While Nokia has kept its promise to actively develop for MeeGo, nobody else did. Intel, AMD, and other companies outright abandoned both developers and startups that were embracing MeeGo, and dumped it in-favor of the non-realtime Tizen.
This week, Nokia quietly released MeeGo 1.2 for the Nokia N9. MeeGo 1.2 “Harmattan” was the final official release of MeeGo before the project was “abandoned”. Technically MeeGo is still an active project, according to the Linux Foundation, but its steering partners refuse to allow code to be admitted. It’s a black eye for the Linux Foundation, which should either formally close the project, or appoint new steering members, mainly, the community that prefers MeeGo over Tizen.
Neither course of action is likely to be taken, all the parties involved know that giving MeeGo a future would hurt Tizen. And while Nokia touts that “Plan B is for Plan A (Windows Phone) to succeed…” the company’s behind-the-scenes actions indicate otherwise. They all indicate they’re still working on MeeGo, on their own.
It would be hard for Nokia’s acquisition by Microsoft to be challenged, should it come to pass. After all, Google is acquiring Motorola, and Apple could build hardware for years into the future even if all revenue streams stopped tomorrow. Some would raise potential antitrust issues, many would accuse Steven Elop of being planted at Nokia to stage the company for acquisition. However, at the end of the day it would go through.
Still though, lets put aside the Microkia path for a minute… what should Nokia do if it is to continue on its own? The company has acknowledged that Windows Phone royalties don’t fit when device costs must be at a minimum. The company has committed to supporting cross-platform technologies that it pioneered, such as Qt. Microsoft won’t even allow Qt on its platform.
So, we’re left with this new build of MeeGo 1.2, that has new UI adaptations and features that build on top of the abandoned MeeGo code. It runs Qt as flawlessly as Android, Mac OS X, Windows on the desktop, and any other Linux platform. It also handles everything from Adobe Flash to the web browser engine of your choice.
It’s the perfect superphone platform. It’s deplorable of Nokia that they never released it in the United States, but it’s still the perfect superphone platform.
Could it also be the perfect platform for people that have never held a cell phone before?
At its core, MeeGo is a streamlined Linux build with a lot of the grunt work done. Package selection, build customizations, and performance optimization for ARM9 CPUs. If you strip away the magnificent AMOLED displays, Carl Zeiss optics, and 4.5G LTE Advanced silicon… and MeeGo still works.
Let’s fast forward about a year or two. CPUs with the performance yield of Apple’s A5 will be dirt cheap. The RAM, SSD, and 3G chipsets that make up a typical baseline MeeGo phone today will also be cheap. And, Nokia will continue to fuel Qt development on all the existing platforms, including advancing its support on Android. One could argue even with a Windows Phone and iOS lockout, that Qt will run on a larger market share of devices two years from now, than it will today.
Add all that up, and it starts to make more and more sense that MeeGo would be used to power the “next billion” of devices.
MeeGo is also a lot more adaptable than Windows Phone, it can adapt to the needs of the consumer. In an area that solar power is more important than ten-point multitouch? It can go monochrome. It can do e-ink, even. Windows Phone platform restrictions would shoot down the innovation that Nokia will need to drop smartphone technology in places where it cannot thrive today.
Wireless connectivity is also a major issue in areas where the next billion are lacking devices. In many areas, due to bandwidth, lack of local loops, and other issues, SMS may be the fastest data out there. MeeGo can offer services that allow for small data bursts to be turned into an app-rich environment, and then quickly toggle over to low-power Bluetooth or Wi-Fi when faster data is available.
In all, don’t be surprised if you don’t see any more major firmware updates to the Nokia N9. Nokia will keep their commitments, but also does not want to anger the company writing a billion dollars in support to them… Microsoft. Likely, much like major endeavors such as Apple’s Marklar, Nokia will fork MeeGo internally, keep the team focused on making checkpoint releases that run on older hardware… older hardware selected to mule the latest low-cost smartphones out there today.
If we ever see a “NokiaGo” fork of MeeGo will likely hinge on Nokia’s success, or lack thereof with Windows Phone. In reality, a failure of Nokia with Windows Phone could actually hinder such potential. If Windows Phone is a totally dismal failure for Nokia, it could devastate the share price of Nokia into being a fire sale to Microsoft. The MeeGo team pink slips will soon follow that outcome.
In a twisted reality of today, MeeGo fans should probably be rooting for Windows Phone to succeed at Nokia. And that’s a tough pill to swallow for even me.
I have an N9 and a Lumia 800, too. I don’t want to anger you, but I prefer the Lumia. It is just faster. I am also typing from that. But I love the N9, too. I think Elop does it right. I like how he still improved Symbian.
Elop had nothing to do with improving Symbian. Phones are built on three-to-five year roadmaps, everything in Anna and Belle was already being coded before Elop came on the scene.
I’m not saying WP7 is bad, but Elop sent MeeGo and Belle to slaughter. Belle may have been on the way out, but MeeGo was on the way up.
Elop is a troll hired by Steve Ballmer to force-feed Nokia to Microsoft at a bargain barn price. Just watch, I doubt we’ll see MeeGo come back before it’s curtains for Nokia. Sad thing is, the developing world will suffer the most from it. Geeks will have webOS and Android to compete with Windows, not to mention iOS.
elop does right… yeah… his in a path to break nokia…
elop mantra “nokia only will succed if microsoft benefits, i dont really matter if nokia will succed with android, symbian, meego, etc, its with windows or i rather want to bankrupt”
Most of Us Would Rather see nokia Die Than Continue its Current mangled existence as WinKia.
A Painful Death By A Thousand Cuts. Lets Help Make It Faster By Boycotting All Nokia Phones Running WinMo!
“While Nokia has kept its promise to actively develop for MeeGo, nobody else did. Intel, AMD, and other companies outright abandoned both developers and startups that were embracing MeeGo, and dumped it in-favor of the non-realtime Tizen.”
Stopped reading there…..
When you’re going to write an article & act like you know what you’re talking about.
Please at least make an effort to be far better informed.
Nokia “did” abandon MeeGo, some of the work it’s done for the N9 does go back into the Qt code-base.
Elements that they allow to be open, but those elements have nothing to do with real MeeGo.
The recent PR1.2 update for the N9 has zilch to do with MeeGo Core 1.2 (Vanilla MeeGo).
The only connection they have, is that small fragments of their UX code-base are shared.
N9’s MeeGo is more closely related to Maemo5, nowadays it’s often referred to as Maemo6x.
It also (or at least did) has a MeeGo compatibility layer, so porting between both is less troublesome.
Real MeeGo for handsets (originally known as MeeGoCE) is now known as MeR (MeeGo reconstructed).
It uses a UX layer Nokia/others started that’s now called Nemo, it can also use Plasma or Cordia.
“but those elements have nothing to do with real MeeGo.”
Correction, not nothing, they’re of direct benefit to MeR+Nemo/Plasma etc.
Nokia has made very clear it’s not doing anything on the high-end in the foreseeable future.
What it may re-use much of it’s N9 code-base (Maemo6x) for, is an oft rumored project called Meltemi.
This is supposedly stripped-down Maemo6x + Qt5 + SwipeUX & will replace S40 in the low-end.
It will not be for high-end devices sadly…
However it sounds like they’re trying to bring a smartphone-like experience to dumb/featurephones.
Esp. given their recent purchase of the company/platform called smarterphone.
When they refer to “the next billion” they’re referring to their dumb/featuerphone market.
Despite failing abysmally in recent years with smartphones, Nokia’s still doing well in that segment.
In fact if it weren’t for that segment, Nokia’s entire mobile phone division would be almost dead by now.
These are their lowest end Symbian phones, but primarily their S40-class phones.
Nokia has been gearing/optimizing Qt for this segment, & apparently S40 will be replaced by Meltemi.
So they can begin to “blur the lines” between true smartphones, & dumb/featurephones.
Ultimately this platform may creep into the top-end, but that def. won’t happen any sooner than 2017.
Not while Nokia’s contract with MS is in place, & even after that the chances are still quite slim IMO.
N9 with MeeGo is superior, and I believe they went with WP7 crap only to survive.
Wow, Jed, for someone that stopped reading the article after the first sentence, you sure have a lot to contribute!
I find it funny that your subsequent comments “correct” things to the point that you are basically in agreement with the author of the article :p
^There is some significant incorrect points in the article.
Try re-reading it, and then try re-reading what I wrote.
As for my 1st post, it was rude, I do apolgize to the author.
I must’ve been having a bad hair day….
Thumbs up to Jed for apologizing.
Thanks to all for the technical stuff.
Got four Nokias this year (C07?.. Symbian), N9 and two Lumia710s.
The Lumias are sweet and fast. They’re all nice phones. Too bad there wasn’t just a tad bit more support for the N9 and some speed tweeks. No perfect phone yet but there are a lot of nice ones.
If I could get an iPhone, jailbroken, to run on T-Mo with 3G that would be ideal. Basically, anything but Android (which is also in my pocket.) 😉
“Too bad there wasn’t just a tad bit more support for the N9 and some speed tweeks
Huh? There is still support for the N9….
There’s already been two major updates and there’s another one on the way.
The updates have been far more substantial than the updates I’ve received for my L800.
Whether support will be around for much longer is hard to know.
But there’s no way one can say there hasn’t been good support “so far”.
I think Craig is referring to platform-based support. Nokia can only do so much to help MeeGo in its current state :/
Nobody’s questioning that Nokia is keeping its commitment to MeeGo and the N9, aside from their refusal to offer direct sales in the United States… which was splitting hairs in their contract/agreement with Intel to “globally” launch at least one MeeGo handset.
“I think Craig is referring to platform-based support.”
Well yes there’s no doubt that support is lacking there…
In fact “tonnes” is lacking there, given that there’s not a single extra device planned! 🙁
“which was splitting hairs in their contract/agreement with Intel to “globally” launch at least one MeeGo handset.”
I never saw evidence that they were bound to release at least one “MeeGo” device worldwide.
In fact they had a fight with the LF to even be allowed to use the MeeGo name.
For a long time it looked like the LF may not even let them use the name…
Never made any sense to me why they even wanted to use the name so badly.
MeeGo hadn’t been marketed heavily, & what N950/N9 used was more akin to Maemo6x anyway.
Plus the whole MeeGo name had become badly tainted at that point, so it all made zero sense.
I think it had more to do with the fact that they’d invested far too much time/resources to simply shelve the whole thing.
It would be grossly negligent, had they done that…
Intel acknowledged to PhoneNews.com that Nokia had, as part of their Memo of Intent (the contract wherein the companies agreed to partner on MeeGo), that Nokia would at least launch one MeeGo device.
Intel wanted this assurance because they were concerned that Nokia would back out of the platform and leave Intel without any hardware partners, before the platform could gain a foothold in the market.
These assurances were looped into the Linux Foundation’s endorsement, which created the three-partner arrangement.
In the end, Nokia did the deal with Microsoft, causing Elop to do what he did; keep the commitment with Intel to launch a single MeeGo device (the N9) and then focus exclusively on Windows Phone.
Elop has said quite clearly, he does not care if MeeGo had a future. He has said, on the record, that MeeGo would be not be continued by Nokia even if the N9 was widely successful. If you want to call that grossly negligent, you’re welcome to your opinion… supporters of Elop would argue that Microsoft’s investment ($1 Billion) outweighed MeeGo’s market value.
Intel, seeing a new partner in Samsung, then focused on creating a new project that would be able to accept/merge with Bada, in the form of Tizen.
P.S. Nokia refutes the notion that they are not using stock MeeGo. They dispute your claim that “Maemo6x” is what they are using. Nokia did take some features planned for its internal MeeGo implementation, and kept them exclusive. But, the N9 is 100% MeeGo-based and compatible according to Nokia.
“But, the N9 is 100% MeeGo-based and compatible according to Nokia.”
It is 100% compatible (thanks to a compatibility layer), but it’s certainly not 100% Vanilla MeeGo, far from it.
Anyone that’s been involved with MeeGo for the past 2yrs would know that…
I’m amazed that Nokia would say this to you, but if it wasn’t one of their engineers then I guess we needn’t be surprised.
for some reason my larger response is not appearing…..
[“Intel acknowledged to PhoneNews.com that Nokia had, as part of their Memo of Intent (the contract wherein the companies agreed to partner on MeeGo),
that Nokia would at least launch one MeeGo device.”]
This agreement is on the public record somewhere for all to see?
Not saying it’s incorrect, all I said was I can’t recall seeing any iron-clad evidence of such an agreement.
I’ve certainly seen it written about & speculated on many times etc.
[“He has said, on the record, that MeeGo would be not be continued by Nokia even if the N9 was widely successful.”]
They’ve also hinted that they’re still very much focused on developing their own Linux/FOSS-based OS.
Just not one that’s called “MeeGo” or structured/geared (strategically) in the same way.
[“If you want to call that grossly negligent, you’re welcome to your opinion…
supporters of Elop would argue that Microsoft’s investment ($1 Billion) outweighed MeeGo’s market value.”]
Not sure why you’re bringing that side of the argument into it…
I was not arguing against the switch the “MS-only” strategy (although a lot can be said there).
I was simply stating that abandoning it entirely after all that time/resources was never happening.
As evidenced by the fact that they didn’t….
Maybe if they’d come to the decision they did earlier it would’ve been feasible.
[“Nokia refutes the notion that they are not using stock MeeGo. They dispute your claim that “Maemo6x” is what they are using.
Nokia did take some features planned for its internal MeeGo implementation, and kept them exclusive. But, the N9 is 100% MeeGo-based and compatible according to Nokia.”]
Well your contacts at Nokia are wrong….
Go & check all the freely accessible commits & one can come to the same conclusion.
N9/950 uses a different package management system, the underlying windowing system is entirely different, as are much of the UX components, & it goes on.
Vanilla MeeGo’s UI components are now freely observable in the MeR+Nemo/Plasma etc distros which it has evolved into.
The differences are there for all to see….
The plan was always to have at least 2x primarily Maemo-based handsets before migrating to MeeGo proper.
But the strategy change occurred well before they got to that point.
The full switch probably would have occurred w/their 1st x86 handset in about June/July 2012.
After a third & final Maemo6x device had been released (which would be shipping by about now).
they didn’t release Meego 1.2 earlier this week. The whole software that have been powering the N9 has always been Maemo core with a slapped on Meego 1.2 interface layer – and the end product is namely Meego 1.2 Harmattan.
What they released earlier this week is PR1.2 aka Meego 1.2 Harmattan 1.2 (yes I know what I am talking). This is the third public release of the Meego 1.2 Harmattan software after PR1.0 and PR1.1….so this is not a dead end yet, Meego 1.2 Harmattan 1.3 is already in the pipeline (PR1.3), but keep fingers crossed whether there will be a PR1.4 or PR1.5…I guess that will all depends on the sales volume of the N9.
The actual UX layer is also quite different to Vanilla MeeGo.
Elements of what into Vanilla MeeGo ended-up in Maemo6x (MeeGo-Harmattan) & vice versa, but they’re still quite different UX-wise.
If the project was still going, then in about 3mth every new phone from then on would be using only Vanilla MeeGo & it’s UX.
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