What's is an "Ovi" API? Surely Nokia Maps for Fremantle is using Qt, Hildon, Gtk+, whatever like any other app on Maemo. Is there some "libovi" of which I'm unaware?

Ask Nokia:

Presumably these are to do with the service side (e.g. friends, sharing etc.) rather than something like Nokia Maps (one of the original examples).

Is there anything left in ovi.com that's worth having and API? Nokia abandoned "share" (and cut back its functionality), "sync" still doesn't work, the store might not benefit from an API probably.... what does it leave us with? Maps. A maps API would indeed be cool.

I saw Nokia jobs listed recently for people to work on the Share service... maybe not dead yet?

And sync is working for my E71x, but I get the feeling that's not universal. The thing bugging me now is that my Ovi contacts are unavailable for Ovi mail...

Anyway... even with a device-resident Maps client, some aspects would sure be service-based...

Since everyone is hijacking the thread, I may as well, just to say that Mer is my main hope for the future and I plan to use it as my only environment on one of the tablets I have -- as soon as I can get it to work decently.

The "hijackings" I see (including mine) revolved around APIs/services...

Who asked ya? < obligatory smiley used after a sH**y comment.

That's my hope as well geneven.
From what I think I now understand ; Mer is conceived to be Fremantle code that can run on N8**'s and other devices.

I never thought Nokia provided the resources to support the NIT's in anything more than a limited release in the past. Now that Maemo is supposedly front and center, will it have anywhere near the amount of resources that Nokia directed to other devices in the past.

As symbiancentric apps, abilities (widgets, woohoo!), and services are developed to run in Fremantle, I kind o' hoped Mer would be the bridge to our older devices.

BTW, what the heck are all them Nokia executives like the VP of Touch and Feel (or whatever) now going to do with their time; develop and support Maemo projects?

Texrat:

You probably forgot to look at page 1 of the comments. Here is one that specifically mentioned hijackings. Perhaps you can explain what it had to do with APIs/services:

"sorry to hijack the thread, but I've read extensively about Mer, but don't understand completely, which is what has always scared me about Linux. I understand it that Mer is REPLACEMENT for Maemo/Diablo, but is this true for Freemantle as well? What I mean is is Mer an upgrade or downgrade from Freemantle, or just a quasi Freemantle for legacy devices?"

Here's a couple more from Page 1:

"I'm a little confused about Mer. Wondering the same things. Is it an extension of Maemo or just an alternative? What are the pros and cons?"

"Mer is the next OS for the n800 and n810 tablets. The OS used for n900 will not be compatible with older tablets thus a community effort (sponsored by Nokia partially I think) the next (unofficial?) OS."

My deepest apologies for thinking those were somewhat within scope.