You can follow what’s going on at Day 1 of the Maemo Summit 2009:
Maemo Summit 2009 – Day 1

Nokia just released a new walkthrough video of the Nokia N900 browser. Mikko Korpelainen, Senior Product Manager at Nokia and Martin Shüle, Principal Designer of the User Interface team, demo the different features of the browser.

New in this video are the ‘hover and manipulation mode’ that pops-up a contextual menu on flash items (1:55), swiping gesture from the right (edge of the screen) to left to show the browsing history (3:50), selecting text and using copy (Ctrl-C) & paste (Ctrl-V) (4:23), and creating a bookmark to the desktop (5:15).

Full Video:

Discuss this at talk.maemo.org.

Need more info on the Nokia N900? The English and Spanish Nokia N900 User Guide (in PDF) is now up at Nokia USA. It’s about 111 pages.

Direct link to the Nokia N900 User Guide (in PDF).
Discuss this at talk.maemo.org.

My good pal Michal Jerz of My-Symbian.com has just released his extensive preview of the Nokia N900. He provides a detailed run through of the hardware, software, side-by-side pics with other devices, and provides sample images and videos from the N900.

Interestingly, he mentions about playing videos from flash based sites. From some of the videos I’ve already seen online, YouTube, for example, was a bit choppy playing videos. His experience was quite opposite however:

“I have tested it with various Flash sites, including Flash videos. I’m glad to report that I haven’t found a single Flash video that wouldn’t play on the N900. While YouTube (the “full” version of it, not the mobile one) videos play 100% smoothly and with full frame rate…”

He also provides some screenshots of the software that I have not seen before like the rich-text email editor, calendar views, phone portrait mode screens, PDF reader app, and Documents To Go (Word, Sheet, and Slideshow) .

Sample Video:

Michal ends his review with this note:

“Even now, at the previewed unit’s early development stage, the N900 truly impressed me with its FANTASTIC PERFORMANCE, STABILITY (it was really ROCK STABLE, take my word), BEAUTIFUL and ADVANCED user interface, very high quality and full integration of TELEPHONY and INTERNET CONNECTIVITY, fast and powerful web browser, great support for VoIP (especially Skype), high quality camera and video recording and, actually, ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE. I don’t remember being that excited with any mobile device since the first Nokia Communicators and UIQ 2 phones. Really! Multiple questions posted on the forums about how the N900 compares to existing Symbian OS phones can only get one answer: they just DON’T compare, the N900 is a wholy different league. If any of the existing mobile devices can be (honestly) called a mobile computer then the N900 deserves such a name in the first place.”

Great review Michal!

Read Michal’s full review.

Discuss this at talk.maemo.org.

*Image and video courtesy of My-Symbian.com

BY ROGER SPERBERG

BY ROGER SPERBERG

I got my hands on a Nokia N900 recently — for which I had to travel seven thousand miles and endure the company of five cellphone-addict bloggers for 48 hours, both courtesy of Nokia’s word-of-mouth marketing efforts — and I was utterly dazzled.

At one point I was explaining why we word-of-mouth-spreaders were performing professional work for no pay and little chance of recompense. As it happened, the question arose while we were standing outside the British Film Institute, just as evening was slipping in, using a cellphone to manipulate Matrix-like text being projected on the wall of the National Theatre opposite (the “Identity Project” of the BFI’s onedotzero festival).

We were all grinning maniacally, twisting and turning and shaking the device gleefully in our turn, playing what was essentially the world’s largest video game — 138 feet wide, 10,204x1080 luminescent pixels** cast by six 18,000-lumen projectors ["the Rolls-Royce of projectors" I was told authoritatively*]. “Sheer childish enthusiasm,” I explained. “Sincere enthusiasm. It’s the blogger form of professionalism, and it’s the kind of pay that regular jobs don’t provide.”

Later that evening, I had a rematch with Identity, as evidenced in the accompanying video, and you’ll note that although I was the one who needed the video made and the app’s developer on the N900, Gary Birkett, was there to show it off, I insisted on driving and making Gary take the video. Something really exciting was occurring and I felt myself in the very center of it.

##

NOTE: I need to describe both the events I attended and what I discovered about the N900, so I will put these into separate posts, starting with Identity. But as I have two videos for that, I’ll put the first one here:

Also, note that the video made of the Identity projection was taken by an N900 — pretty good for a cellphone camera at night!
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* Compare that to the typical home projector’s 3-4 lumens.
** That’s 11,059,200 pixels in the overall display.

You’ve seen the U.S. Amazon.com $589 Nokia N900 deal. Well U.K. folks, it’s your turn. Mobile Phones Direct is now offering the Nokia N900 (pre-order) on Vodafone and T-Mobile for FREE(!) on a new 24 and 18-month contract respectively (link).

Discuss this at talk.maemo.org.

Thinking of creating an app or widget for the Nokia N900? The official Maemo 5 User Interface docs are now at forum.nokia.com detailing usability principles, device orientation, controls, icons, dialogs, etc. There is also a GUI design interface template in PSD format, so User Interface / Experience designers out there can start mocking up apps.

The docs are in three parts:

• Hildon 2.2 UI Style Guide
• Hildon 2.2 Widget UI Specification
• Fremantle Master Layout Guide

Additional documentation is also at the maemo.org wiki.

Discuss this at talk.maemo.org.

You’ve seen Ari Jaaksi and Peter Scheider’s interviews. This time, Jussi Makinen, Nokia Maemo Devices Marketing Manager, along with Andrew Flegg and Gary Birkett of maemo.org, answer questions from bloggers, including Maemo Talk’s Roger Sperberg, during the onedotzero_advetures in motion event in London.

My good pal Jay Montano of My Nokia Blog, posted a 52-minute(!) video of the session. If you don’t feel like watching the video, Jay has summarized the Q&A session, emphasizing the important points on his blog (link).

Full video:

Discuss this at talk.maemo.org.

I wish there was a video of  Nokia VP for Maemo Devices, Ari Jaaksi’s presentation at OSIM World 2009. His nine slides (below) talk about making Open Source more user friendly, how Maemo is inspired by the consumer’s insights, and how Nokia is working with the community from day one. The last slide summarizes it perfectly though:

“We want to concentrate on user experience and work together on things that are generic.

This is how we can create value for our customers.”

Full Slides: