Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

Wow, it’s only been a couple hours but it seems Nokia’s reply to replacing Symbian with Maemo on their N-Series devices is already out!

If you ask me, this non-confirmation-non-denial of the leaked information means that at the very least they’re thinking about it, and at the most have already decided but still need to market it correctly. Nokia is saying that they’re strongly committed to Symbian, but that really means squat if you ask me. That’s the short and sweet of it, but decide for yourself. Here’s and excerpt from Nokia’s reply:

While it is our policy not to disclose details of our product roadmap, we’d like to explicitly communicate that we remain firmly committed to Symbian as our smartphone platform of choice. Any speculation on what our 2012 roadmap, including operating systems and product branding, are completely premature.

Along with a comment from Nokia on expanding their mobile OS portfolio from a couple months back:

As we have stated earlier, Nokia has multiple platforms to serve different purposes and address different markets. Symbian is more successful than ever in bringing smartphones to the masses. Maemo is our software of choice for devices based on technology that you’d typically find inside a desktop computer. It delivers a different user experience and enables us to widen the market we can address.

Ok, but desktop computer technology can be found in just about any Nokia high-end phone, so that doesn’t tell us much either.

I guess this update doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. But the update itself, the wording within in it, and context around it can tell us quite a bit.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Symbian Freak (read)

I’ve been wondering for a while about what Nokia is going to do with their OS portfolio, and just where they’re going to take it. Symbian is obviously much more stable than most other operating systems out there, and does wonders for the Enterprise-class devices, however it has little “sexiness” to show for the phones that are supposed to be, well, sexy. There are many apps the Ovi Store, but their extent just doesn’t reach that of say Android’s Marketplace. The home screen on Symbian, too, is better suited for the Enterprise.

Of course out comes Maemo 5, bringing lots of sex-appeal to a Nokia operating system, and immediately raising hype in the industry. Much to my disappointment, however, the only phone available with this new, sleek OS doesn’t have the 3G frequency of the cell phone providers in my area. ****! (sorry, a little bitter on this one)

So for a while now I’ve been waiting to see a Nokia cell phone with an operating system other than Symbian, and was kind of hoping it would be Android. For the most part because Windows Mobile didn’t really appeal to me and iPhone OS / WebOS / BlackBerry OS aren’t exactly an option.

Well back to the topic at hand: some information has been leaked and it appears that Nokia will be adopting their Maemo family, starting with Maemo 5 for their N-Series devices. The idea (or rumor at any rate) is to have all N-Series devices run on Maemo by 2012, that is unless the world tears itself apart… I’m actually fairly excited about the switch-over, however I’m not sure which one is better suited for the job: Android or Maemo. And of course, it still stands to see just how stable Maemo 5 turns out to be.

What does this mean for Symbian? Really, nothing. I expect Nokia to continue putting out Symbian S40 basic phones, and S60 on their E-Series. Its the X-Series and the yet-unannounced C-Series that I’m still not sure about, however I’m getting the feeling that X-Series will see Maemo adaptation as well.

Personally, I would like to see Nokia do something similar to HTC and allow users to upgrade their OS as they see fit via ROM files. And in an ideal world a single phone wouldn’t be constrained to a single OS either, but would have the ability to work with Symbian, Maemo, Android, etc. with little effort. (maybe we could even get dual/triple boots going with a shared memory!) But I’m afraid at this point its just wishful thinking, even if there is nothing technological stopping this from happening.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)
and: my twisted imagination

Ok, so its been a busy week and its not looking like today is going to be any quieter. Thus, I will only update on the important things, and only mention the main points.

Qt, the development suite that Nokia acquired a while back, has added multitouch and gesture support for its 4.6 release. This applies to Nokia’s Symbian and Maemo powered devices. Actually this precludes aa interesting point, namely, this means that there will be Symbian and Maemo powered devices with multitouch capable screens. This can be achieved either by using a capacitive screen, or by using Stantum’s technology on resistive screens. Now we already know that Nokia is using capacitive screens, the Nokia X6 is an example, however I do hope that Stantum’s technology gets incorporated as that would still allow for use of a stylus.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Symbian-Freak (read)

Seems that there are a number of hands-on videos out on the interwebs now, and while most of what they show isn’t anything new, there are some that show neat tid bits of information.

In the X6 hands-on the reviewer shows an interesting function of the music player that allows you to select your mood and plays the corresponding music from your library. Actually seems like a really useful feature, sort of reminds me of a similar music player for Android (see my earlier Android reviews). The X3 doesn’t actually seem to bring anything new to the table.

The Booklet 3G doesn’t show anything new either, however it does provide a nice overview of the hardware and shows you the relative size. The device does look quite attractive, although the screen could have been bigger. You can also see the size of the battery at the bottom, and to be honest, my hopes are up that it will be able to run for 12 hours of decent usage, not just a 12 hour standby sort of thing.

The N900 preview is actually quite interesting, even if the preview is more of Maemo 5 preview than the N900 itself . The OS has multiple desktops, and kind of reminds me of Android, which was my first interaction with that sort of system. The dashboard shows running programs and appears to be well designed, but of course only time and usage will tell. Anyway, I won’t spoil anything for you so just take a look at the video.

The N97 Mini preview is also somewhat telling, but more so because I would like to see the Maemo 5 UI on the device instead. Besides that there isn’t anything new on the video.

- Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)

Well I was ready to be upset that the N900 is merely an internet tablet, but by the looks of it its more a cross between the N97 and the N810. That is, its an internet tablet that runs on Maemo and can make phone calls. Mobile-review seems to have managed to get their hands on the device and shed some light on it for us.

Here are the specs of the device that are currently known:

• Maemo 5: Freemantle
• Large resistive touchscreen
• 800×480 resolution
• Cortex-A8 CPU
• 32GB on-board storage
• MicroSD expansion up to 32GB
• 5MP camera, Carl Zeiss optics
• Dual LED flash
• On-bard GPS

Expected price: 550 EURO, so a lot. Lets just hope it drops to that sweet 400 CAD price point where more people can afford it.

The device looks amazing, and the interface is pretty need too (see review).

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Mobile-review.com (read)

Nokia N900 Body

Nokia N900 Camera

Nokia N900 Body

Nokia N900 CPU & Storage