Exactly one-year ago today I was in Amsterdam for the Maemo Summit. There was excitement all round as hundreds of developers talked about the future. The N900 was handed out and one of the biggest group unboxings ever took place. This year it’s different, and yet the same. Maemo is now MeeGo and not only are Nokia driving it but Intel and the Linux Foundation are also part of the push. On November 14th I’ll be traveling to the MeeGo Conference in Dublin where I expect even more of a buzz. 600 people from all parts of the ecosystem will be there to learn and code and we hope, we really hope that we’ll see hardware too. MeeGo continues to gain weight and I feel positive that it will be a major player in the future.

When MeeGo kicked-off in Feb I had already predicted that Moblin and Maemo were keywords to watch and strangely enough I even predicted the link-up two weeks before it happened. People still don’t believe that I had no inside information on that one! As MeeGo announced I picked up MeeGoNews.com and within days I started using it as my scratchbook for MeeGo information. Unfortunately, like many side-blogs I’ve started, my time was too restricted and it went stale.

MeeGoNews is Reborn!

Thanks to Dhruv Bhutani [Twitter], a professional tech blogger, MeeGoNews has now re-launched with the aim of bringing news, opinion, reviews and inside information to you about the MeeGo ecosystem. Dhruv is taking the editorial lead and running and writing for the site on a day to day basis. I’ll be doing background work with my contacts to try and source exclusive information, hands-on and reviews. Dhruv has a history of Nokia work behind him and through my work with Intel and other MeeGo ecosystem members we should be able to cover it very well indeed. I’m excited!

We’ve got a bunch of new content on the site already and there’s a Twitter account you can follow too. Our first major job through will be to cover the MeeGo Conference and I’m happy to say that Intel are sponsoring my coverage of the event out in Dublin. I’ll be there from start to finish and hope to bring you a non-stop flow of news and analysis. Question number 1 – Show me the products! Second question – Show me the App store!

One thing I want to do as soon as possible is pull together a resource list of other MeeGo websites. There’s no point trying to sit on your own in the blogging world so we’ll be reaching out soon. At the very latest I hope to drink a Guinness with other MeeGo bloggers at the MeeGo conference in Dublin. Sláinte!

MeeGoNews.com

We’ve had talks with Linpus about MeeGo before but in a discussion at IDF last week we got down to some more details about the MeeGo Slate Edition and it sounds like we’ve got potential here. Remember, Linpus have supplied Acer with Linux builds in the past.

What we know right now is that Linpus already have a MeeGo build and it’s highly likely that they will be supplying that to one of the major netbook manufacturers however their plans for Slate Edition are firm for a Q4 release and will build on MeeGo 1.1 that is due in October. Respect to Linpus for their intention to make this a publicly-available distribution. Apparently, Linpus Lite Tablet Edition will come with 7 applications too. (See right.)

What does it mean for us? Well, for N-series tablet owners (ExoPC and similar) it means you’ll get an option. Remember, the Windows 7 + overlay solution offered on some of these products will be fairly heavyweight and switching to the Atom-optimised MeeGo is likely to bring speed and battery life improvements. For Z-series owners (X70, S10 and others) this should be an option too because Linpus are developing with Oaktrail and Moorestown platforms in mind. The GMA600 on those should (no guarantees at the moment though) be backward compatible with the awkward GMA500 on these products.

The best news is that there’s a real likelihood that this will get picked up in an Oaktrail or Moorestown product and that should mean one very significant difference – always-on. Oaktrail and Moorestown are built with ‘power island’ capability which can be controlled by core software in MeeGo to bring extremely low-power idle states.

Linpus won’t be the only conmpany working on a touch-enabled MeeGo core but It looks like Linpus are in a good position to be able to step ahead of the rest if they can get this running on an Oaktrail or Moorestown product.

P.S. Don’t forget that AppUp will be compatible with this too so if that takes off, Linpus could be on to a winner.

We’ll be getting updates from Linpus when they happen so stay tuned.

I hope you’ve already read the ‘warning’ article I posted last week because unfortunately, the Aava phone isn’t something we can review or draw any conclusions from. It’s a developer platform, a demonstrator and a showcase item. It’s using beta hardware and pre-Alpha software too so if you’re expecting something shiny at this stage, I’m sorry that this article will probably disappoint you. If you see others drawing conclusions based on their (or this) hands-on, you should also treat them as inconclusive. It’s just too early to tell.

At best, I can highlight the platform for potential ISVs, OEMs, competitors, integrators, carriers and Linux distributors and maybe mention something about the direction of the handheld UX (user experience) for MeeGo but both hardware and software are likely to change drastically before launch in Q4. It would be great for our traffic and links if we were to trumpet a breakthrough in processing power and UI but I’m sorry, you’re going have to wait until we see real products before that happens. I know, I’ll never be a real journalist

I want to thank Intel Europe before going any further though. (You can follow their Atom-related work on Twitter) They’ve been open about their work with the platform and respect to them for giving early-stage prototypes out to a blogger. There’s always a big risk in doing that. We remain in good contact with the Intel teams and will do further testing in due course.

So on to the ‘product’ then. Using the Intel Moorestown platform, the Aava phone at least highlights how small a ‘PC’ can be. It’s a truly pocketable size and comes with all that you would expect from a smartphone; Capacitive screen, camera, stereo speakers, Micro-SD and Micro USB and a 5.5Wh battery. We would have liked to have got into the command-line to check out some more hardware and battery usage information but in the limited time we had, it wasn’t possible. What we did do though was check out the pre-Alpha (developers) build of MeeGo 1.1 It’s the first time we’ve been able to touch the UI and to get an idea of the look and feel and although it doesn’t bring anything dramatically new in terms of layout, it builds on intuitive swipes and taps to make a UI that was simple to understand. A home-screen where presumably you’ll find widgets, presents a small launcher bar for some favorite apps and the application list itself. This second-layer application pane is similar to Android and forces the user, in many cases, to have to unlock, open the application pane, find the application and then launch it which is one layer of UI deeper than you’ll find on the iPhone. It makes way for an active homescreen though. We weren’t able to experience notifications on this version of MeeGo.

Full Aava / MeeGo gallery available here.

Not much is working on this build and most applications are placeholders but we got to check out the dialer application (phone stack didn’t appear to be functional), some settings (WiFi was working) and the Firefox Mobile browser which has potential to be a very high quality browser if startup and page view times can be improved. The recent build for Maemo includes some really advanced features which weren’t working on this MeeGo build.

There was one test we were able to do and that was the popular Javascript processing test Sunspider. With careful consideration of browser software, it’s possible to get a feel for the CPU processing power available and the results were quite amazing. In comparison with an Android 1.6 phone running a 1Ghz Snapdragon platform we were seeing results 5x as fast and indicative of a netbook processor rather than a current ARM-core smartphone processor. It makes sense of course as the phone is, in theory, running Atom at up to 1.5Ghz. There’s clearly potential for some good multitasking. There’s also potential to drain that battery faster than on any ARM-based smartphone. It’s a case of being able to get things done quickly if the OS and user is well controlled and this is something that the MeeGo developers will have to think carefully about. Should they turn off the ‘Turbo’ features if the battery reaches a certain level? Should applications be throttled or scheduled when the device is locked perhaps?

You’ll see all the details in the video below and this additional article about the Javascript test but there’s one more thing we can gleen from our time with the device and that’s timescales for products. MeeGo is in very early stage development and it wouldn’t be wildly wrong to estimate that it won’t be ready for another year or more especially considering the amount of catch-up that the platform is having to do. The App-store will need to be loaded too and that will take money, and time. MeeGo 1.1 will be released in October but that doesn’t mean that products will be ready. In October, the core and UI will be ready for 3rd parties to finalise into their own products which means internal testing, field testing, approval and certification can only be started once the final builds are incorporated into whatever variants OEMs are working on. The first smartphone products won’t be out of the door in 2010 although we might see some non-3G tablets and MIDs reach the some markets for Christmas if they don’t have to go through GSM/UMTS approval. For a mature and complete MeeGo-based phone product, we need to look to Q2 2011 in my opinion. Nokia, given their existing Maemo application base and developer-focused N900 community, are in a good position to be one of the first.

I was a bit surprised by the reaction to my post and tweets about the Aava Intel/Moorestown/MeeGo phone this afternoon. Engadget and Wired picked it up and did a sensible job of reporting that it’s a prototype but there are a lot of people out there that might not understand what this hardware and software really is.

The issue is that the Aava phone is actually a reference design and development platform and it is unlikely to be a phone you’ll ever be able to buy. It’s likely to have had some financial and engineering input from Intel and will have already been distributed to some major customers in order for them to asses the platform.

As far as I understand it, the Aava phone was made to stimulate mobile phone hardware manufacturers and to help developers get on with the top-priority job of building  class-leading mobile operating systems, applications and user interfaces, namely MeeGo, Android and the related user interface ‘experiences’  and overlays.

So on to the ‘experience’ I have in my hands here. At the most, i’ll be able to show you the look and feel of the user interface, give you an idea of how Fennec, the built-in browser, performs on the Moorestown platform, show you around the Aava hardware (good for those thinking of paying the probable $1K – $2K for the development kit) I don’t expect the software stack to include any closed-source video codecs and for that matter, no commercial software that’s not part of the core MeeGo build and there’s no-way i’ll be able to get a feel for battery life as we don’t know how well the current software couples with the dedicated power control chip.

The Aava phone represents a true moment in computing history and i’m honored to be able to report on it but let’s not forget, this isn’t anything like retail-quality hardware or software yet.  MeeGo 1.1 is due for release in October so you can imagine the timescales for products and it’s already known that Intel expects tablets to be released with MeeGo before phones are.

Hardware and software build kindly loaned by Intel Germany and largely enabled through my participation in the ‘Intel Insider’ program.

MeeGo Phone Browser (Aava Proto)

Originally uploaded by umpcportal.com

Just a quick post because I need to get away for an appointment this afternoon. For the next 48 hours i’ll have the Intel Moorestown-based Aava prototype phone. It’s a development platform running MeeGo core and an alpha-quality UI so don’t expect miracles here but I can see that at least Wifi and the browser are working so there’s at least something to demo. Stay tuned for a video look at the user interface, a few apps and maybe a look at the device from the command line. All coming up over the next 48 hours.

As the epicenter of Intel’s work on a mobile operating systems shift slightly towards Europe, being here as an Intel Insider becomes a major advantage. On Tuesday I had the pleasure of attending a tweet-up with Josh Bancroft in Munich and today, we’re the recipients of some live images of MeeGo 1.1 and the handset UX running on an Intel-based (Moorestown) phone from Aava. The team responsible for some of the technical aspects of MeeGo and mobile platforms in Europe is obviously working hard and we look forward to meeting them at the MeeGo Summit in November but in the meantime, they’ve been kind enough to send over some images of one of the phones they are testing.

It’s images only at the moment but if everything we might goes to plan, we’ll be able to give you something special next week. Stay tuned!

Click through for full size images of the home screen, dialer and applications switching. There’s a signature style here and I like the little MeeGo people! Once again, stay tuned for more next week.

Version 1.1 of MeeGo with the Handset User Experience (UX) has been been opened for developers to review and contribute. A full release of Moblin 1.1 is expected in October.

Some images of the handset UI have been revealed too. For more information, see an update I made to my MeeGoNews log.

Hope to see some of you at the MeeGo Developers Conference in November.

I got myself a big piece of Intel info-marketing at the Intel Atom Software Summit this week and it’s very clear and very significant that Intel managed to drag something like 200 people away from the Computex show floor for 2.5hrs. Atom, MeeGo and AppUp are such important parts of the Intel strategy now that they are getting pushed hard and it seems to be at least raising some eyebrows. The Intel Atom Software Summit at Computex was aimed at the ODM, OEM and operating system community in an effort bring them all up to date about what you might call the Continuum within the continuum. Intel talks about a horizontal line of silicon products that serve different markets (the ‘Compute Continuum’)but there’s a vertical within the Atom segment that includes software, user interface and applications. It starts with 6 Atom silicon platforms that support many operating systems. Windows and MeeGo getting special attention and getting their own application ecosystem which includes an application delivery framework, back-end billing, application marketing and developer support.

Here are some notes from the software summit that I hope outline the key points that Intel is trying to put across. The full slide set is available here. (PDF) More information links are included below.

Session notes

Navin Shenoy – VP Intel Asia Pacific introduced the compute continuum (Xeon, Core, Atom) by saying that “Software is the difference between success and failure” [slide: “User Experience”] and introduced Doug Fisher. VP Software and Services.

Doug presents…

[Slide: Mobile Internet is driving, possibly 10B units. ] The message here is that there’s a significant opportunity within the internet-connected device category.

Intel is a ‘Port of choice.” Multiple operating environments are offered. MeeGo Android Windows and Chrome were highlighted. [Sidenote: Chrome and Google are starting to appear more in the marketing i’m seeing.]

Value proposition Slide:

For OEMs:

• Open platform – critical for value
• Best internet Experience
• Faster time to market

For Service provider:

• Strong ecosystem
• Reduce Churn – consistent environment across ecosystem

Value for Developers

• Revenue opportunity.
• Consistent tools and API.

MeeGo, joint OS build and UI framework highlighted. May release achieved. 1.0 reviews were good. Highlighted. on slide.

Doug introduced some partners who highlighted their experience and expectation for MeeGo. As you would imagine, all three partners highlighted good experiences and expectations!

Novell’s Guy Lunardi talks about MeeGo 1.0

Telekom Italia: We are participating with MeeGo on Cubo Vision. The product was ready in 4 months.

Orange and MeeGo; [video]  Talks about value-add. Truly cross-platform device. No talk about real products. We can assume something is coming I guess.

Doung introduced demos of MeeGo 1.0 on netbook, IVI and Tablet.

Message to developers: Amount of work to move apps to move from one product to another is minimal. Only 20% of code base re-write needed (user interface)

Tablet Demo:

See video from yesterday for more on the MeeGo Tablet UI.

[Chippy sidenote: I think this is known as ‘Info Launcher’ and is a product of the MeeGo Enabling Center in Taiwan. It should be available later in the year. Note too that user interfaces are being developed alongside MeeGo and don’t fall into the 6-month update cycle planned for MeeGo.]

AppUp – The Intel framework for application stores on MeeGo and Windows operating systems.

Peter Biddle demonstrates AppUp on MeeGo for tablets AND handhelds (video) first time ever.

Peter: We see phenomenal market in consumer software. We are engaging with Dev community. How:Dev program includes tools, sales channel and marketing.

Plea to audience: Work with us to create customers. Peter highlights this as the kick-start. [Chippy sidenote: Intel needs AppUp to be pre-installed on devices to succeed]

Peter talks about the efforts being done. The work to connect with top iPhone devs. Intel have hired some iPhone devs to help define ‘small’ developer requirements. See slide below.

Biddle: We need to enable devs to get reputation because that is a significant requirement for many small devs.

Soma Games on stage: demo game: [video]

Konami on stage: Joe Morris talks about poetential. [Chippy: Would be great to see Konami games on the AppUp store.]

Peter continues on AppUp:

• Planning on coming out of beta soon.
• Not worried about our ability to attract developers. We need consumers.
• Online user awareness campaign has started.
• AppUp.com relaunched.
• AppUp demo on a Moblin smartphone (port to MeeGo is not complete yet)

Ellis Wang of Asus on stage:

Highlights the launch of Asus Access Cloud: Built on AppUp for notebook and Eee PC customers. Enhanced AppUp.

Note that ASUS and Acer have committed to releasing products that use MeeGo so one would expect that this service will appear there too.

Presentation ends.

At an after-event, we were given the opportunity to ask questions.

• Is multi-user support going into MeeGo? Yes, it will be added to the roadmap.
• MeeGo 1.1 will be released in October and will include always-on, sensor and gesture support. (It will support Oaktrail and Moorestown)
• 4 main user interfaces are being worked-on by user groups. [Chippy sidenote: I’ve heard of 5. Handheld, tablet, netbook. In-vehicle and TV]
• Intel has no position on the threat of patent issues with MeeGo (i.e.. No comment when I asked them whether MeeGo is guaranteed to be free from intellectual property issues.)
• AppUp is not something that will go into Intel’s Android build.
• Intel’s Android build is an official part of the Android work and work done will be sent back upstream.
• Intel’s intention is to have X86 Android devices recognised by Google. (i.e. marketplace, maps , sync etc.)

The summary here is that Intel want to enable a choice of stacks that can run on Atom solutions. Intel wish to enable an application ecosystem for Windows and in Meego, another, free software choice for some selected markets such as in-vehicle, tablets and handhelds. The big take-away for me though is that a huge amount of Intel marketing effort is going into MeeGo and AppUp.

Related:

My hands-on overview of MeeGo 1.0 on a netbook.

A close-up demo of MeeGo’s tablet user interface on an Oaktrail platform.

Intel official slide set from Atom Software Summit

Intel Fact Sheet – MeeGo* and Intel AppUp^SM Gain Momentum at Computex

Lets wind back to June last year, the web was buzzing with the news that Google had announced it was releasing an operating system, well a browser that acts like one. The software architecture is simple Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel, its open source, lightweight  and Google intend to get to consumers in the second half of this year. When they announced the project 12 months ago Google stated “Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year.”

Now come to the present day and Computex 2010, the perfect theatre to show physical devices running your shiny new operating system, be them prototypes or final products and there are none?

To make matters worse, the news of Meego and demonstrations of the Tablet Experience user interface have left lasting impressions on not just me, but the likes of Joanna Stern of Engadget,

“We saw a lot of new technology demoed at Intel’s Computex keynote this afternoon, but the most impressive thing may have just been Meego running on a 10-inch Moorestown Quanta Redvale tablet. While the demo on stage was very brief, we caught up with some of the product managers right after the presser and convinced them to give us a peek at what is coming in 2011. To say we’re impressed with the “pre-alpha” version of the software is a huge understatement.”

Acer’s president Gianfranco Lanci pointed out at Intel’s e21FORUM 2010 meeting that Acer will launch netbooks and tablet PCs that adopt Intel’s latest Atom processor and will also preload the MeeGo platform on them.

Its obvious that MeeGo and Chrome OS are fundamentally different but given today’s age of publicity, advertising and hype, Google could have really done with having something to show at Computex.

[This was posted live during the Intel Ultra Mobility Event. 2nd June 2010. Excuse the formatting, brief analysis and spelling mistakes please!]

I’m ready to go into the ultra mobility event which starts at 1400 here in Taipei

Stay tuned for updates on Moorestown, Oak trail, MeeGo and AppUp…

We’ve just been given the fact sheet..

Acer Backs MeeGo, ASUS supports Intel AppUp Centre and MeeGo, MeeGo Tablet Demos, MeeGo V1.0 based products (9 demos listed) , Service providers Rally Around MeeGo, MeeGo Enabling Center.

More from fact-sheet:

Mandriva, Linpus (Lite), Novell (SUSE MeeGo), Red Flag (Red Flag inMini), Turbolinux (Great Turbo IVI) to release OS builds based on MeeGo.

1325 Doors should open soon.

Fact-Sheets uploaded to Flickr.

1333 We’re heading in…taking pics of display. brb!

Just had a quick peek into the demo area. Aava smartphone is showing 3D, video, gaming demos and girls…

1345 Seated at the front. The show starts in 15 minutes

Sascha from Netbooknews.de sitting next to me.

Open Peek Moorestown-based products on-stage.

2-minutes to go. Execs seated to the right of me. More importantly, Nicole from netbooknews just arrived.

Power usage demo on stage. Lights down. Here we go…

1404 Events kicks off, as usual, with a ‘thank you’ to Taiwan.

Anand Chandrasekhar (sp?) now on stage.

Anand talks about video consumptions. Content is getting richer. Sharing. Live sharing.

Matt Serletic from Music Mastermind on stage to demo a very cool studio on an X70

That was a cool demo. He basically layered up a track by using vocal input to set the sequence.

14:17 Anand continues, talks about Intel’s compute Continuum and ‘a little bit of magic.’ This is where we go to the power drain demo I guess…

Nope, we’re going into a video…about 1954 and the 4 minute mile. Breaking barriers is the theme I guess.

Anand goes on to talk about to the power barrier!

Anand holds up an ARM-based Blackberry and says ‘that’s a platform.’  goes on to talk about the 50x power reduction figures and how they related to a platform and not to silicon.

Video highlights smartphone and tablet. Talks about 8-10 hours battery life on the tablet.

Andy [?] of Open Peek now on stage demoing the product.

2:29 we’re getting a demo of the ‘Open Peek’ home energy app.

2:32 Talking about performance. There’s that sub 2 second SunSpider figure again.

These figures look correct to me. iPad is running 10 seconds on SunSpider.

Graphics and video slide highlights 1080p performance. (High Profile at 30fps) and 3D performance.

Interesting slide shows the battery life improvements over Menlow.

1437 Now watching a demo of battery drain. 100mw audio playback. Not bad!

1440 Comparing against competition now….

Quite some power in Anand’s voice at this stage. He’s pushing this point home.

In performance we’re “In a league by ourselves” with an average power consumption for the smartphone space.

World Of Warcraft being demonstrated on the Aava smartphone (on Moorestown) but the demo isn’t that impressive. Low FPS.

Quake demo shown. I have no idea if it’s good or bad!! Looks fast.

Mutitasking demo…of course….and a nice textured interactive 3D demo. Yeah, it looks quite impressive.

14:46 Video conferencing demo. Ofer Shapiro of Vidyo comes in live over a conference. 2 live screens shown. quality very good. 3rd video conference screen now added. It’s coming in via a Moorestown phone.

1452 We move into MeeGo. Sounds like this is a summary of what we heard this morning. I’ll have a post about that later. Doug Fisher steps up on stage

Tablet demo now. Oops. Didn’t work. Backup device sent to stage. Doug breaths again! (See out tablet demo from yesterday)

Brief slide on Medfield which is ‘on track’ closes up the event here. Anand rounds up with ‘best is yet to come’

That rounds it up. We’re off to the demo area and then to a private Q&A. Anyone got questions? Put them on twitter to @chippy and I’ll try and ask Anand.

Updated: Q&A Session reveals timeframes.

In a Q&A session following the event we had the chance to ask Anand questions about Moorestown and related products.

Chippy: “Premium performance, premium price?”  Anand responded to the effect that Intel will be aggressive with their pricing in order to get into the market saying that Intel will be ‘competitive’ and following up with ‘expect us to be hungry but not stupid.’

Sascha (netbooknews) asked about timeframes for products. Anand responded saying that products will ‘trickle’ in within a 6-12 months timeframe with tablets coming first. It’s not clear if he’s referring to MeeGo/Moorestown tablets or WIndows7/Oak trail tablets. We get the impression that there’s been a slight slip in the Moorestown program.

On Android: I asked about the project both to Anand and Doug Fisher.Was Android was just an internal project or something that is being worked-on with Google? It appears that the X86 branch of Android will become an official branch although some work will needs to be done on the power elements by Intel for its platforms. Medfield (the next generation after Moorestown) was mentioned so I assume that Android-on-Intel will be a late 2011 product.

The Atom Software summit is just kicking of here at Computex. We’re expecting to hear about roadmap, support for advanced features such as multitouch, sensors, gestures. Different UI models from handset to netbook will be shown too. There’s also some hardware here that we’ll get to play with.

Stay tuned for updates throughout the day because later we join the ultra mobility group for their presentation.

Update: Full overview of the session is now available.

Hello from the Intel Atom Software Summit at Computex Taipei.

I’ve just posted news over at UMPCPortal about a Wistron MeeGo Tablet based on Moorestown, running MeeGo. There’s more though. Take this for a huge hint about what’s happening at the Linpus stand…

And this, a netbook platform being used to demonstrate MeeGo.

(Video demo of that one later)

This won’t take long. What we’ve got here is a Moblin build that has picked itself up from being stopped-dead in it’s tracks buy a huge corporate direction change. I imagine that partners that were working with Moblin before MeeGo was announced are pleased that they can finally get back to work in optimising their builds for end products. The core build has been changed and there has been some re-working of the user interface. Chrome has been added as the browser. What is also clear though is that the pace of development appears to have picked up and the MeeGo teams are committing to a six-month cadence meaning that those partners can re-write their roadmaps now and that the products promised last September, can now move forward.

I installed MeeGo 1.0 ‘Netbook User Experience’ on a Medion Akoya netbook (an MSI-Wind clone) last night and it was a smooth experience. First-boot was fast at 27 seconds including my usual 10-second BIOS-lag. First login was simple although there were no options to set up contact syncing or online accounts which are core to the MeeGo experience. The ‘netbook user interface’ is almost exactly the same as on Moblin and is modeled around the ‘home zone’ and other zones that can be activated. People and Internet being the two most important. As before, the UI is fast and bubbly.

It’s a Chrome OS!

Chrome (Chromium, the open source version is being tested here but there’s a true Chrome version available too.) is the major change for the end user and I have to say it’s a good one. It appears to be a recent build because it’s flying through the Sun Spider Javascsript tests. 1.8s is a very respectable time. Full-screen works and Flash is integrated meaning you can expect to operate just as you would on a normal desktop. I used Google Docs to edit a spreadsheet and Flickr to upload some photos without any problems. Facebook works as expected too. If we look to MeeGo on Moorestown, you’ve got the basics of a product that could be the best and one of the most productive smart-books or ‘cloud’ books to date. Add the Intel AppUp store and you’re starting to solve that problem too although Chrome’s Web Application store will be interesting to see working on this.

Basic Applications

There’s an email client (Evolution), a messenger, a reasonable media experience (certainly the Banshee media player seems to be quite feature-rich although I haven’t tested video support yet) and there are a number of other basic apps available through the application manager and ‘Garage,’ a slightly more end-user-friendly application installer although nothing seems to be working in Garage right now.

Photo and screen-grab. Image top-right is also from testing.

Other notes

• Sleep works (Using sleep button on keyboard)
• Gmail contacts sync working (uses SyncML)
• Home screen still somewhat limited. 6-tweets on a 1024×600 screen is not exactly efficient use of space!
• Chrome Browser crashes occasionally
• AppUp store install fails
• Media player fails to play imported MP3s
• No GMA500 (Menlow, Poulsbo) support.
• Read/Write to USB sticks and SD cards is no problem.

It’s a shame that MeeGo 1.0 hasn’t moved forward from Moblin 2.1 in terms of end user experience and there’s no way that it will challenge XP or Windows 7 in terms of productivity and flexibility (printing, network shares, application quality, etc.) however when you combine the thought of an efficient Chrome-based Web-focused OS and MeeGo’s future compatibility with the ‘always on’ Moorestown platform combined with a layer of ‘finishing’ you can see some nice possibilities for ‘smart’ productive devices. Certainly the full-internet experience is a major advantage with MeeGo compared to Android. Apps are needed though and until a nicely designed and well-marketed, polished MeeGo product hits the floor, developers aren’t going to be that interested. Maybe that changes after Computex.

We’ll be connecting with Intel’s software group at Computex next week so stay tuned for more information on the future of MeeGo, netbooks, handhelds and Intel’s ‘smart’ platforms. In the meantime, take the time to have a look at MeeGo 1.0 with the netbook user experience in the video below.

MeeGo V1.0 announcement

Intel have just released an news about their smartphone and tablet platform previously known as Moorestown. The platform is a follow-on from the MID-focused platform, Menlow and includes power saving and power-boosting features that could see service in some very high-end smart devices. The processing unit is known as the Z6XX (assume there will be variants) and the control unit is known as MP20.

I’ve done some analysis of the news over at UMPCPortal but here’s a summary.

Collectively these new chips deliver significantly lower power including >50x reduction in idle power, >20x reduction in audio power, and 2-3x reductions across browsing and video scenarios – all at the platform level when compared to Intel’s previous-generation product1. These power savings translate into >10 days of standby, up to 2 days of audio playback and 4-5 hours of browsing and video battery life. When combined with 1.5-3x higher compute performance, 2-4x richer graphics, >4x higher JavaScript performance, and support for full HD 1080p high-profile video decoding and 720p HD video recording, these low-power innovations bring a rich, PC-like visual experience to powerful handheld computers.

So you’ve got some new power-saving technology there that should allow devices to be built around a standard 1500mah battery but that’s not all.

These power management capabilities, when combined with Intel® Burst Performance Technology for high-performance on demand, and Intel’s Bus Turbo Mode for high-bandwidth on demand, help to deliver industry leading performance and power efficiency across a range of handheld devices.

These ‘turbo’ features will take the platform to 1.5Ghz and there’ll even be a version that will boost to 1.9Ghz. That’s more than a netbook! So if you add the low-power idle features with the turbo modes you’ve got a platform that spans a wide range of uses. With MeeGo being developed alongside Moorestown and a wave of interest in ‘smart’ devices, Intel have timed it well.

The press release even mentions Android. We saw it back in Feb but it looks like it’s become a core part of the Moorestown strategy now.

Here’s the video of Android running on a Moorestown smartphone from MWC in Feb.

Additional info: What Moorestown Means for Consumers.

We’re with Intel at Computex next month (I’ve been invited to Computex through the Intel Insider program) where I’m sure we’ll hear about launch dates, devices and a whole lot more. Expect videos and hands-on!

Z6XX Press Kit

In a report from Morgan Stanley we find out that Intel have launched the Moorestown platform today.

Update: Information is obviously under embargo at this stage but there are a string of tweets that have just gone through that mention Moorestown and a Z6xx processor. e.g. this one. “Intel Z6xx smart-phone processor prototypes: Moorestown massacre: Intel says that fantasy phone is on its way, wit…” They all link to a Cnet UK article that has obviously been removed. The current Menlow platform uses Z5xx processors. This makes sense.

Update 2: Everything is official now. The Z6xx has been launched. Interesting news on Android too.

Morgan Stanley have studied Moorestown and believe that Intel is ‘well positioned with MeeGo’ and that video performance will compare with the latest smartphone platforms, including Tegra 2. They also think that Moorestown will ‘meet or exceed’ current smartphone performance. It’s a bright report that will definitely give the ARM ecosystem partners something to think about.

At its Moorestown launch on May 4, we expect
Intel to introduce and advocate multiple benchmarks to
measure and compare highly debated performance and
power consumption attributes of Smartphone
application processors. In this report, we present
several comparison frameworks, which we plan to
update after actual Moorestown data become available.
Our view is that with Moorestown, Intel will finally start to
meet the power budget for Smartphones, but will show
more favorably on processing power benchmarks.

See also: UMPCPortal Moorestown analysis here.

The financial report also states:

Our checks indicate that Intel and Nokia are also collaborating on a
Smartphone device, which we think is likely to become available in the market in
mid-to-late 2011.

Considering that this report is focusing purely on Intel’s smartphone processor and this statement appears in a section on MeeGo, the report implies that the Nokia phone will be based on Intel’s Moorestown platform and running MeeGo.

The Morgan Stanley report was published on May 3rd and has been promoted by Intel in its ‘Chip Shot’ blog. The full PDF, an interesting read if you’re comparing smartphone platforms, is available as a download here. (or via the Chip Shot blog linked above.)

Stand-by for official Moorestown launch info!

I just hacked this image up (apologies HP and Apple) as an easy way to illustrate how Windows on netbooks is at risk. Add either of the touch, UI, app store and always-on features and you’ve got something that Microsoft can’t currently compete with.

This scenario would immediately affect sales of Windows-netbooks where people are buying netbooks as second devices, gadgets or for family, friend and other social and casual (online or off) scenarios . For productivity scenarios, Windows still counts because the apps don’t exist on the common app-store ecosystems yet. I don’t have figures but in the U.S. and Europe I guess 30% of netbooks are bought as a second PC, a gadget or for the sofa/family/friend social (online and off) scenario. That’s a lot of lost Windows 7 license sales.

I talked about the 4 ‘lock-in’ opportunities (more than just ‘good’ opportunities’) for ‘Social Netbooks’ in this article. Google could make it happen by enabling Marketplace on Android – A potential risk for Intel. Intel themselves could make it happen with products like Moorestown, MeeGo and AppUp  or a surprise player could enter the market.

My opinion is that  THIS WILL HAPPEN. Someone will add a touchable, dynamic, fun user interface, an app-store, location and always-on features to a netbook form factor leaving just the productive applications as the missing piece. Given the chance (i.e. an application store) developers will move quickly to fill those  gaps in software for productive uses making the smart device BETTER than the Windows-based, traditional netbook device. What that means for Microsoft is that a huge portion of the netbook market could be served by a  non-Windows OS solutions. Just think of the market positioning too. Isn’t it easier to market an ‘upgrade’ from a smartphone than a ‘downgrade’ from a laptop.

When does this happen? I’m expecting Google to announce a move into the ‘third screen’ space with Android very soon. Intel are ready with Moorestown and MeeGo in Q4 so the change starts to happen in 2011. I estimate that while netbook sales (of both sub-genres) will increase, the percentage of Microsoft netbooks will stay level or even drop. [Sidenote: Intel thinks that the non-windows sales will reduce in percentage by 2012.  I think they are underestimating the 'smart' device opportunity.]

Is Intel at risk? Yes. If Google, Android and ARM reach the flag before Intel and MeeGo, Intel start to lose market share in the netbook market but also remember, Android could run on Intel’s new Moorestown platform offering smartbook manufacturers a more powerful computing experience. Also note that if netbooks flip to non-Windows ‘smart’ devices it serves as a nice dividing line between laptops and netbooks for Intel, restoring the need for different netbook, CULV and laptop processing platforms and allowing them to make more and more powerful Atom CPUs without hurting the laptop segment.

I’m not the first to talk about this and it’s certainly not the first time I’ve thought about it myself but that image just makes it crystal clear for me. Netbooks will change dramatically. If Google doesn’t enable it, someone else will and in any case, Microsoft will suffer.

MeeGo gets an outing in China this week as Intel takes its developer-focused conference, IDF, to Beijing. As I write this, Intel’s Lynn Wang, Strategic Relationship Manager and Rao Yeleswarapu, a Product Marketing Manager have just finished their talk on MeeGo Technology and Benefits. Danny Zhang, Senior Engineering Manager and Horace Li a Software Engineer with Intel have also given a technical overview talk.

Update: MeeGo 1.0 for Netbooks is now available.

As always, Intel publish the slides from the talks and they contain some great new information. I’ve picked out a few interesting slides from the first presentation which also include the first images of MeeGo’s handheld reference UI for smartphones.

Netbooks.

First off, lets look at the Netbook feature list for MeeGo (we assume 1.0) which confirms a previous tidbit that I picked up from DevMob (that apparently, shouldn’t have leaked.) Mozilla’s browser will be replaced by Chrome (or Chromium, the open source browser.) Quite how significant that if for Mozilla I don’t know but it’s something that should generate quite some discussion.  [Sidenote: There's been a lot of Google/Intel/Android/Chrome rumors lately. Relationships are definitely good and don't forget, Intel is part of the OHA. Stay very closely tuned to the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit which starts tomorrow and runs for three days. Intel, Nokia and Google are all there. I wish I was too but i'll be glued to the live stream as much as I can.]

You’ll also see that the social messaging app is to be redesigned (the application on Moblin 2.1 very very thin indeed) along with the camera application,email and calendar and date/time app. Best of all, the media application will get an overhaul. Again, the media app on Moblin was extremely basic. Remember that what drops out of MeeGo is not necessarily what you’ll see on netbooks. These code drops (starting with 1.0 in May) are for 3rd partys to take and build on so what you see in V1.0 is not what you’ll see in a final, retail build delivered on a netbook.

In other news, a number of companies have just re-affirmed their support for MeeGo as it transistions out of the Maemo brand. Note that Canonical isn’t in the list. That’s what happens when you move to an RPM-based distro I guess!

Note that the promised touch and gesture support is in there although I don’t see sensor support yet. That’s important for GPS. (It is, however, mentioned in other parts of the presentation.) Also missing is any mention of an application store. Intel’s AppUp is available for Moblin, OVI for Maemo so I wonder if this is simply left out of the core and left up to the OEMs. Remember that happened with Skype on Maemo 5, hopefully that particular relationship, optimisation and integration will spread over to netbooks.

As for netbook eye candy, here’s a snip from the presentation. I don’t know if it’s the proposed 1.0 UI though.

The center column has been dropped from the home zone and filled out with social network tiles. Having used these on Moblin, all I can say is – inefficient. 13 status updates on a 1024×600 screen is not an efficient way to use the device for anyone remotely familiar with making friends on the Internet. Let’s hope that the MeeGo UI teams offer an ‘advanced’ front end. Again, it’s not clear if this actually is the UI for release 1.0 though. Update: It is!

Handhelds.

It’s not clear whether this is Intel’s proposal here of if this is 100% agreed between Nokia and Intel but this is what Intel have to say about handhelds using Intel architecture.

As you can see, Fennec, the mobile browser from Mozilla, has been chosen to present the Web. You’ll also get Flash support. Contacts and dialer functions will be integrated (as you’d expect) and there will be VOIP (it will be interesting to see if carriers want that ripped out) and instant messaging. I’m happy to see that the social networking ‘integrated experience’ is mentioned because this is an excellent core feature on the Maemo 5-based Nokia N900. Data sync is also provided along with an LBS app indicating that at least GPS sensors will be supported.

And now for the smartphone eye candy, including cute doggie!

Portrait mode support. N900/Maemo fans rejoice! Note the interesting activity stream in the first picture.
One would assume that emails, tweets and other network events can be included in that stream.

This is typical understated European styling and I bet Nokia were heavily involved here. Personally I love the design but remember, once again this is just a reference design. It’s the sort of UI you’ll see if you take the 1.0 build and drop it on an Aava Moorestown reference design (which I’m trying hard to get hold of) and possibly, the N900. As I said before, I’m not sure if this is Intel’s proposal for the handheld UI or an agreed, across-the-board Nokia/Intel final reference design. We’ll see in May when V1.0 drops.

Timescales.

I mentioned the roadmap on my MeeGo journal a few weeks ago and Intel have re-affirmed those in a nice easy-to-understand slide.

The key date for me is the v1.1 release in the latter part of October. That’s when the MeeGo Summit is likely to occur and it’s right in the Q4 timeframe for product availability. LG GW990, Nokia Nxxx and who knows what else we’ll see. Interestingly, the U.S-based Intel Developer Forum will be in the middle of Sept so it will be interesting to see if Intel and partners have products to announce. October will be a very exciting time and wherever that MeeGo Summit is, i’ll be there!

MeeGo Developers.

You’ve got your very own PDF to browse through too but this slide just smacks me in the face…

‘Cross  App Store Developement’ is something special for devs to consider. The diagram doesn’t actually do the feature justice because it omits to mention the Intel app-store framework that can be used to make branded 3rd-party app stores. One API, many stores, many devices. In a separate presentation on the AppUp store I saw this… line. “World’s largest potential TAM (for a single API) “ When you think of the opportunity there, the mind boggles. Smartphones, Netbooks and the many many devices in-between including home, car and TV.

For more (very) detailed information on the MeeGo stack and the development toolkit, download and read SFTS010 from the content catalogue. (I can’t directly link as it’s a one-time URL used for statistics and tracking.)

all the above slides were taken from the publicly available PDF file SFTS009 available through in content catalogue.

Stay tuned to that catalogue over the next 48 hours as more PDF’s feed in. Particularly interesting could be the Moorestown presentation.