actually feeds you as well.). Do they have any development blog? Where do they post about new firmwares and so on?

Everything seems to turn up here quite arbitrarily, but it can't be the "real" channel - can it?

I would like an estimate of how long it is expected for the optification process to take in general. I assumed not long. It may be that that information exists somewhere, but I haven't seen it, or I forget.

There are a lot of wonderful programs in the developer repository, and I confess to have installed quite a few regardless of the risk. The only real problem so far is that Maemo Mapper, one of the best programs, crashed my N900 so badly I had to remove the battery (twice) to get my N900 working again.

Maemo Mapper worked great before that happened, and I look forward to its emergence from Devil's Island.

maemo.org is officially sponsored by Nokia. Check out the News link (menu bar) for feeds from employees, contractors, independent developers and enthusiasts. As always, do your due diligence.

It seems to me that Nokia have taken a hands off approach, they didn't even provide support for the front camera in the N900 (not that I'm complaining).

The N900 being my first Maemo device (loving it btw) I'm wondering if they were this hands off with all other Maemo devices? Do Nokia offer any kind incentives to developers or have any developers of their own working on it, apart from the devs working on the firmware?

I am quite pleased with the device myself. However, a lot hinges on future plans and development. This is my first Nokia device since 6150. Nokia might have sold me a new phone, but I will not be returning for another go if I do not feel I get bang-for-the-buck on this one.

I mean there's huge potential in this device & maemo - just as long as they stabilize around one track - make it upgradeable and keep the apps flowing. :-)

Anyways - I had missed the NEWS category. There was some stuff - however it is still very hard to discern what is official communications from Nokia people and just opinions.

As for the hands-off approach. I hope not. Let's not confuse freedom with abandonment. :-)

Well well, I look forward to what will happen the next few months with anticipation/dread. It's a really great device, let's hope they can maximize it's potential.

They are just busy taking everyone's note / bugs report. It doesn't mean they don't exist.

There have been free devices, loaned devices, device discounts, job offers and paid trips. Not a bad gig.

i am grduate programmer. started developing for the iPhone but being was converted by then N900.. but strugling to find a site by Nokia equivilent to the iPhone Dev Center (the one stop shop for iPhone developers)... now am back working on the iPhone until everything has been finanlised with c++ on QT and Nokia produces a 1 stop shop for maemo appdevelopemt.. I am finding it sooo dificult to get started. going through a book on programming with QT using C++ so i can be ready for Maemo 6... hopefully by then there will be a Maemo Dev Center page for developers where all the tool, documentation, video tutorials and simple app code will reside to get new developers to the platform started.

@Techtertainment

Qt4.5 on Maemo is already there. More exciting Qt4.6 is in extras-devel. You can write freely in Qt in every way you want. Although I commit Qt still has its limit on Maemo currently but you could write most applications right now.

And There's a website that provides LOTS of things..

It's http://www.forum.nokia.com/ Go there and check it out.. It's really a very very useful website you can even create programs and test it on their real devices! Just in case if you don't have one.. etc.

Also check out the Maemo Wiki.. it has some very useful things to start with..