Maemo 6 (codename Harmattan) is the next version of Maemo, which is going to power the next Nseries device and N97/N900 successor - most likely to be called N9 - expected in late 2010. The marketing department decided that in light of the MeeGo announcement, the Maemo name is just not cool any more, so it lost the Maemo moniker and currently has the *provisional* name of MeeGo-Harmattan. Harmattan will implement the MeeGo APIs so it will be a bridge/transitional release between ye olde Maemo and MeeGo (what every sane marketing person will deny as nobody likes transitional releases).
The real question is, isthat step 4 of 5? Or is it step 5 of 6 perhaps? 6 of 7? Maybe what Nokia really needs is to just come out and admit they need 12 steps up front.
If Nokia sends me there new MeeGo Device as an Excuse i will maybe use it .. sorry but to spend again much Money into a Device thats maybe abandoned after a few Months becouse Nokia thinks well our next high end Operating System will be xxx i wont do this failor twice.
Agreed. At this point, I find it increasingly hard (as someone everyone seems to go to for tech advice in their business and homes) recommending anything from Nokia anymore and I'm PROFOUNDLY glad that I had been cautiously optimistic before, because I've since learned to become profoundly cynical after lots of burned moments dealing with this platform so far. I'm glad I never recommended this thing to any business purpose--but I nearly went there.
After all is said and done, Nokia had something to pioneer and they ended up pissing all over it and all over the customers too. I'm happy to see MeeGo started up but I REALLY need to see some other manufacturers involved before I can give it any amount of my confidence. At least Intel's participation helps a little, but I haven't seen a unit in my own hands yet and I've not heard much from the Intel camp of MeeGo, so I can't get a gauge on how useful this will truly be despite all the assurances. Even with that said, I would trust buying the Intel device more than the Nokia device. At least Intel treats their customers with only MILD insult and derision. Nokia was exceedingly awkward and hostile.
Someone posted a link to where to buy the N900 on Nokia UK. It says it has Ovi Maps for it... but didn't Ovi Suite never support N900?
I have only the vaguest of ideas as to what Ovi Suite and PC Suite are, and I'll happily admit I haven't followed the talk of which versions of which one support what. So, while I seem to remember Ovi Suite adding support for the N900 not too long ago, I'll accept for the moment the implication of your final question.
That established, how does Ovi Suite not supporting (or supporting) the N900 have any bearing upon whether or not the N900 has Ovi Maps installed on it? The only connection I can see, and it seems a stretch, is the preloading of map data, and Jaffa explained a straight forward method of achieving that well before the N900 was even released.
So, would you please better explain where you're leading?
I guess from an R&D point of view continuously developing an OS by experimenting as you go, it is evolution, but looking from the customer's point of view it is a set of random changes that completely messes up all and everything.
If you, as a customer, are into this experimenting, it is all fine. It is more than fine, there is nothing else like it. But I must admit that I am surprised and disappointed by the timeframe of Maemo5 and also the N900. A top of the line device usually outlast 2-4 cheap phones, but here, even the cheapest phones outlast the N900. Given that the N900 was priced at the very top, this simply is far from good. The hardware is excellent, but the actions by Nokia has caused a situation where there are no applications utilizing the hardware to its potential. No one bothers making software for a dead end device.
The absolute very least Nokia could do, was to "officially" support MeeGo on the N900 and continued that support at least a couple of years. Now they are going to do the exact same thing on the N8. It will be left out in the cold when Symbian^4 comes out. At the same time, I am sure the board at Nokia are scratching their heads wondering why they aren't selling more smartphones.
I have only the vaguest of ideas as to what Ovi Suite and PC Suite are, and I'll happily admit I haven't followed the talk of which versions of which one support what.
PC Suite has partial N900 support only. It's a bare minimum, but does sync contacts and copy images over no dupes (yes, it replaces a small shell script).
OVI maps seems to be "supported" if you ask the site, but doesn't seem to do anything as it was meant to work with different implementations. Can't get it to do much.
The absolute very least Nokia could do, was to "officially" support MeeGo on the N900 and continued that support at least a couple of years. Now they are going to do the exact same thing on the N8. It will be left out in the cold when Symbian^4 comes out. At the same time, I am sure the board at Nokia are scratching their heads wondering why they aren't selling more smartphones.
Nokia's gameplan on the n900:
We won't advertise it as a test product yet sell it as high as possible... we wont offer any support or development for it... and we will make it EOL (End of Life) before you can type this sentence. Don't worry about annoyed users or their complaints much easier to find lots of new ones on new contracts to replace them with the new device. Or sell this device in far off countries where they haven't caught on yet.
random changes that completely messes up all and everything
You've chosen not to respond to my first response. That's cool. But you keep using phrases like the above that seem more like FUD than an informed opinion.
I have only the vaguest of ideas as to what Ovi Suite and PC Suite are, and I'll happily admit I haven't followed the talk of which versions of which one support what. So, while I seem to remember Ovi Suite adding support for the N900 not too long ago, I'll accept for the moment the implication of your final question.
That established, how does Ovi Suite not supporting (or supporting) the N900 have any bearing upon whether or not the N900 has Ovi Maps installed on it? The only connection I can see, and it seems a stretch, is the preloading of map data, and Jaffa explained a straight forward method of achieving that well before the N900 was even released.
So, would you please better explain where you're leading?
I read the Symbian-Guru's post and the nokia forums post about Ovi Suite, and poeple complaining about how Ovi Suite was how you put Ovi Maps on the device. I think I'm wrong though based on your response, but perhaps the map updates come from Ovi Suite?
The real question is, isthat step 4 of 5? Or is it step 5 of 6 perhaps? 6 of 7? Maybe what Nokia really needs is to just come out and admit they need 12 steps up front.
It is step 5 of 5 - the fifth and last Maemo device (regardless of how it will be called on release). It will certainly (have to) be targeting the mainstream high end as it will have to replace both the niche N900 and the ill-fated N97. How you (or Nokia) treats the Maemo-to-MeeGo transition with regard to step count - that I have no idea about.
The absolute very least Nokia could do, was to "officially" support MeeGo on the N900 and continued that support at least a couple of years.
Let me repeat once more - MeeGo is not what you think it is. Nokia’s edition of MeeGo (that’s the one you want, with Flash and Skype and Maps and a store and whatnot) will appear somewhere mid-2011, and will likely target hardware way above the N900. I’m telling you, nothing would change, except for the title of the rant threads, we’d just go from "you have abandoned us" to "how much longer !!!" and then when it finally ships to "OMG we waited a year for THIS ?!?! It’s slow and totally unresponsive !!!". And few years of support is after that, sadly, pointless, no matter how good it sounds, tech simply advances too fast for it to make sense. Honest. Take a look at phones from 2007 and tell me - which one still receives updates (hint - the iPhone doesn’t and Android didn’t even have a shipping device back then). The problem with Nokia comms in my strictly personal opinion is that it did not gave a PROPER explanation of the reasoning and STILL hasn’t started explaining what MeeGo is and how it (along with the N9) fits the Nokia software strategy, letting people speculate - and since they have no sufficient info they speculate wrong more often than not.
