I've noticed that Nokia's new N8 is Symbian-based. Given the length of product cycle development this isn't too surprising. That said, I've looked, but have never been able to find a 'statement of intent' by Nokia on their committment to Maemo.
Does anyone know what Nokia's future intent is for their smartphones i.e. whether they will either be based on Symbian, Maemo, or both?
I ask this because Nokia pledged to release Ovi Maps with voice nav for the N900, but that was roughly half a year ago. I have been unable to find any any information since.
I used to use an N97, but required an e-mail client with HTML support so I purchased an N900. The N900 product spec web page, which I scoured prior to my purchase, appeared to indicate the N900 had voice nav. I believe Nokia has since changed the wording on the page, but could be wrong. Had I known there was no voice nav support I may well have changed my purchasing decision.
So, to recap...
Has there ever been a statement of intent by Nokia on O/S direction?
And, does anyone know if Nokia will ever really release Ovi Maps for the N900, or was their announcement (A) sales strategic, or (B) am I guilty of wishfull thinking?

Look around the forums for "MeeGo". Its self-explanatory for the most part.

There have been numerous threads on this already - use the excellent search facility to gain a better understanding of the history and views on this.

You can learn more about the metamorphosis of Maemo into Meego here

This is how Nokia answered my same query:

"Based on your concern, the navigation feature is currently not available on the N900. Unfortunately, the current version of Maemo, the software that powers the N900, does not support navigation. With Maemo 5 we prioritized development of those areas that we felt would be the most important for the target audience of this device. This means that Maemo does not yet feature support for the full range of services that our other Symbian-powered Nseries devices might have. However, naturally, we’ll be working to increase support for all Nokia services, including navigation, as we go forward with Maemo."

As N8 runs Symbian 3, an OS employing Qt to facilitate easy porting of apps to other Qt OS's, I would hope that a similar, fully-functioning Ovi Maps solution would be available soon. PR1.2 will bring Qt compaability to Maemo so in theory Ovi Maps for Symbian 3 should port over easily.

I hope we can rely on Nokia to leaad by example on this to encourage wider Qt app development..

In the meantime I'm going to invest in Sygic; experience tells me that as soon as I shell out on paid software, a free solution follows shortly thereafter!

If Nokia is smart, then Ovi Maps will be implemented almost entirely using Qt and thus be platform neutral to platforms with Qt support.

Of course, Nokia's track record has been to be pretty rather than smart so we'll just have to wait and see.

Ovi maps with voice not included to 1.2. We can see it in published change log. May be Maps will be in MeeGo? But not in N900...

The published changelog is for the SDK which doesn't include commercial apps provided with the phone, like Maps or integrated Skype.

It seems to me Nokia have got this all wrong as it now appears they have fallen flat on there faces regarding the N900 and now we have big talk of yet another device the N8.
With the thread of The CEO of Nokia might be getting the sack its just not looking good for Nokia and more importantly the N900 !.
Meamo is being ditched for Meego, Meego is not moving anything as quick as customer satisfaction needs, Nokia shares have now sunk so what are we left with right now? a HUGE mess of Mokia (ooops i meant Nokia) as a company.

Your right. New flagman - n8, but not M(emo|eego)... We is wrong way...

rofl.........

Am trying out the sygic maps on the 7 day trial but so far not having much joy, it all works ok but the routing is hopeless.

Took dog out for walk to park and tried it out on the way.

Route we would take...


Route it came up with...


This is set on shortest route!!

Used Ovi maps on way back and it found the right route straight away.

Am not planning on paying for Sygic after 7 days if this is the kind of results i`m going to get, will stuck with Ovi maps and no voice.

Also the POI are years out of date - a restaurant that closed about 7 years ago and a petrol station i`ve never heard of.