Personally I would be surprised Maemo 6 wouldn't be on the N900. Given they are porting Qt4.6 to it and will be available Q1 (in beta now). Maemo 6 depends on Qt4.6 and 4.6 has been shown running quite well on the N900.
Actually, having a fully functional (and hildonized) Qt 4.6 is an argument toward NOT having Maemo 6 on the N900. Why would you invest the effort to do a Maemo 5 port if you're going to shove Maemo 6 in there after just a few months ?
When buying any electronics you should buy what is the best for you NOW and enjoy it. Prices go down and new models come up all the time. If you are always gonna wait for the next version, you could be waiting for ever!
Typically products aren't replaced/outdated by the manufacturer within 6mo (see iPhones, etc). If this is indeed true, then this N900 in my hands right now will be my first and last Nokia phone. Who wants to own a device that the manufacturer would drop support for within a few months of launching??
Actually, having a fully functional (and hildonized) Qt 4.6 is an argument toward NOT having Maemo 6 on the N900. Why would you invest the effort to do a Maemo 5 port if you're going to shove Maemo 6 in there after just a few months ?
Because who could ask for a better test bed? Also you would have only one OS out there, instead of Qt and GTK+ based ones. Also explains why Maemo 5 is getting more plumbing fixes instead of UI enhancements. Plumbing is portable between Maemo 5 and 6.
if you read the news.. nokia is leaning towards keeping support for the n900 due to the n97 bombing in the market.. consideringt the n900 was a oops product (was not supposed to be this amazing). sooo with that said i believe that any update verision will come to us
a) Video playback is done on dedicated video hardware, not the CPU core. Even the 720MHz OMAP3 CPU is capable of HD decoding. On the other hand, even a 1GHz CPU is unable to do proper HD without hardware assistance.
b) It's unclear what video out will the Maemo 6 device have. If it's the same as the N900, HD is pointless as both the screen and video out can only go 480p.
considering maemo 6 will be for high end flag ships i expect it to have HDMI out and HD recording b/c apparently that will be introduced in symbian^3 which apparently will be priced below maemo 6 on nokia's range.
If Nokia release Maemo 6 version for N900 I am willing to get it, even it is payed.
As Apple and Google are software copanies and Nokia is at this days hardware company for me it make sense nokia to start upgrading OS of his last devices. Because the market demands it. If not - Nokia will lost his market share very quick.
So I think that we will receive Maemo 6 when it is done.
I'm so impressed with Maemo 5 that Maemo 6 will have to be seriously kick *** to make me upgrade.
Just think when Maemo 6 comes out you have a shiny flashy UI but no apps. Your Memo 5 device will have a fully stocked app store, serious polish and reliability, and they would have fixed that niggly thing that you have a gripe with (drop your own personal beef in here).
And I will be able to pick up N900s at 150 quid a pop on ebay because you schmucks have all gone to the next great thing.
Considering Maemo is just Linux with X11, a fancy GUI, and a bunch of proprietary apps, porting Maemo 6 to the n900 should be very straightforward. Just copying over the userspace from an n910 (or whatever) should resolve 95% of it. The only differences should be things like kernel support for the video driver (if any), maybe an extra (or different) radio, and a few others odds and ends.
Assuming there are no major roadblocks like binary-only modules that won't link against a kernel that'll run on the n900, I could probably port the OS over in a weekend.
