How quick can they port apps?

[moviecouple]

I am looking forward to getting the N810, but was wondering how long it will take to port over certain applications and programs. I have heard the N800 stuff won't work.

I really need to have Maemopad+ on the device to make it worth while to buy.

[jzencovich]

You've heard wrongly. N800 and N810 are completely 100% binary compatible.

App X on the N800 will work EXACTLY THE SAME on the N810.

Maemopad+ is already ready for the N810 :)

[jhoff80]

I think what he's talking about is how apps will have to be recompiled for OS2008, as opposed to OS2007. From what I've read, it should be a relatively simple thing for most apps, just needs to use a newer GTK version or something.

[Rocketman]

Jzencovich, I believe this to be wrong. From what I have gathered, the changes made from OS 2007 -> OS 2008 will require pretty much every existing Maemo app to go through some code changes before it will run. On the other hand, these changes (particularly up to date support for GTK+) will make it much easier to port existing Linux desktop apps to IT OS 2008. For instance, Abiword has apparently already been ported to OS 2008 vs it has been very difficult to get it working properly on 2007.

http://tuxrecife.blogspot.com/2007/10/abiword-ready-to-maemo-4x.html

[moviecouple]

What I heard is that the apps for the N800 won't work on the N810 without some type of recompiling. So... the question is if how much reprograming is needed to get something like Maemopad+ to work with the new N810 and how long will it take? Weeks... months?

[TA-t3]

In another thread I wrote something about runtime (in)compatibility. It boils down to that, without having looked at the OS2008 firmware myself, _technically_ there shouldn't be any reason why old apps (binaries) couldn't run. What won't work is old applications running with new runtime libraries (for the updated Hildon/GTK UI). But, old libraries could still be installed on the unit (but probably won't be, out of the box).

Anyway, as for porting old applications to OS2008 there are some changes that will have to be done to the software. Not major ones, mostly replacing some functions by their modern replacement (e.g. the very first one to create a Hildon window), and a few other ones. There are already a few programs out there ported to OS2008. To me, it looks to be a cleaner situation to write Hildon-supported applications. At least I like the API a bit better, without having written that much code yet. I'm sure authors of the more heavy-duty applications could comment better on this than I can.