PR1.3 for N900 finally released

The latest update to Maemo 5 has been rolling out to N900s around the world. Largely expected to be the final big update from Nokia for the N900, it adds Ovi Suite support to your N900 and makes it even easier to access and sync files and messages between your device and your desktop. In addition, we’ve added hundreds of tweaks and fixes that will make your N900 run faster and smoother than ever. It also ships with Qt 4.7 (including Qt Mobility), which will be important for developers wanting to deliver applications across MeeGo, Maemo and Symbian. Criticism has been forthcoming for seemingly valid patches from the community being ignored (see bug #7190) and the latest versions of key software like hildon-desktop languishing on gitorious, rather than being shipped in this (almost certainly) final update.

However, the community (mainly in the form of Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh) has already stepped up with a "community update" repository which brings in further updates on top of PR1.3. Mohammad is in final testing (having liaised with Niels Breet to get it set up on maemo.org) and should be announcing something this week.

MeeGo 1.1 released

Quality, time, features. Agile methodologies tell you to pick two because one has to vary in the Real World. MeeGo have chosen the first two and so, their first six monthly release has come out for netbooks, handsets and in-vehicle devices (IVI). Rafe Blandford of All About MeeGo opens his in-depth article; with screenshots from each "UX": The MeeGo project reached an important milestone today with the release of MeeGo 1.1. It aims to create a solid baseline for both manufacturers and developers to devices and software across a broad range of categories (netbook, handset, and IVI) across both the ARMv7 and Intel Atom chipset architectures. The current MeeGo releases remain mainly of interest to device manufacturers, developers and those wishing to take an early look at MeeGo before it arrives on commercial devices.