Intel joins Nokia in Android attack

Intel and Nokia have joined forced to create a new platform to take on Google's Android - MeeGo. MeeGo, announced this morning, is to be constructed from the best bits of Maemo and Moblin: Nokia and Intel's existing Linux-based platforms respectively. It will be available later this year with the avowed intention of taking on …

[Jim Coleman]

Oh Great!

Another bloody OS to add to the mix.

If Microsoft feck up their Winmo presentation later and make me jump ship from WM to something else, I'll now have to choose between Android and Meego! I was all set to dive into Android too!

(Let's be honest here, WebOS and iPhone aren't really on the cards)

[Anonymous Coward]

Conclusive proof

That all the good names are already taken.

Meego get mecoat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hang on, there's a logic to it

Mee is noodles, better known in continental cuisine as spaghetti. MeeGo, spaghetti code to go!

[Anonymous Coward]

maemo dropped ...

I know they're meant to be keeping the best bits, but this news hardly inspires me to get a Nokia N900. ( which I was thinking of doing )

Me thinks I'll wait now , and be happy with the non-iphonish joy of my E71 ( the keys depress for starters )

[Peter Mount]

That may well be compatible

A friend of mine just got an N900 so I was playing with it over the weekend.

Looking at it I'd say that if they don't deviate too much then there shouldn't be much of a problem - how many phones come with a shell and easy to get root access to it?

In fact when I was playing, maemo appears to be debian based underneath, so the fact that they are merging would probably just be a case of any two existing Linux distros merging.

[Jay42]

N900 OS in doubt?.... 1000's saved

As a unimpressed N800 user this announcement is probably good news - as it will keep people off the Maemo platform. And so spare them the dubious joy's. I'm definitely off to Android.

[gerryg]

What's not to like?

If anything, as free wi-fi has got more ubiqitous, my N800 has got close to being indispensible. When I first got it, 3 years ago, I found it to be a bit "so what" (not much free wi-fi) but now it's definitely better than a netbook in an urban environment for simple staying in contact, reading large attachments to emails, getting train times etc.

Music player, relatively decent video replay, radio, internet radio

All day battery life helps there, and it weighs less than a notebook power supply.

With a bluetoothed GPS receiver, it's useful everywhere else too.

Give us a clue, what don't you liike?

[Gene Cash]

What's not to like...

I've got an N800 too, and I hate how it's been pretty much orphaned. Now I just discovered the latest N900 OS doesn't do GTK, so all my apps I've written using pyGTK are orphaned too.

I'd be off to Android too, but I can't justify US$100+/month for a cellphone, hence I have no cellphone.

[/\/\j17]

Maemo was already dropped before this announcement...

...so far as the N900 was concerned.

The N900 was a Maemo 5 (Fremantle) device but internally the switch had already been made to Maemo 6 (Harmattan). As Maemo 5 uses the GTK framework and Maemo 6 uses Qt 4.6 apps. wouldn't be directly compatable anyway.

Will Nokia release a Maemo 6/MeeGo 1 firmware for the N900... Maybe, maybe not.

[Andrew Moore]

Sheesh

How many bloody platforms does Nokia need?

[b166er]

Surely

this will just force Gooooooooooooooooooogle to Open Source Android which will result in everyone developing for it as at least Goooooooooooooooooooooogle is consistent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm

Android *is* open-source.

[Bod]

Not all open-source

The OS is open-source. Not all the applications on a typical Android phone are.

[zanto]

that must be way cool

to have root access on a phone.

heck, i'd be happy to just get a shell prompt through which i can ssh to my other machines.

[Dave Harris]

PuTty

There's a version for Symbian 60. Use it myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so long as....

... when they start shipping this phone, that the suprt, update, backup and direct access software they ship, ALSO comes for Linux. It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy if they ship a Linux OS phone with Windows software.

[Havin_it]

^This!

Absolutely with you on that. Were it not for the Nokia (whateveritscalledthisweek) Suite I'd probably happily hose my XP install on my netbook ... well, that and the Windows-only BIOS upgrades, GRRR.

However, be prepared for disappointment. Because the device is running Linux, that doesn't mean it isn't still twice the work to write two platforms' worth of connectivity drivers for said device. The drivers necessary for firmware updating etc. are essentially the same as those the service techs will use for more invasive maintenance work, and those techs are probably using Windows. Also, any phone that has a DRM "assisted" media payload will only be permitted to be accessed via a proprietary driver, which will be a source of grief in Linux land. Never mind a software player for Linux to actually play those locked-down songs/movies - who's gonna be arsed writing that?

There is how it should be, and how it is. I would dearly love to be proved wrong though...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only care if I can run a term

and compile an app for the phone.

I notice others want that as well, yeah we want to use the device as a roamer, so code up on desktop, download to phone, and then activate on phone that is the philosopher's stone to most devs when it comes to a phone.

That way we can do things like prep ssh commands to access servers to do tasks whilst we are out and about, reboot a server no worries, clear the cache not a problem it is that type of stuff.

Installing a good mapping application would be nice as well.

The thing is if you abstract a system too much, most devs just cannot be bothered, need it closer to raw to make it work the way we want it, stuff the average consumer, they already have loads of choice.

[The Other Steve]

I see stupid people

"The thing is if you abstract a system too much, most devs just cannot be bothered"

The word that we real programmers use for those people is "stupid lazy retards"

Or sometimes, ssh boy, "clueless admins with hopeless pretensions of grandeur"

Take your pick.

[Anonymous Coward]

Argh, most stupid name since,,,

"Zune".

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm

Moblin is Fedora based, while Maemo is Debian. How're they going to sort that out ? This does sound like it could potentially be very good, but right now I'm just wondering wtf are Nokia at.

If they think this is the best way to go then fair enough, but the continual bullseye moving does leave end-users wondering what support we can expect in future for our devices, and that lack of confidence doesn't exactly encourage me for one to spend my hard earned cash.

I was about to pull the trigger on an N900 several times but held off due to lack of mapping apps and have just changed from an N95 to an N97 instead (which I must admit is working well after the latest firmware update). But my fave app Viewranger is going to be launched on IPhone and Android too, so unless Nokia really get a shift on and settled down it looks like Android might be my future, despite Maemo being a far, far more attractive proposition.

Nokia right now is a giant multi-tentacled, multiple-personalitied schizophrenic monster, with several tentacles waving tasty goodies, many waving mediocre goodies, and the rest all trying to choke the life out of each other. They really, really need to consolidate.

[Captain DaFt]

Oh dear.

Hmm, Meego - MiGo... I'd better check with Amanfrommars and see how much risk they're putting the Earth in. (If you wonder what I'm on about, check the following link.)

http://members.shaw.ca/csstrowbridge/Tulzscha/Information.htm#MiGo

[Nexox Enigma]

Adding another OS?

As far as I can tell, merging Maemo and Moblin technically reduces the platform count by 1, even if nobody was actually using Moblin for anything.

And as for fully open, that was the plan for Maemo6 all along. With luck this will mean mostly that Intel's resources end up helping out an OS which is mostly Maemo, since I happen to be a fan.

Of course this probably means that Nokia will totally drop support for my N900 as soon as their next device comes out...

[gjw]

Meego=Maemo 6

Meego is Maemo 6 and vice versa. So yes it will be very open source, and yes you can compile your own cookies on it/for it.

Maemo 5 can already run qt stuff, Maemo 6 will be able to run GTK thingies.

It must be that special reality distortion called the blogosphere or whatever, but outside of the internet, in the real world Nokia, is the company that managed to become the world's largest supplier of touch screen smartphones in a couple of months' time, with a growth of 4700%. But the blogosphere keeps underestimating them. Nokia and Intel have enough clout to shake the markets.

Meego will probably be a success.

I can see why the Finns want to steer clear of Android. It's pretty meh to begin with, even if you want to be borked by the add brokers and their NSA cloak and dagger friends. And Google is not to be trusted as a business partner.

Evil Steve, the f*ckin' prince of Merikan post modern imperialistic darkness.

[Dave Harris]

Not TeamGo?

Sounds like Shego's brother to me

[Wortel]

Not impressed

Nor convinced. I`ll be watching.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Corpses"?

I don't about Moblin but how can you call an actively developed OS like Maemo a "corpse"? Do the people who write these articles actually do any research?