What’s Coming With Maemo 6 in 2010?

We had very informative Maemo Summit 2009 late last week at Amsterdam, Netherlands. Lots of news came out and one very interesting topic was where Maemo OS is heading next. We have heard already some key changes that will come like QT driven UI but what are all the new or changed Maemo 6 news:

• QT driven UI components
• QT framework for application development
• Multi-touch capable UI, Nokia has lots of patents for multi-touch, not just Apple domain
• Capacitive technology for screen, now we have resistive in N900
• ‘Closed’ application environment for mainstream, commercial and DRMed content
  • Looks like you either boot to open mode or closed mode. In closed mode kernel and lots of other parts of the system are protected and DRM is enabled so you can consume DRM protected content
• Support for Microsoft PlayReady DRM – support for example for Ovi Store and Nokia Music’s Comes with Music services
• Nokia Web Runtime
• Gesture support via QT for applications
• Comprehensive support for horizontal and landscape operation
• Canvas concept for homescreen, larger content area than visible, pan screen to show various areas of virtual homescreen

Concept of the Maemo 6 homescreen canvas.

Lot of things also stay the same, like these:

• OMAP 3 platform, this is somewhat disappointing, does this mean Maemo 6 will not support for example OMAP 4 multi-core platform?
• WVGA resolution, 800*480 pixels
• Open GL ES driven graphics

Nokia used this slogan for Maemo 6: “Iconic user experience and integrated Internet services in an aesthetic package”.

I see Maemo 5 stepping stone to Maemo 6 which is much more rounder package with much better readiness for mainstream markets and average smartphone crowd. Maemo 5 is for early adopters and geeks looking for mobile computer and willing to work around some rough edges and omissions like no MMS, no DRM support, lacking phone capabilities like multiple profiles, lack of full support for portrait mode etc etc.