#MeeGo

Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW5wpg... . doesn't look too bad, but not too familiar compared to maemo either. Shame, i kinda like the way maemo ui works (might be just because i have gotten so used to it).

It looks like something with a plausible "Wow", on a pre iPhone era. Now it just looks like a simple skin on mobile Windows that tries to mimic iPhone, failing badly.

Is there actually any user centric UX research done for this, or has it been coded with the traditional "lets copy & mashup what the others have come up with" -method (like it seems)?

i don't know, even if it's a bit boring it seems somewhat effective to me. And to be honest cannot really say that i'd have seen any big wows for a while (not from nokia - well the n8's video quality was close -, android or the iphone). But well, that's only pre-alpha let's see what the future holds.

Is MeeGo heading for a "Me Too" follow the leader? How bad is the damage for Nokia a year before the launch? What segment of the consumers are going to buy the story constructed to attract the masses? Does MeeGo have a chance?

@eholmila My last big wow regarding mobile phones was bump.

@Ile, has been some time for you as well then :) engadget's commenters seem to regard meego mostly quite favorably - for now at least.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/30/me...

Ah, and the basic ui interactions can be found as well. And if i have understand correctly on the video we are seeing the reference ui and when nokia / some other vendor launches their handset it could look quite different.

It'll be interesting to see how well this will compete against android 3.0 (on the ux/functionality level, in amount of devices out there the latter will destroy the first at that point and probably quite long afterwards as well) as they both are due to launch at october 2010.

There are speculations about a Nokia take-over. It would cost 27 bn euros (33 bn dollars). Apple? Microsoft? Cisco? or a Chineese company. Why not Foxconn to get a vertical integration to the market. The share value is at the lowest level in twelve years. The company had a peak-value of ten times its present valu (year 2000), but that's history now. Should we start to think in terms of a new survival game for Finland? Is Nokia still a real player?

@visualradio BP? Which company would have enough spare $ for takeover? Recessions come and go; but at some point things turn around...

@visualradio The leadership seems to be quite clueless in Keilaranta, that's a bad omen... However, the same goes with MS, though they have a lot more cash to go on.

@vimma BP does have enough problems without Nokia ;) Microsoft offered over 40 bn dollars for Yahoo before the recession but the Yahoo owners didn't sell. Nokia's market value is now $33 bn and Apple's over $200 bn and Microsoft's a little less. Apple has $8 bn pocket money and MS $6 bn. The arrrangement would involve share exchange as well. MS could use Nokia as a mobile division. Apple doesn't have any strategic advances from Nokia - except some patents. The Chineese buyers could use the Nokia brand value in China, India and Asia. @jwa Two clueless - Nokia and MS - might not make the best possible fit. How about Foxconn? They could make a vertical integration to the market.

Interesting to observe how media still influences people's attitudes on some global issues and "truths" - what are our sources? :)
@visualradio @jwa

@saarikko Yes, media does influence attitudes, that's what it's supposed to do, though one really must be able to read it right:) But do you mean that in your opinion Nokia and MS are shining examples of good strategy and product development?
@eholmila In the main vein, it will be interesting to see, how this evolves. I expect MeeGo to attract some interest, but on the other hand it will suffer fragmentation as soon as different handset manufacturers get units out with different UIs, nigh impossible for the app developers to be able to support. Unless of course some vendor is very popular with one distro (like it seems Ubuntu is among Linux distros).

@jwa No, I don't mean/think that. What I think though is that we really can't tell what is wrong or right looking these strategic things from the outside. We would need to know them from the inside of all players to be able to understand enough.

Also, with regard to these giants, they mostly move so slow and big that all public info on strategy and future is always outdated.

@visualradio, nokia's atm market cap is about 30.5bn$, but if some vendor would try to buy the whole stock i guess the premium would be at least something like 40-50%, meaning that one should find 40-50bn$ of cash. Some analysts don't believe that even that premium would be enough, but well.

And of course one could get a whole big junk of nokia for significantly less. I guess that with 25% ownership one could quite freely dictate the future development. On the other hand, Nokia still has quite a lot money on it's own and i guess it would treat any takeover attempt as a hostile move --> would probably defend itself by buying its own stock.

@jwa, would need someone more into this to share technological point of view, but if i understand correctly the manufacturers can use their own UI's to some extend but the underlaying apis much stay the same --> not so much fragmentation and extra work for the app developers as the qt should be the glue there. But of course that is just the "promise" we'll see how it goes.

@saarikko @jwa Media is the Massage. I follow the tech talk in town through media. It would be impossible to do it through own sources. The Nokia talk is popular now and could lead to big, unexptected changes in the company. The shareholders are worried. Nokia is probably not for sales but we need some "mätäkuun juttuja" to keep on talking. My personal interest is to see if some of the big companies finally learns to come out and start talking with the people using their products. My personal mission is to make this wonderful digital world flatter. I don't loose anything if enterprises don't follow my wishful thinking, but the companies might win a lot: Talk is cheap! Why doesn't Nokia stick out its nose? Remember: I've been going with Nokia phone's since 1980's so I've a right to demand for "Connecting to People".

This is the latest: Ollila and Kallasvuo has to go.

Source: KL and DI http://www.kauppalehti.fi/5/i/talous/uutiset/etusi...

@visualradio Absolutely, you have every right to do whatever you want. Not trying to stop or hinder you, since there are no rights or wrongs in these discussion.

My thought was ignited by this discussion but not directed against it. Just a side note.

DI: Avgå Kallasvuo. It becomes a Warm Hot Summer for Nokia. @saarikko I've a dream and fighting my little war against the Goljats: I'd like to see big companies become humble and approachable. I'm ready to loose the war but I don't stop fighting ;) Why? Because I'd like to see a much better digital world and it could be built together. The Enterprise is only a part of the solution. The client (customer) is now in the driving seat. We do soon have more power than the stockholders... not alone but as a group. http://di.se/Default.aspx?sr=6&tr=274366&rlt=0&pid...

@jwa getting a native-feeling UI for different vendor UXs might not be so tricky. Already now the theming systems in GTK and Qt handle much of the necessary heavy lifting.

See for example @ihmis-suski's Summer of Code project. Zero device-specific code and UI fits naturally to both Ubuntu desktop and N900. Qt also does pretty good native widget theming

If I remember the MeeGo presentations from the Linux Collaboration Summit correctly, all MeeGo devices must pass API compliance testing to be able to use the MeeGo brand.

@saarikko Organizations are black boxes, our opinions and decisions are based on what they emit outside, be that press releases, product announcements or CEO talks! I may be wrong in my thoughts about them, but I combine the previously mentioned things with other things I see, with things I've experienced &c deriving the conclusions...
About big companies moving slowly: I don't know if that's true due to not having worked there, but anyway Jobs said recently that Apple behaves like a startup, that they are the world's biggest startup. I guess they are not slow movers.

@eholmila @bergie You have a point there, of course. Then, there is the problem, if all vendors use the same APIs, how do they differentiate from each other...
Anyway, the handset video is comfortably ahead of Windows Phone 7. Comparing oranges to apples again, Apple may bring FaceTime-capable iPod touches to market, and the next release of iOS brings quite unified app market for all iOS devices this year. And if MeeGo devices are delayed even a bit, iPhone v5 is hitting the market quite soon (Apple has been keeping their schedules quite well lately). But competition is good, more competition gives people better devices to enjoy.

The future differentiation of leading companies will be determined by the services they provide, their corporate personalities, and the user experiences the whole will lead to. Technological innovation provides short term leadership for a while but enterprises have to learn to talk and interact with their users, partners and ecosystem 24 / 7 / 365 to follow what people need on a global scale. "UI + service are the king" and it concerns everything the buyer / partners do feel and think about the company. Let's take a look at the Apple UI Infrastructure

• touch screen and OS (just a few models)
• apple flagship stores
• iTunes
• app store
• Mac World
• top management
• enthusiasm
• experience
• pride

• engineering
• logistics
• big
• quiet top-management
• low-key marketing
• gloomy share-holder meetings (not enthusiastic user gatherings)

@jwa Sure. That's what we all do. And we may be right or wrong with our conclusions.

Re Apple being agile... At least they seem to want to give that image to the public. Do we have any evidence on that? Using scrum hardly makes a business agile ;) Have we seen sudden, adapted moves in their business? Have we seen crowdsourcing-based desicion or anything that could be seen as agile business? I don't know, maybe they have. :)

@visualradio Let's assume your analysis is correct.
According to it dialogue with the community is everything. Then you say Apple is doing the business right. Now, do we have examples of how Apple does this user-centric approach?

I believe in the community dialogue, but I see Apple working heavily in top-down mode and then lets the community make the judgement. Since Apple brand has a religion-like brand perception with many people, they will have them as missionaries.

Maybe agile business should have religion branding as an alternative?

@saarikko I didn't mention agile, really, nor scrum. Startups may apply different engineering and management practices.
I don't think Apple has done any crowdsourcing kind of thing (I may be wrong), what has been said is that they want to build the best products, which requires some market analysis obviously, but what Apple has been able to do extremely well is to make bold, reasoned and focused decisions, though all may not agree with them. This is what e.g. Nokia seems to be lacking sorely at the moment. I don't expect MeeGo doing very much in this respect it being a platform out of Nokia's control (as I understand, they contribute, but don't own). Of course this is handy, when problems occur, one can always blame someone else. Apple just has to look into mirror...

@saarikko Oh the other thing, I've been wondering a lot this alleged connection or resemblance between Apple and religions. This may have something to do with the fact that in 80s Apple had the so-called evangelists (Guy Kawasaki being perhaps the most prominent and visible). Well, evangelists spread the good and happy message.
Most of these talks connecting religion to IT do not have any merit. Companies, products, and people should be evaluated on rational grounds, most people do.

@saarikko Apple has been able to build a religion based on the support from very loud and loyal believers and active congregations around the globe. The most influential supporters and developers being in USA. Nokia’s beliefs are in engineering and logistics, production and product features. Apple used to have evangelists thirty years ago (@jwa Kawasaki). Nokia is proud of its production expertise. It’s a product manager driven company. And they sure have a lot of products!

Apple’s cultural approach to mobile computing came from desktop publishing and easy to use computer expertise. Nokia tried to leap into mobile computer handsets from mobile devices. Their cultures are very different: Apple succeeded to grab the role of global mobile innovator in the eyes of millions of active and loyal supporters.

Nokia’s top management has a communication problem. They don’t get their message to the press, not the bloggers, not to social media, not to their users and not even to the share-holders. They have problems negotiating with the powerful telecom operators.

Nokia has been using its might and power as a weapon. Apple’s Steve Jobs is more like a persuasion personality. The rock-star performer and sleek salesman. Neither of these companies do have an open culture. But it looks like Apple uses reflection as a learning method better than Nokia. Listening to past experiences is important.

The CUSTOMER DRIVEN DIGITAL PARADISE PROVIDER isn’t on the market yet.

There is a long way to go before managers learn to listen to what their clients want from themselves. Corporations do have big R&D departments where specialists are separated from the chaotic outside world and where they still create their innovations like in old-time monasteries.

But the time of OPEN INNOVATION is just about to emerge.

Nokia could move into this movement on a global scale. Nevertheless, that requires huge changes in corporate cultures, management and leadership. But any company can start TODAY.

There aren’t too many Enterprise 2.0 companies in this world - yet.

My advice is: let the clients get into to the driving seat. SMS didn’t become a success through effective marketing. The kids made it! We’re the Tamagotchis that developers should play with. We’re the world. Tear down the walls of R&D and marketing. Corporate leaders shouldn’t have an office at all. They should meet with people in the streets as much as with technology partners and investors.

Barack Obama did it and became the first black president of his country. Now, Barack is isolated from the crowds and the open discussion is left to other personalities. There is no final solution, but we live in the Facebook, Twitter, Qaiku, blogging, Web 2.0 Social Media era and enterprises have to adapt – NOW.

There is no perfect world, no perfect companies, but in the time of mass production and consumption, the users have an immense impact on the success of any companies. The big ones have to learn that fast or they aren't going to last.

Symbian Guru is quitting. Another signal that Nokia really should put 100% effort into MeeGo?

@visualradio Nokia has been using its might and power as a weapon. I'd actually say they haven't. The way Apple was able to raise the bar on smartphone ecosystems was by dictating their terms to operators. "Fixed-rate 3G, our app store, our music store" etc.

Before iPhone all of that was quite unthinkable as operators kept their customers locked into crappy operator-specific app stores and "added value solutions". If Nokia had used their muscle to force this issue, they might be in a lot better position in the high-end market.

@bergie First, the Symbian guru quitting is a very sad story. It sounds like a "hautajaisupuhe" (speech at the graveyard) for not only Symbian but for the whole enterprise. Second, it should be formulated "they have tried to use their might and power" but didn't do their homework. The beauty of open dialog is that every statement is weighted against facts from lots of people on a short terms basis. This is a healing process. Is there any chances for Nokia to make a come-back? How deep is the company? How crappy is the software?

@visualradio the key for a Nokia comeback would be to have one or two (maybe one touchscreen-only, one with hardware keyboard) really kick-ass high-end smartphones. Not take the cheap way with hardware, but instead put in the best processor and memory money can buy. Put in MeeGo and assurances of providing OS updates for at least two years.

And then really work on the developer story. Qt is great in that you can build your app not only for Nokia devices, but also for desktop operating systems, and maybe even Android. This might help to get developers on board, and is really an unique advantage of Qt compared to Android and iOS APIs.

But Ovi Store. That they seriously need to fix. The end-user experience is horribly bad, payments work only sometimes, and developers have to follow obscure processes to get their apps in. Fix these things and make Ovi Store also available for desktop operating systems.

The rest of Ovi services would be better ditched, maybe by providing Ovi-branded alternatives in partnership with Yahoo.

Nokia seems to be sort of doing all of this already, but the effort should be more focused, and communicated better.

@bergie I get a lot of comments about Nokia from my blogs and have to rely on the technical and business experience of people I get the messages from. MeeGoo seems to evoke some "hope" and Qt gets good remarks. And about OVI: I really made an effort last spring to become and self-made OVI-fan. Managed to update my E71 with a short margin to failure. The FREE navigation program was installed with less stress. I don't like any of the present smartphones on the market (haven't seen them all), but I'm not a smartphone heavy-user candidate ever. E71 has a crappy camera but if suites my present needs. I don't use email and don't mind about the office programs. OVI calender integration doesn't have any value. My personal smart phone would be a camera, dictaphone, mp3 recorder, video recorder and social media cloud light client... and of course quality internet access and search. SMS does still have a value for me. I did fall in love with the iPad. That's the kind of traveling first aid kit I need. I need a notebook that can be used to make occasional phone or skype calls. I try to do all the rest in open (read: social media). The brand doesn't need anything to me. It could be Corean, Chineeese, Taiwaneese or African if it does the work-horse function I need to manage my daily life.

Why does Nokia bet on Meego?

Android would seem like a safe bet. It's already popular and there are more developers. Nokia has not done well on the marketing front - they'd get some free press from using the already known brand. I have serious doubts about Nokia's ability and willingness to long-term support any device, but Android could mean that the users are not left with more-or-less abandoned platform, even if Nokia vanishes once again.

I'd bury the Ovi store, maybe even the whole brand. It's very much tainted by all the problems.

@mandrl MeeGo gives them more freedom and leverage than Android would have. See for example the news about Gingerbread potentially removing the option from vendors to make UI customizations.

@bergie Well, Nokia having the freedom kinda is my problem... ;)

@mandrl I think Nokia's strategy on high level is a good one. It is just that the execution is too slow (and shoddy in some parts, like Ovi). And yeah, they really should get rid of Symbian :-)

Apple does lot to keep developers happy (yep, you pay USD 100 to be one) . Examples:

• Developer gets 70% of app sales (developers has got over 1 billion dollars so far)
• Developer gets 60% of adv sales (iAdv)
• Annual developer conference WWDC: All developers get's full coverage for free. >100 hours of HD video (all sessions) + presentations

@Ile iOS developers may be happy, but have they really thought it through? Working on top of a cross-platform toolkit like Qt might alleviate some of the problems that arise from the heavily fragmented mobile app market.

There will be some relevant talks in aKademy tomorrow, Tampere University:

• MeeGo redefining the Linux desktop landscape
• How to get your Qt based application on the OVI store
• (actually, the whole conference week will be about Qt)

The biggest issue in Handset UX is the underlying technology: QGraphicsView. It does not adapt well to GPU based rendering. Problem is that nodes express presentation, clipping and transformations in a single combined blob of QPainter calls. This representation does not allow to do any real deduction for optimizing rendering or minimizing state changes.

Visual appearance, clipping and transformations must be separate entities with some declrative format in order to implement high performance GPU powered rendering pipeline. Luckily there is already ongoing research project that is going to resolve this issue. Hopefully, MeeGo Touch FW has such an API that it is easy switch to this later on (meaning that it does not depend too much on QPainter or QGV).