Thanks to the guys over at talk.maemo.org, a new fw update is on its way to everybody. Also on Twitter there is a word on this 2 steps update: first will come this minor one(16.2 MB) starting today, which will prepare the room for a second, major update (that will hopefully bring QT on board).

There is no changelog yet and supposedly it won’t be until the major 1.2 update at the end of Feb. Some of the lucky guys who were able to see and update their N900 are saying MicroB is moving smoother and the media player is louder

(courtesy to justcallmet, talk.maemo.org)

These are the updated packages:

“osso-wlan
libas-protocol-0
tablet-browser-controls
cmt-firmware-rx51
nolo
osso-applet-lanuageregional
apt-transport-https
Maemo5
osso-accounts-plugin-skype
tablet-browser-daemon
hildon-application-manager
apt
locale-resolver-data
libconbtui0
libgles2-sgx-img
libicd2
tablet-browser-view
wl1251-firmware
icd2
flasher
operator-wizard-settings
tablet-browser-ui
posix-locales
libconnui
connui-conndlgs
opengles-sgx-img-common
rtcom-call-ui
librtcom-call-ui0″

(thanks jrox at talk.mmaemo.org)

What you need to know / do:

1. You will need more space: disable and delete all the repos but the first 3 (which are read only, anyway) – this way you’ll gain up to 10-12 MB of rootfs; uninstall any major hogs like “OpenArena

2. You will need to backup everything

This update should be available over-the-air and from here: http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/nokia_N900.php

Don’t expect too much from this update:

- No wi-fi battery drainage addressed

- No video call

- No OVI maps improvements

- No free navigation

- No USSD (so keep using USSD widget)

More information on talk.maemo.org and here

Edit 1 : Changelog here

Browser

• History images do not match actual URLs under them
• New browser windows contents are not updated when page loads in background

Connectivity

• Wifi won’t connect until rebooted…
• Vodafone Italy: Wrong APN is autoconfigured

Core

• OpenGL ES 1.1 should be supported

Settings and Maintenance

• apt-get segfaults when system has ran out of ptys

System software

• Battery Dies Under 6 Hours with Very Moderate Use (Static IP?)

Telephony

• wrong cmt-firmware-rx51 (cell modem) version in published firmware?

EDIT 2:

Media Player process priority has been balanced: no more music pauses while browsing or chatting

While Apple fans are all silent, Maemo guys have had a serious reaction to previous post, Apple’s iPad is meant for drivers, not mechanics.

For now, besides a very small part on Ovi Store, all the applications for N900 are available through (Hildon) Application Manager, which can integrate any Fremantle (maemo 5) repository.

Of course N900 cannot compete with IPhone yet, so don’t you expect to see here some mouth waterring grafics. But in terms of openness and customization, N900 is surely a winner.

Here are my preferred 3rd party apps for Maemo5:

1. Xournal:
handwriting notes, very useful during meetings or quick notes of any kind:

It saves as .pdf so you can always send the file via share services or email. The developer is working on a handwrite recognition version which, hopefully, will be ready till February.

2. DiskUsage:
it shows what it says, all the partitions and used vs free space, including root partition.

Very useful app for a non linux pro who’s willing to test all the apps in all the repositories… Rootfs tends to go to 0 in no time, so this is one tool that can help you not to reflash the phone due to low root free space. DiskUsage is also able to show the rootfs as a pie where you can pinpoint with your finger / pen the biggest space hogs:

3. Maemo Mapper:
this is an old friend of all previous maemo version users, and the maemo5 version is highly usable. It’s a mapper who can use Google Maps or Yahoo Maps to track, route, find, pinpoint etc. Very intuitive and very easy to use:

Still, beware of your cache and saved maps location: go to map settings and modify the location of the saved maps to “My Docs” in order to avoid writing in rootfs of huge amount of data. Works best under 3G or Wi-Fi connections.

4. MGutenberg:
This is a small ebook reader that can successfully compete FB Reader in terms of basic operations. What’s really amazing with MGutenberg is that you can query and download free ebooks from Gutenberg project. Maybe not a spec for everybody, but you can find there the classics.

It also supports manual portrait mode

5. MaStory:
The last but not the least, a blog editor. WordPress integration is very good, html option rich, it knows how to deal with local pics but not movies yet, shows post previews, can share thru Flickr and Picasa and ake live photos straight from the camera. For a blogger this is a must have app:

These are my 3rd party apps at heart. Without them N900 would have been much naked and unappealing, for both newcomers and pros.

One of the most useful features Android Market has is “comment” feature on each application. It’s optional for the user but, what do you know?: It’s full of comments and scores all over Android Market! Each application gets scored and commented in couple of hours.

This is one feature that Nokia realy needs to implement, either in the Application Manager or into future N900′s Ovi Store: scores and comments for each application offered for download.

I’m sick and tired of Nokia’s developers not being focused on what’s hot or cold, so I’d strongly suggest and sincerely hope Nokia / Maemo community will somehow let the developers know how their applications are doing once let in the wild.

I’ve tried today a SIP call over Wi-Fi (8 Mbps dl to San Francisco
bandwidth) and we could not understand each other. The sound was noisy and a lot of data was lost both ends. I’ve tried calling for couple of times, using the same config: auto all, port 5060, autodetect stun server, SIP client: Vyke.

Well, everyboy knows Vyke is an almost “dedicated” Nokia SIP client; I have never encountered issues while using any Nokia phone model, from E50 to N97 with Vyke, either over 3G or Wi-Fi . But for now, with N900.

First sign of trouble was the echoed ringback tone; second, I’ve heard the callee like being in a huge cave, no tweets at all, only bass. Third: the lag. My God, the LAG!
So I have concluded there must be either a codec issue or a software problem.

I was VERY happy seing all SIP stacks and VOIP protocols built into my new N900. I have also tried GTalk voice, which was absolutely fine and reliable, but this is my first using SIP to landline and SIP to mobile and I’m not happy at all.

I’d say this attempt has just cost me some 6 euros, being forced to call my mobile british friend via my operator.

Stay tuned to see what’s happening while using Skype client over N900.

P.S.: I am still very pleased with my N900 and hardly waiting for the new firmware release.

We discovered a way to reproduce the “portrait mode glitch” playing with N900; the bug is easy to reproduce and it’s constant, although Nokia has not yet released the Christmas firmware update.

It’s not only the MicroB, but all the application, no matter they are scalable or not. You’ll see though the media player menu is totally messed up and I’m really worried regarding how much work Maemo and Nokia guys will have to dig into this issue.

We apologize for the low quality pictures, but all the camera recorder batteries were absolutely drained at the time…

Media player (screenshot):

RSS portrait (screenshot):

Status portrait (screenshot):

Edit: Here you can find another workaround by Kieron Peters to reach into portrait, using Braek from extra-testing repository

N900 has a 10 Mb/s download modem.

Here are the speed test results:

EDGE:

3G: