With some of the ideas qgil showed us on his recent UI thread, it may require more shoehorning than is worth it, to port to the N900.

Quite possible - if it won't go it won't go. The first Android devices will probably stop getting new updates soon due to flash limitations but they did get some.

So with Maemo 6 we'll lose the apps that require pin point accuracy?
ie: sketching & handwriting apps, those with small buttons, etc

I mean, how will they be handled on the capacitive screens?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for finger-friendly interface.. I'm guessing 90% of my personal usecase will be better served with capacitive screen anyway (provided the app is designed for it).

Nonsense. I have a computer that doesn't have the graphics chip required to run Windows Vista Aero and it's fancy transparent windows crap. But I can still install and run the rest of Vista.

With computers the issue is generally backward compatibility, not forward compatibility. Assuming you have the basic capacity (sufficient disk space to hold the OS, sufficient RAM to load the OS, and sufficient CPU to run the OS) the hardware, regardless of how old it is, puts constraints on the OS but it doesn't prevent the OS from running. OTOH, trying to run an old OS on new equipment often means that the equipment isn't recognized because the drivers for components do not exist in the new OS.

Unlike computers, with phones you program to your hardware. Maemo 5 and 6 reflect the smartphone nature of the N900 and its successor.

It's unfortunate that I would have a better chance of running the latest Ubuntu on a 20 year old 386 than running Maemo 6 on a two year old N810.

anyway, about the "no capacitive screen + multitouch in N900 = no maemo 6": just make a version with also/instead resistive screen drivers (or whatever software is needed), and disable multitouch gestures? o.o (I imagine it's just question of replacing or disabling one or more software packages..)
for the rest, I don't really see other possible hardware changes... (maybe a digital compass? but I don't see how that would limit OS components..)

There is plenty of new information that came today and I recommend you investing your time processing and digesting it instead of putting yourselves in especulation mode again.

One line to think about: how good is GTK+ at supporting multitouch and how smart would be to develop and productize that on Hildon/GTK+ when Nokia is actually investing in Qt?

Another 2 lines to think about: today it was announced that Maemo 6 applications will run on top of Web Runtime and Qt. Qt 4.6 support for Maemo 5 was announced today and the Web Runtime is basically a matter of Devkit and Javascript.

Do your math if you want to especulate further.

I would really hate to lose the ability for precise input on my portable computer. What a step backwards in progress from the Palm Pilot...

With that said, some companies are finding ways around that. Let's hope that Nokia is among them.

I suggest you guys check this out:

http://www.umpcportal.com/wp-content...ture_00073.jpg

From this:

http://www.umpcportal.com/2009/10/ma...-maemo-summit/

In the long run it seems Nokia is shooting itself in the foot application and compatibility wise. Like it's been pointed out before, resistive and capcitative touch screens have their differences and their are pros and cons to each use (for example, pin point accuracy).

Not to mention it seems Maemo 6 + Device will be released in late 2010? 2011? Assuming all the developers here get the n900, what's their motivation for buying the next device and then creating apps for that (unless Nokia is giving it to them or selling at a developer discount rate). Especially given the price of the current n900 (at least $500!). Even game consoles live longer then that. Then your problem is, you design an application but it may be hard to run on two different operating systems with possibly two different control methods. For example, see the iPhone + iPhone 3G vs. iPhone 3GS. And for that it's just a memory and cpu difference! Most developers on that platform just build their applications for the older generation in mind and avoid implementing features unique to the 3GS)

@qgil, true it might be worth developing in QT. But some people prefer GTK and sometimes applications are simply just ported over with little optimization.

What is the problem developing your Maemo 5 apps in whatever toolkit you prefer? They will most probably work as is in a Maemo 6 environment, not being affected in a context assuming finger multitouch.

There might be corner cases, but making the case out of the cornercase is a distortion. I'm a Maemo heavy user testing and using regularly plenty of apps. The N900 stylus stays in it's place basically always since I'm using fingers all the time. I believe this will be true for most Maemo 5 users.