Zombie mobile Linuxes mate

The two leading mobile Linux flops are merging, according to a reputable source: LiMo and MeeGo are throwing their lot in together to produce one unified mobile Linux flop – or perhaps there is an afterlife, after all. FT Deutschland reckons the mating dance of the two zombies will be announced tomorrow. The FT positions it as …

[LauRoman]

Me Go Limo?

Misoginistc alert!

MeeGo LiMo kinda sounds like an exchange student on prom night. Or maybe an asian call girl.

[LaeMing]

Oi!

Speak for yourself.

(My nickname at school can be derived by removing the last 2 letters from my name).

[Matt Piechota]

Custom

""LiMo 4, under LiMo’s proven collaborative governance model, enables flexible disaggregation of the device platform and the service propositions such that operators and device manufacturers can more freely shape attractive user propositions and secure sustainable long-term value," said Morgan Gillis, LiMo executive director, in a canned statement announcing version 4 earlier this year."

That's pretty terrifying, frankly. I think operators and device manufacturers have pretty much proven they shouldn't be allowed to design interfaces in the Android world.

[David Dawson]

HTC Sense on android

is pretty good, better than stock (to me, anyway), and on a par with the others. I use CM7 generally, and while I generally prefer it, I do miss some of the little integrations that sense had.

Not seen another good implementation though.

And the orange one is shocking.

[ScissorHands]

Is Andrew coming down with something?

He just said the N9 was "beautiful" and "competitive".

2012! The end is nigh!

[Dazzz]

I dont think Andrew has seen the price point of the N9, too high!

[Kristian Walsh]

Well, an iPhone costs more, is less cool, and does less.

... but iPhone is available with subsidy, whereas N9 has to be bought outright.

N9 is pretty well priced, it's just that unless your operator is letting you pay it off over your contract period, any of these phones will look expensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

"the price point"?

What? Do you mean "the price"?

[Russ Tarbox]

I liked MeeGo

The couple of times I gave it a try on just about compatible hardware, I thought it was great. No good for laptops but would make a great Tablet OS.

IMO of course.

[Sam Haine]

Sometimes less is more... unless it's already zero

All they need to do now is merge with the Access Linux Platform and then they'll be ready to take on WebOS!

[OkKTY8KK5U]

OpenGoMoLiMokoMee?

So, if they invite OpenMoko to the party, will they have the complete set?

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: OpenGoMoLiMokoMee?

I think you just cussed us all out in Hawaiian.

[xperroni]

What's with mobile and good development stacks?

What's with mobile that makes it so hard to cram a good platform into it? It's not just the countless Linux ports; pretty much every developer-wise decent proposition – Qt, SavaJe, WebOS, you name it – either failed to get much traction or just plain foundered, the exceptions so far restricted to Android and iOS. Meanwhile non-descript feature phones, their OSes an horrible mess of plain C code compiled on off-the-shelf ARM compilers, spred like the pest. Somehow I can't believe it's down to incompetence only...

[Anonymous Coward]

A company has to be a certain size to develop a platform

And most companies who have reached a certain size generally suffer from being run by bureaucrats and politicians.

[petur]

Got a problem with mobile linux?

Mobile linux not breaking through has nothing to do with technical arguments... I love the way maemo works, I would have loved MeeGo too (bar the DRM crap), and I'm certainly going to love that Touchpad when it arrives tomorrow.

Coded in C/C++, it will always give you the best performance and easiest way to port software on it.

I don't get it why El Reg finds its (commercial) failing so amusing. You also enjoyed VHS so much (knowing the technically much better systems)?

[James Anderson]

Fell for the urban myth.

Betamax was not better than VHS.

It had better picture quality than early VHS but;

less capacity -- betamax -> 60 minutes (not enough for the average movie!) VHS -> 3 hours

expense -- early betamax machines were significantly more expensive (between 25% and 50% more).

[Anonymous Coward]

"Then, ironically, a beautiful (and competitive) MeeGo phone appeared – the Nokia N9"

appeared where?

Not on planet Reality. Sure some pressboys had a little play with one, probably the only one in existence anyway. The one that's now been put in the private vault of the great Nokia killer himself.

I don't believe in it anymore. We really ARE doomed. All the tech that remains is crap. Bling and crap. Great for puppies and yuppies but useless for real folks.

I really ought to change my name into Mr.Doom :-)

[AbortRetryFail]

Does a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

I always thought that "Maemo" was a decent name whilst "Meego" had a whiff of the naff about it.

[The Vociferous Time Waster]

lolz

Linux on a mobile phone will never take off.

Oh wait.

[David Hicks]

Shame about Maemo

It was a nice platform. I liked having a full(ish) linux system with package management and X-windows on my phone.

Yes, I know I'm weird.

[Scott Green]

No, not weird

Love my N900, does everything I need very well; would love to get hold of an N9 but the price is insane...

[ScissorHands]

Huh?

How much did you pay for that N900? Current N900 online price may be around 450 euros, but I still see it on a portuguese operator for 525 euros and unlocked, at launch, it cost MORE than the N9.

[Greg J Preece]

Agree entirely

Maemo has the best multitasking of any mobile OS, and the most competent system base. Not the fastest phone, but the sheer number of things you can do with it made it superb. Every time someone got a new thingy on their ShinyPhone, it would be something the N900 had been doing for donkey's years.

Real shame it's dead. :-( No idea what I'm going to use next.

[KippersTomatoes]

flexible disaggregation?

If that's what LiMO does to the English language then I shudder to think what it does to C++ or Java.

[Mr Floppy]

don't just blame Intel

Nokia are still to blame. Maemo could have been great. When Nokia announced Meego after all the people bought the N900, well initially there was a little excitement but then nothing, nothing, nothing.

Still, the N900 rides strong ..

[Hubert Thrunge Jr.]

The author obviously can't read!

Meego is far from dead. As someone signed up to the Meego (handset) development mail groups, I can tell you that it's development is still on-going, and the heart of it is still in Nokia.

The N9 has already sold out on pre-orders in Finland, and is heading to do the same elsewhere - a phone that "nobody" wants?? Doesn't look like it. In insider at Nokia has said that they get 100 enquiries for unreleased N9's compared to, let's see... one for it's Mango phone...

Rolling other developments into the Meego mix makes it bigger with more clout - and will speed up development towards maturity. It's still only a young product, and Elop made sure that the development team was trimmed to the minimum to try and stifle it - which isn't happening. It'll bit his hand.

So - Zombie? No. Seedling - yes.

[ScissorHands]

MeeGo and Nokia have parted ways

Check today's announcement of Tizen.

The N9 is not MeeGo, it's a Maemo capable of running MeeGo apps - if they are built with Nokia's UI widgets (Qt Quick) in mind.

Like I said when I first heard about MeeGo. "WTF are you doing, Nokia? Maemo 6 is almost ready, you have to launch a mainstream successor to the N900, quickly, why are you wasting time with In -Car Entertainment?"

[Andus McCoatover]

It'll be here in Finland soon...

But at an eyewatering €599!

Looking at Saunalahti's video (below), it looks delicious.

Problem, the apps. Who is going to write for it? With the 'rebranding' (read: destruction) of ovi.com, no-one will want to develop for this. Dammit.

http://saunalahti.fi/n9/?gclid=COHH5sPXv6sCFcK9zAodARXeuw

(Click on the "Katso esyttelyvideo" link once the crap stops.)

[Lars]

Is there always something in the name

I just wonder about this Maemo, Meego, LiMo, how could that compete with a name like Android.

Also I think there was something "happy" in "Linux" and the penguin logo.

OS/2 versus Windows same difficulty there, Jobs desperate efforts to keep the "i" is perhaps understandable.