About N9 and Nokia in general
March 2 at Habrahabr was published resonant post about the causes of the current situation of Nokia . In it, I saw one very meaningful message: with Elop, Nokia decided to become a predominantly hardware company, making the development of software as far as possible. This message seemed to indirectly answer the question that has been worrying me since last summer regarding startup Jolla, which is developing the heiress of Maemo & MeeGo, the mobile operating system Sailfish OS: what is startup Jolla, the dramatic marketing challenge of the ship itself or the real rebellion on the ship?
I had this question literally the day after the column published on July 3 last year on Nomobile.ru about possible scenarios for the so-called Nokia Plan B, which was talked about in June in connection with Microsoft’s decision to completely update Windows Phone. I will not repeat the content of the column, anyone can read it on the link. And I mentioned it because literally the next day after its publication, the head of the application development division of MeeGo, Sotiris Makrigiannis, announced his retirement from Nokia. Following him, several other Nokia employees from the Maemo & MeeGo project announced their resignation, and then an official statement appeared that they all joined the Jolla company, allegedly created back in November 2011. This was followed by a message that Nokia hands over all the patents and developments necessary for the development of Maemo & MeeGo to the startup Jolla. However, the next day this message was denied. The scandal subsided. Nokia continued to make smartphones on WP8, and Jolla announced its intention to create a new operating system, SailfishOS, based on MerProject sources and supporting Qt, as well as via alian dalvik and Android applications. Soon, Nokia sold Qt to the Finnish company Digia, released the Lumia920 with a PureView camera with optical stabilization, while Jolla raised $ 200 million in development and gained the support of ChinaMobile, the largest Chinese operator.
In late November, when Lumia920 began to appear on store shelves to convince everyone that there was simply no better smartphone camera on the market, Jolla presented its first developments for the future SailfishOS. The most important wow feature of SailfishOS is the ability to manage applications that are in the background , that is, to manage minimized applications. About such multitasking, none of the current mobile OSes can not even dream. It is convenient, and fast, and very elegant. But otherwise, the SailfishOS user interface personally seemed to me not so simple and obvious as the MeeGo Harmattan interface. Now, if in UI MeeGo Harmattan on the screen of minimized applications, the possibility of managing them, as implemented in SailfishOS, appeared, it would be a completely different matter. But Nokia, having sold many software assets, sharing patents with BlackBerry for $ 50 million, UI MeeGo Harmattan for some reason carefully keeps to itself, although it officially declares that it has no plans to continue its Linux line.
Some elements of the user interface MeeGo Harmattan migrated to the Nokia Belle FP2 and S40 Touch, but some, in general, the interface MeeGo Harmattan still remains unique and is present only on one commercial device Nokia N9. Literally, while writing this post , anonymous information appeared that Nokia might be preparing to release a certain N9 mini . What OS does this smartphone work on? It is not clear, but the one who allegedly saw the device claims that its interface is very strongly reminiscent of UI MeeGo Harmattan. In this case, it is noted that there is no multitasking in the OS. So this is probably not MeeGo Harmattan. In general, the fact of the existence of the S40 Touch does not really fit into the concept of the withdrawal of software development outside the company. However, I think this is a temporary measure. With the S40 Touch, Nokia is preparing models for FirefoxOS, and strung a new Mozilla budget OS on a ready-made device (which, by the way, has always had very close relations with Nokia, especially thanks to the company's Linux development), this is a matter of a couple of months. It will turn out FirefoxOS, - I think Nokia will gladly transfer its budget touch phones to them, it won't work - they will stay on the S40 Asha Touch, which I personally really liked. There is, of course, another version of the resurrection of Meltemi, which was never really born, but, I think, Nokia abandoned it at one time just in favor of FirefoxOS, that is, in fact, FirefoxOS is Meltemi.
')
Since the release of the N9, I could not believe that Nokia really put an end to this OS. Everything seemed to be rather slyly lined up marketing for a leisurely cultivation of a cult, undeservedly abandoned product that would become popular from below, and not at the expense of resource advertising companies. With the help of the N9, Nokia was waving no less on the iPhone. (Is this why Stephen Elop threw out an iPhone interviewer who had interviewed him the other day?) At one time, Stephen Jobs, who returned to Apple, promoted new company products not only due to their innovativeness or genius (in fact, many noted that Jobs He was never a revolutionary in the field of technology, he was a brilliant packer and marketer, a trend maker in one word), but also due to the fan capital that had accumulated among consumers by the time he returned to Apple. I thought, and I still think that Nokia decided (or maybe it didn’t decide with the N9, and it all happens by itself) - it doesn’t matter in principle) to go this way: to create a cult by persecution and oppression and only then release New device, with guaranteed high sales. Well, if it really was a plan, then it turns out, because I have never met a more committed user than the N9, well, maybe with the exception of Apple users.
From the same conspiracy-marketing considerations, Nokia, in my opinion, did not share with Jolla UI MeeGo Harmattan patents, and began to introduce svayp-elements in Nokia Belle and S40 Touch, as if accustoming the user to a future product completely built on svaypom management. There should be a reservation that despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of users are literally in love with the easy, almost magical svayp-interface of MeeGo Harmattan, I have met enough people who, in any case, when confronted with a buttonless device, are lost. For mass N9 was really too revolutionary. As such, it essentially remains to this day, although, in addition to SailfishOS, the same Ubuntu Phone has already appeared, also controlled by some gestures. The users who have grown up on Asha Touch and on updates to Nokia Belle can easily and naturally switch to the MeeGo Harmattan interface.
Nokia didn’t share the UI MeeGo Harmattan concept with Jolla, but when the Maemo.org community needed financial assistance to move to new servers, it provided it. That is, there is no hostility. However, there is another interesting. Since the fall of 2011, that is, almost since the start of sales of the N9, Maemo.org repositories have added firmware for the N900 and N950 . This assembly is called NemoMobile. ( Its latest versions are already available on the new resource: NemoMobile.org ) There is no information about which future devices this assembly is intended for - no. Its difference from MeeGo Harmattan is essentially programmatic. In particular, if the extension of the installation files in MeeGo Harmattan is .deb (this fact essentially means that MeeGo Harmattan from MeeGo is only a name, and in fact it is rather Maemo6), then in NemoMobile the extension of the installation files .rpm , that is, what was taken in the classic MeeGo.
It can be assumed that NemoMobile - it was an operating system, which, before the advent of SailfishOS, was supposed (when the tricky marketing plan to create the N9 cult by oppressing it would have been realized) to change MeeGo Harmattan. However, after the appearance of SailfishOS, new NemoMobile images continued to appear. There are no clear indications that Nokia itself is behind this. Is that recently a video has been uploaded to YouTube , demonstrating the work of NemoMobile not on the N900 or N950, but on the N9-00 Proto . I think that prototype devices existing in single or even in single copies (N950 according to the available information was released with a circulation of about 90 thousand copies) still had to remain in Nokia?
Here I would like to draw attention to several small details. First of all. For MeeGo Harmattan, there is QNeptunea twitter client. This is the best client for Twitter from all that exists on other platforms (in general, applications for MeeGo Harmattan are distinguished by their multifunctionality). But this is not the case, but the fact that as a service for translating tweets, QNeptunea is not pre-installed with Google Translator, but a translator from Microsoft. It would seem, why would it, if so Microsoft annoyed the fans of MeeGo? Or another example. Just the other day, the SailfishOS theme for N9 appeared on the net. It is noteworthy that the browser icon in this thread depicts Internet Explorer , and the e-mail of the theme developer on Hotmail.com . Only two conclusions can be drawn from this: either developers under SailfishOS send signals of Microsoft's friendship in this way, or they somehow work for the common idea with Nokia and Microsoft.
New and well forgotten old Linux mobile platforms - this is almost the main trend of the mobile market now. LG bought WebOS, Ubuntu released a mobile firmware for Nexus devices, Mozilla - FirefoxOS, Jolla - SailfishOS, Lenovo is asking the price of BlackBerry and QNX. However, no matter how many of these operating systems are, in the end, they are still tied to one or another Internet service. Linking MeeGo Harmattan or SailfishOS applications to a service not of Google, but of Microsoft, is the most important competition between MeeGo and WP. In a series of new mobile platforms, MeeGo Harmattan, and Maemo5, on which the N900 operates, and which, despite official admonitions, did not even die at all, but continues to live and develop with community efforts and is quite suitable for the release of trasformer or tablets, ahead of everyone else, which so far no applications, no developers, no devices. Nokia should not miss this advantage.
Already when this post was written, the latest NemoMobile firmware version became available. The video demonstrating its work on the N900 , it is clear that the interface is one to one MeeGo Harmattan. That is, the assumption that Nemo Mobile was an assembly that Nokia was originally preparing to upgrade to the N9, received another confirmation. So it may be so, but now Nemo Mobile is listed among the projects on the site Sailfishos.org. What does it mean that the oversight of this assembly is now transferred to Jolla? And what update will N9 eventually get? The fact that some will receive, I personally am absolutely sure of that. Nokia cannot but know that the device, abandoned by the company, in spite of everything has become popular, and even a cult device.
Personally, I would really like N9 to get an update with the following user interface functionality . I think a smartphone with such an interface, plus support for Android applications, plus a completely open OS, will allow Nokia and Jolla to get ahead almost from scratch in relation to Samsung, who are preparing to release a smartphone on Tizen, and in relation to those who still decide release the device on UbuntuPhone. That is, the N9 is already there, according to its hardware characteristics, the smartphone is absolutely modern, even NFC is in it, which is just now coming into use. We are talking only about what kind of update (but exactly official) to release to it. If Nokia and Jolla agree, then Nokia can once again shoot a product almost two years ago, and Jolla get a working device for further orders. The rights to the MeeGo Harmattan svayp interface can be reserved for Nokia. If in the future there is a desire to release a new smartphone on the Linux assembly, please, but so far there is no such need. Judging by the way SailfishOS works on the N950, which is slightly weaker than the N9 for iron (in particular, in the N950 512MB of RAM, and in the N9 1GB), SailfishOS will fly on the N9. Moreover, by the efforts of the community, N9 in any case can be upgraded to SailfishOS, applications for MeeGo Harmattan will be ported to Sailfish OS anyway and Jolla will develop the platform in any case (the courses for developers, by the way, start the other day ), only this there will be no MeeGo Harmattan interface, whose elements are so diligently transferred to other Nokia systems, and the Nokia device will in fact lose. And in collaboration with Jolla, will be able to release additional circulation and shoot the same smartphone a second time. At the same time, on other non-Nokia smartphones on the SailfishOS interface can be from the original SailfishOS, so here Nokia will observe its exclusive. About the fact that in the future (with the success of the project) it will be possible to release N9 (exactly the same, without increasing the diagonal; N9 is a classic!) With the PureView camera - you can not say.
And also - it still seems to me a very reasonable proposal to put on sale the N950. Like the N9, it became a cult device ( here it is sold on ebay for crazy money ), and no matter what the side slider form factor with the qwerty keyboard is not in demand, with almost no such modern models, a couple of millions of buyers There is such a form factor. I would suggest releasing it with a pre-installed one operating system, but with a multi-boot device that allows you to install multiple mobile operating systems on the N950. In fact, all this has already been implemented by the developer community. And on the N9 and the N950 ported and Android and NemoMobile and SailfishOS and full Ubuntu and Debian and whatnot . All that needs to be done is to put all these developments together, perhaps comb and release the first Developer Device in the history of the IT industry. Otherwise, Google with its Nexus devices strives to take away from Nokia this, if not massive, but very important asset.
I had this question literally the day after the column published on July 3 last year on Nomobile.ru about possible scenarios for the so-called Nokia Plan B, which was talked about in June in connection with Microsoft’s decision to completely update Windows Phone. I will not repeat the content of the column, anyone can read it on the link. And I mentioned it because literally the next day after its publication, the head of the application development division of MeeGo, Sotiris Makrigiannis, announced his retirement from Nokia. Following him, several other Nokia employees from the Maemo & MeeGo project announced their resignation, and then an official statement appeared that they all joined the Jolla company, allegedly created back in November 2011. This was followed by a message that Nokia hands over all the patents and developments necessary for the development of Maemo & MeeGo to the startup Jolla. However, the next day this message was denied. The scandal subsided. Nokia continued to make smartphones on WP8, and Jolla announced its intention to create a new operating system, SailfishOS, based on MerProject sources and supporting Qt, as well as via alian dalvik and Android applications. Soon, Nokia sold Qt to the Finnish company Digia, released the Lumia920 with a PureView camera with optical stabilization, while Jolla raised $ 200 million in development and gained the support of ChinaMobile, the largest Chinese operator.
In late November, when Lumia920 began to appear on store shelves to convince everyone that there was simply no better smartphone camera on the market, Jolla presented its first developments for the future SailfishOS. The most important wow feature of SailfishOS is the ability to manage applications that are in the background , that is, to manage minimized applications. About such multitasking, none of the current mobile OSes can not even dream. It is convenient, and fast, and very elegant. But otherwise, the SailfishOS user interface personally seemed to me not so simple and obvious as the MeeGo Harmattan interface. Now, if in UI MeeGo Harmattan on the screen of minimized applications, the possibility of managing them, as implemented in SailfishOS, appeared, it would be a completely different matter. But Nokia, having sold many software assets, sharing patents with BlackBerry for $ 50 million, UI MeeGo Harmattan for some reason carefully keeps to itself, although it officially declares that it has no plans to continue its Linux line.
Some elements of the user interface MeeGo Harmattan migrated to the Nokia Belle FP2 and S40 Touch, but some, in general, the interface MeeGo Harmattan still remains unique and is present only on one commercial device Nokia N9. Literally, while writing this post , anonymous information appeared that Nokia might be preparing to release a certain N9 mini . What OS does this smartphone work on? It is not clear, but the one who allegedly saw the device claims that its interface is very strongly reminiscent of UI MeeGo Harmattan. In this case, it is noted that there is no multitasking in the OS. So this is probably not MeeGo Harmattan. In general, the fact of the existence of the S40 Touch does not really fit into the concept of the withdrawal of software development outside the company. However, I think this is a temporary measure. With the S40 Touch, Nokia is preparing models for FirefoxOS, and strung a new Mozilla budget OS on a ready-made device (which, by the way, has always had very close relations with Nokia, especially thanks to the company's Linux development), this is a matter of a couple of months. It will turn out FirefoxOS, - I think Nokia will gladly transfer its budget touch phones to them, it won't work - they will stay on the S40 Asha Touch, which I personally really liked. There is, of course, another version of the resurrection of Meltemi, which was never really born, but, I think, Nokia abandoned it at one time just in favor of FirefoxOS, that is, in fact, FirefoxOS is Meltemi.
')
Since the release of the N9, I could not believe that Nokia really put an end to this OS. Everything seemed to be rather slyly lined up marketing for a leisurely cultivation of a cult, undeservedly abandoned product that would become popular from below, and not at the expense of resource advertising companies. With the help of the N9, Nokia was waving no less on the iPhone. (Is this why Stephen Elop threw out an iPhone interviewer who had interviewed him the other day?) At one time, Stephen Jobs, who returned to Apple, promoted new company products not only due to their innovativeness or genius (in fact, many noted that Jobs He was never a revolutionary in the field of technology, he was a brilliant packer and marketer, a trend maker in one word), but also due to the fan capital that had accumulated among consumers by the time he returned to Apple. I thought, and I still think that Nokia decided (or maybe it didn’t decide with the N9, and it all happens by itself) - it doesn’t matter in principle) to go this way: to create a cult by persecution and oppression and only then release New device, with guaranteed high sales. Well, if it really was a plan, then it turns out, because I have never met a more committed user than the N9, well, maybe with the exception of Apple users.
From the same conspiracy-marketing considerations, Nokia, in my opinion, did not share with Jolla UI MeeGo Harmattan patents, and began to introduce svayp-elements in Nokia Belle and S40 Touch, as if accustoming the user to a future product completely built on svaypom management. There should be a reservation that despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of users are literally in love with the easy, almost magical svayp-interface of MeeGo Harmattan, I have met enough people who, in any case, when confronted with a buttonless device, are lost. For mass N9 was really too revolutionary. As such, it essentially remains to this day, although, in addition to SailfishOS, the same Ubuntu Phone has already appeared, also controlled by some gestures. The users who have grown up on Asha Touch and on updates to Nokia Belle can easily and naturally switch to the MeeGo Harmattan interface.
Nokia didn’t share the UI MeeGo Harmattan concept with Jolla, but when the Maemo.org community needed financial assistance to move to new servers, it provided it. That is, there is no hostility. However, there is another interesting. Since the fall of 2011, that is, almost since the start of sales of the N9, Maemo.org repositories have added firmware for the N900 and N950 . This assembly is called NemoMobile. ( Its latest versions are already available on the new resource: NemoMobile.org ) There is no information about which future devices this assembly is intended for - no. Its difference from MeeGo Harmattan is essentially programmatic. In particular, if the extension of the installation files in MeeGo Harmattan is .deb (this fact essentially means that MeeGo Harmattan from MeeGo is only a name, and in fact it is rather Maemo6), then in NemoMobile the extension of the installation files .rpm , that is, what was taken in the classic MeeGo.
It can be assumed that NemoMobile - it was an operating system, which, before the advent of SailfishOS, was supposed (when the tricky marketing plan to create the N9 cult by oppressing it would have been realized) to change MeeGo Harmattan. However, after the appearance of SailfishOS, new NemoMobile images continued to appear. There are no clear indications that Nokia itself is behind this. Is that recently a video has been uploaded to YouTube , demonstrating the work of NemoMobile not on the N900 or N950, but on the N9-00 Proto . I think that prototype devices existing in single or even in single copies (N950 according to the available information was released with a circulation of about 90 thousand copies) still had to remain in Nokia?
Here I would like to draw attention to several small details. First of all. For MeeGo Harmattan, there is QNeptunea twitter client. This is the best client for Twitter from all that exists on other platforms (in general, applications for MeeGo Harmattan are distinguished by their multifunctionality). But this is not the case, but the fact that as a service for translating tweets, QNeptunea is not pre-installed with Google Translator, but a translator from Microsoft. It would seem, why would it, if so Microsoft annoyed the fans of MeeGo? Or another example. Just the other day, the SailfishOS theme for N9 appeared on the net. It is noteworthy that the browser icon in this thread depicts Internet Explorer , and the e-mail of the theme developer on Hotmail.com . Only two conclusions can be drawn from this: either developers under SailfishOS send signals of Microsoft's friendship in this way, or they somehow work for the common idea with Nokia and Microsoft.
New and well forgotten old Linux mobile platforms - this is almost the main trend of the mobile market now. LG bought WebOS, Ubuntu released a mobile firmware for Nexus devices, Mozilla - FirefoxOS, Jolla - SailfishOS, Lenovo is asking the price of BlackBerry and QNX. However, no matter how many of these operating systems are, in the end, they are still tied to one or another Internet service. Linking MeeGo Harmattan or SailfishOS applications to a service not of Google, but of Microsoft, is the most important competition between MeeGo and WP. In a series of new mobile platforms, MeeGo Harmattan, and Maemo5, on which the N900 operates, and which, despite official admonitions, did not even die at all, but continues to live and develop with community efforts and is quite suitable for the release of trasformer or tablets, ahead of everyone else, which so far no applications, no developers, no devices. Nokia should not miss this advantage.
Already when this post was written, the latest NemoMobile firmware version became available. The video demonstrating its work on the N900 , it is clear that the interface is one to one MeeGo Harmattan. That is, the assumption that Nemo Mobile was an assembly that Nokia was originally preparing to upgrade to the N9, received another confirmation. So it may be so, but now Nemo Mobile is listed among the projects on the site Sailfishos.org. What does it mean that the oversight of this assembly is now transferred to Jolla? And what update will N9 eventually get? The fact that some will receive, I personally am absolutely sure of that. Nokia cannot but know that the device, abandoned by the company, in spite of everything has become popular, and even a cult device.
Personally, I would really like N9 to get an update with the following user interface functionality . I think a smartphone with such an interface, plus support for Android applications, plus a completely open OS, will allow Nokia and Jolla to get ahead almost from scratch in relation to Samsung, who are preparing to release a smartphone on Tizen, and in relation to those who still decide release the device on UbuntuPhone. That is, the N9 is already there, according to its hardware characteristics, the smartphone is absolutely modern, even NFC is in it, which is just now coming into use. We are talking only about what kind of update (but exactly official) to release to it. If Nokia and Jolla agree, then Nokia can once again shoot a product almost two years ago, and Jolla get a working device for further orders. The rights to the MeeGo Harmattan svayp interface can be reserved for Nokia. If in the future there is a desire to release a new smartphone on the Linux assembly, please, but so far there is no such need. Judging by the way SailfishOS works on the N950, which is slightly weaker than the N9 for iron (in particular, in the N950 512MB of RAM, and in the N9 1GB), SailfishOS will fly on the N9. Moreover, by the efforts of the community, N9 in any case can be upgraded to SailfishOS, applications for MeeGo Harmattan will be ported to Sailfish OS anyway and Jolla will develop the platform in any case (the courses for developers, by the way, start the other day ), only this there will be no MeeGo Harmattan interface, whose elements are so diligently transferred to other Nokia systems, and the Nokia device will in fact lose. And in collaboration with Jolla, will be able to release additional circulation and shoot the same smartphone a second time. At the same time, on other non-Nokia smartphones on the SailfishOS interface can be from the original SailfishOS, so here Nokia will observe its exclusive. About the fact that in the future (with the success of the project) it will be possible to release N9 (exactly the same, without increasing the diagonal; N9 is a classic!) With the PureView camera - you can not say.
And also - it still seems to me a very reasonable proposal to put on sale the N950. Like the N9, it became a cult device ( here it is sold on ebay for crazy money ), and no matter what the side slider form factor with the qwerty keyboard is not in demand, with almost no such modern models, a couple of millions of buyers There is such a form factor. I would suggest releasing it with a pre-installed one operating system, but with a multi-boot device that allows you to install multiple mobile operating systems on the N950. In fact, all this has already been implemented by the developer community. And on the N9 and the N950 ported and Android and NemoMobile and SailfishOS and full Ubuntu and Debian and whatnot . All that needs to be done is to put all these developments together, perhaps comb and release the first Developer Device in the history of the IT industry. Otherwise, Google with its Nexus devices strives to take away from Nokia this, if not massive, but very important asset.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/174081/
All Articles