Maemo Summit – Day One Highlights

Maemo Summit – gathering of Nokia’s Maemo team and the Maemo community started today. Day One was the “Nokia day”, agenda filled mostly by Nokia employees giving presentations in various keynotes and panels.

Highlight 1: Nokia loans N900 device for 6 months use to all summit participants

OK, maybe not a technological highlight as such, but sure made the non-summit-goers jealous worldwide. Also further proves the point that Nokia is serious in its attempt to engage the larger community for software co-creation and building up community buzz. Check umpcportal.com’s video about “a few” people unboxing their N900s.

Highlight 2: Maemo 6 concept revealed

More official details about the next generation Maemo platform (6 aka Harmattan) concept were published. It will include support for e.g. multi-touch and capacitive screens. Another interesting concept was the “canvas” where the desktop is larger than mobile screen and user pans across the canvas for viewing the out-of-screen elements. Check photos from the Nokia presentation slides at umpcportal.com.

Highlight 3: Quote of the day – Jim Zemlin from Linux Foundation

Apple: New products need to be free OR fabulous to succeed

Jim: New products need to be free AND fabulous to succeed

We agree, open-source FTW. While I happily pay for great software, open-source is the future for most, if not all, mobile computing needs.

Highlight 4: Official Qt 4.6 preview for Maemo 5 available now, beta soon and final version released in 1Q/2010

As Maemo 6 moves the Maemo platform to “full Qt world”, developing for it becomes a core skill for the community developers. Being able to join the official Qt bandwagon soon with Maemo 5 too is widely welcomed. Also Qt being multi-platform framework, development on it will provide larger user base in the future, making it even more attractive. Tech preview available at maemo.org.

Highlight 5: Maemo Select open now, Ovi Store for Maemo coming later this year

Maemo Select is opened today and will feature the best free applications for Maemo platform. Ovi Store for Maemo apps will be coming later.

Highlight 6: Portrait browsing coming the first SW update (Christmas 2009)

In the current version, portrait mode is reserved for calls and other applications are not build for/allowed to utilized the portrait mode. This is going to change in the first major Maemo 5 update coming around Christmas 2009.

Highlight 7: Live blogging from the Maemo Summit

Excellent collaborative live blogging with pictures (using the snazzy Coveritlive.com) from Maemo Summit by  Rafe from AllAboutMaemo.com, Reggie from Maemo Talk and Mark from The Nokia Blog. Invaluable source for all of us who cannot join the summit in person. Thanks guys!