On 17/11/2010 09:16, Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote:
You could try MeeGo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo
Which is. at least in this instance, based on Maemo.
At the moment with this phone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900
My best advice - and this is real world experience speaking - keep clear of Nokia and Nokia devices. Nokia have a very real history of completely screwing over developers for their tablet based OS. I was an N800 owner, and I developed for that platform. I went through NIT-OS 2007 and 2008. Nokia released the N810, and we were told that "this was just a revision" and all would continue. The N800 was dropped 6 months later and we were then told "the N800 will have no further updates, buy an N810 if you want future releases.." Guess what? They released the N900, they pretty much shelved the N810 and there was never more than a "hack level" version of any future OS for the N810.
Next beef - Maemo used "Hildon" as the UI kit. It was based on GTK+. It was okay - we all may well know the pain of using OO based C API's, but it certainly was not impossible to develop for at all. So, Nokia acquires Qt and Trolltech. Announces that Qt will sit along side Hildon - no one needs to worry about anything, they will both be "first class citizens" in Maemo land. Um.. well, sure, that lasted for one OS release. Now Hildon is pretty much dead and all the skillset learned for the device is gone. Maybe Hildon might still work in part - I don't really care to find out. All indications to me are that it is gone though.
Next beef - and this is unrelated to Tablets OS; my company was developing a system using RFID based technology. Nokia had a product that was almost off the shelf. We were woo-ed by their technical sales guys and so agreed to sign a contract to use their services and buy their hardware. We had a substantial amount of custom we were willing to put their way. Myself and two other guys went on an expensive 2 day training course and learnt the technology. We scheduled in the development. Two weeks before we commenced the project, Nokia announced they were dropping the product, no longer selling the RFID capable phones and we could only have the service for a maximum of 2 years, where after it would be shelved. So, we were left high and dry and out of pocket.
Nokia really does not treat customers of parters well. I would never willingly develop for their platform(s) again, including Qt.
I hope that in 2011 Nokia will launch cheaper phones with MeeGo and that the platform will get cheaper, more stable and with a larger market share
There is little chance that will happen as it assumes Nokia will focus on Meego... Nokia can't focus on a blade of grass on a sunny day - they will carry on as is IMO and be shamed in to releasing cheap and shoddy hardware in a few years when it will be too little too late to save their business.
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