Enabling Google Talk video calling on Nokia N9

With the release of PR 1.2 comes a very welcome software addition - Google Talk Video Calling. Simply download the application from the store and it integrates with your existing GTalk account. Initiating and receiving calls worked well in your editor's testing.

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Enabling Google Talk video calling on Nokia N9
2. Applications
   • Visual updates for gPodder on N9 under development
   • Open source Password Generator for N9 available in Nokia Store
   • Drop Cache for N9 flushes disk cache, preventing data loss and freeing memory
3. Development
   • Mer-based IVI Hardware and UIs
   • Penetration tools for Harmattan
   • Hardware accelerated OpenGL ES on N9 in Java VM
4. Community
   • Intro to Tizen and the Future of the Community: Dawn Foster's FOSDEM talk slides
5. Devices
   • Problems installing N9 apps or updates?

Nokia N9 PR1.2 now available over-the-air

The long-awaited PR1.2 update is now available for Nokia N9 users.

Go to Settings > Applications > Manage applications > Update.

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Nokia N9 PR1.2 now available over-the-air
2. Applications
   • Avoiding jet lag with continuous clock change
   • Daily Wallpaper is Qt Ambassador project of the week
   • Two new FM Radio frontends for N9
   • ...and 3 more
3. Development
   • Mer Platform SDK can now build itself
   • Reverse engineered "WhatsApp" client can send messages
   • Harmattan PR1.2 requires Secure APT repositories
   • Qt Components running on BlackBerry Playbook
4. Community
   • maemo.org Extras Testing/QA refresh
5. Devices
   • Nokia launch WP, Series 40 & high-end camera phones - no sign of Qt for next billion
6. Announcements
   • WiFik - WiFi scanner for Harmattan
   • MaeMeeMo - a MeeGo Harmattan Nemo modification pack for Maemo 5
   • Personal Web Server for Nokia N9
   • ...and 6 more

A Technical Steering Group for Maemo 5 CSSU?

RM Bauer, one of your Maemo Community Council repressentatives, is pitching a proposal to form a Technical Steering Group for the Freemantle Community SSU: "I propose a TSG (Technical Steering Group) for CSSU - 3 community members meritocratically selected from within the project who will oversee initial decision making over such things as project management, release dates, features, architecture and roadmap. To the extent it means anything, Council can delegate some of its authority so that the TSG can hopefully address related administrative tasks directly and more quickly without Council intervening on its behalf."

Discussion seems to have gone quiet, which is disappointing for something so important.

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • A Technical Steering Group for Maemo 5 CSSU?
2. Applications
   • QNeptunea Twitter client updated for Harmattan
   • Derivation calculator for N900
   • Nemo's new file manager
   • Puzzle Master now available for N9 too
3. Development
   • Things to be aware of when preparing updates for Harmattan apps in Nokia Store
4. Community
   • Supertesters - make & accept nominations
5. In the Wild
   • Linux graphics system Wayland sees first real release
6. Announcements
   • gPodder updates for N900 and N8x0

2011: year-in-review

Last week's MWKN issue was our second anniversary and, rather than follow the crowd and have annual reviews at the end of the year, we like to do it on our birthday. Not least because of Nokia's habit of breaking big news in the first week of February!

Qt Innovation Challenge winners announced

Winners of the most popular N9 apps have walked away with $10,000 and, in the case of PhoneTorch, $50,000 as part of Nokia's "Qt Innovation Challenge". Participants were invited to enter the competition with: "We are looking for new and innovative content for use on this high-end, Qt-powered smartphone, and in particular we are looking for apps that match the sophisticated style and capabilities of the Nokia N9. This can include apps for entertainment, luxury and fashion, technology, travel and sport – to name a few. At the same time, maybe you will submit an app that makes innovative use of the front-facing camera on the Nokia N9, or takes advantage of features like NFC that are built-in to the phone."

Not wanting to begrude the winners but the competition failed in its aim: to make innovative, mainstream apps for the Qt platform and Nokia N9. The judging was done on number of downloads, rather than any subjective view of "innovativeness". Your editor didn't enter the competition as his in-train apps didn't meet his own definition of "innovation". However, very few of the winners do either.

This is the biggest problem with Harmattan: not the lack of apps (there are plenty), but the lack of innovative, distinctive apps which make you go "oooh".

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Qt Innovation Challenge winners announced
2. Development
   • Qt SDK 1.2 released
3. Announcements
   • LPMCustomizer in Store for N9
   • Fremantle stack for Mer

Harmattan PR1.2 beta now available for N950

A beta release of the Harmattan 1.2 firmware has been released as a one-click flasher (OCF) for the N950 containing many bug fixes and some new features. Nokia's N9 Developer blog provides more details: "Harmattan 1.2 comes with a number of user experience improvements making it appealing for consumers. Five new supported languages, face recognition, enhanced copy-paste, software update notifications for applications and games in Nokia Store, folders in application view just to name a few."

"We have listed the most significant bug fixes in release notes and marked the fixed items in bugzilla. We excluded a long list of fixes e.g. on localization / terminology. Also, we put together information about known issues, limitations and differences between Nokia N950 developer Device and Nokia N9 for your convenience in the Release Notes. Suggest you read it carefully."

It should be noted that you cannot downgrade from 1.2 to 1.1 after install, and the default OCF installation wipes out all user data (music, photos, applications, etc). The actual new features and fixes are too numerous to list here, but the new font metrics will be of interest to most developers, and your editor's personal favourite is the colour schemes available in QML now.

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Harmattan PR1.2 beta now available for N950
2. Development
   • Version numbering of Harmattan explained
3. Devices
   • Nokia N9 "may have sold 1.4m units last quarter"
4. In the Wild
   • Nokia N9 up for People's Choice Award at Interaction Awards for its swipe UI
5. Announcements
   • Widget system UI framework for N9 Harmattan
   • lpsmagic - system information on N9's standby screen

SCaLE10x & Qt5

This past weekend's 10th annual Southern California Linux Expo, or SCaLE10x, was both fun and informative. There weren't any earth-shattering breakthroughs to behold, but it was interesting to witness how the open source world has embraced the idea of "the cloud." There are several companies activiely developing open source solutions for those who are investing in cloud computing in some regard. Likewise, it was nice to see a number surprising conference sponsors, like Facebook, HP, IBM, Media Temple, GoDaddy, and more.

Community Council meeting: time to fold Harmattan back into maemo.org?

A Maemo Community Council meeting took place Thursday last week, with RM Bauer and Momcilo Majic from the council; Niels Breet from Nemein and Matti Airas from Nokia.

Although no firm policy decisions were made, some discussion about Bugzilla upgrades (3.4, which bugs.maemo.org runs, is going EOL) and Downloads repository issues was had.

The interesting bits cropped up with Rob's objection to apps.formeego.org moving to the maemo.org infrastructure. Niels Breet highlighted that moving off meego.com "this quarter" was sensible; and Matti Airas expanded on that:

"we might start to promote maemo.org as the backup for meego.com as the latter will be going away pretty soon. we might start to promote maemo.org as the backup for meego.com as the latter will be going away pretty soon. and with that move (and with apps.formeego.org using maemo.org facilities in the future) I don't see maemo.org being shut down any time soon. but that's not a promise."

Re-reading the discussion, it seems there may have been a communication problem - with both Matti and Rob talking, presumably, about the Harmattan aspects of meego.com; rather than the defunct netbook and tablet sections which Nokia has no interest in.

In your editor's opinion, this would be a good move to solve the fragmentation issues which Thomas Perl has raised recently. Obviously such a move would be need to coordinated carefully, but the opportunity could be taken to drop the antiquated bits of maemo.org (e.g. Brainstorm) and consolidate under-the-covers technology around Downloads/Packages/AppsForMeego.

Unfortunately, participation ahead of time wasn't possible due to poor communication about the meeting happening ahead of time. A follow-up meeting is going to be scheduled within the next few weeks to discuss the real policy issues that were only touched on in last weeks meeting. Hopefully we'll know ahead of time this time.

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Community Council meeting: time to fold Harmattan back into maemo.org?
2. Development
   • Aegis "open mode" discussion for Harmattan moves to Talk
   • PR1.2 beta release for N950 coming soon
   • SDL and PyGame available for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan
3. Community
   • Spam comments on the maemo.org wiki
4. Announcements
   • Command-line/arbitrary service sharing for Harmattan
   • TV-out control for Nokia N9 and N950

Apps for MeeGo - how to use, submit & help evaluate applications

Niels Breet has posted an introduction to "Apps for MeeGo" for users, developers and people willing to test apps:

"We have been working on apps.formeego.org for a while. The idea is to have a community driven Apps catalog for open source applications. Created by the people who also contributed to maemo.org Downloads (More than 100M downloads and counting!), many of the concepts born there were brought along."

"This site includes a community driven QA part, where you can test apps and fill in a simple score card about the app. Once a certain amount of positive reports have been made, the app will automatically go to the stable Apps site. Apps will also go through some automated tests, so we can prevent broken applications from entering the repositories."

Unfortunately, the site and processes weren't in place for the N9 launch. This has meant the Nokia Store has become the default place for developers wishing to ship applications for the N9 (and N950). Discoverability of applications is also easier with Nokia Store for users; with no central Application Manager on Harmattan, users have to go to a specific client to see the apps available to them.

As touched upon by Thomas Perl last week, fragmentation of the N9 experience is a big problem for a niche platform - one it can ill afford. The extra overhead for developers of targetting the mainstream Store, updating meta-data sites like n9-apps and also dealing with OBS for Apps for MeeGo is something your editor, as a developer, does not look forward to. Metrics such as download counts will also be fragmented, giving developers - and users - inconclusive statistics.

Hopefully, Apps for MeeGo will succeed - but your editor can't help feeling it might be too late. Especially since there won't be any other MeeGo devices for which it could host content.

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Apps for MeeGo - how to use, submit & help evaluate applications
2. Applications
   • mplayer for Harmattan
3. Development
   • Font metrics change in Harmattan part 3 - designing truly flexible UI layouts
4. Devices
   • Maemo devices in movies

Fragmentation of Nokia N9 resources & community

Thomas Perl has posted a couple of articles on the fragmentation of the Nokia N9 community:

"It's really tedious to hunt down information about Harmattan. It's not really MeeGo (and MeeGo Is Dead(tm), anyways) and it's not branded as Maemo, even though it's Maemo. Yeah. It's not really Maemo, but it is. And it's not really MeeGo, but it is branded as such."

"The reason why gPodder 3.0.2, which has been released two weeks ago has not yet made it into Ovi Store is not because I was lazy (in fact, I uploaded the .deb on the same day as the release day, i.e. 2011-12-13) but because it took Ovi Store QA one whole week(!) to realize that the gPodder package isn't optified. Guess what? Optification isn't really needed by Harmattan anymore, and the Ovi Store has passed all previous gPodder releases which have been packaged exactly the same. Apparently they decided it's necessary this time."

This matches your editor's experience as well. Unfortunately, there's no easy solution. It's a real opportunity for someone to step up, gather requirements and make a proposal people could get behind.

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Fragmentation of Nokia N9 resources & community
2. Applications
   • Extending the life of an N8x0: automatic Skype launcher
   • Applications from n9-apps.com can now be installed using Nokia's MeeScan barcode reader
3. Development
   • Showing custom services in Harmattan contacts app?
4. Announcements
   • Map plugin for N9 Gallery now available
   • Nokia Pulse (private location sharing service) now available for N9