Home > Nokia N9 Launch: MeeGo Smartphone Set For Shipping This Year
Nokia N9 Launch: MeeGo Smartphone Set For Shipping This Year
By Phil Barker on February 11,
 2011 at 00:00,

The day may have just started, but it's already been an exciting morning for Nokia following an interview with CEO Stephen Elop. We've found out lots about the company's plans for the future, including Nokia's brand new operating system MeeGo. To find out more about MeeGo devices like the Nokia N9, and when they'll be introduced, read on after the cut...

Nokia proved it was capable of producing fantastic and versatile operating systems, when it launched Maemo on the Nokia N900. Since then, buyers of high-end smartphones have been waiting for the follow-up OS – MeeGo – and the first MeeGo smartphone, the Nokia N9.

MeeGo is an open source operating system developed by Nokia and Intel, and promises to deliver all the usability and features found on Maemo. It also promises to deliver a much better variety of apps, thanks to the introduction of Nokia's Qt framework.

Don't fancy MeeGo? Nokia has just announced that its phones will also ship with Windows Phone 7

With Qt, Nokia is able to easily develop and port apps between Symbian ^3 and MeeGo – so everything that's currently being created for devices like the Nokia N8 and Nokia C7 should also make an appearance for MeeGo smartphones like the Nokia N9.

According to a press release we received this morning following Stephen Elop's interview, Nokia will be releasing its first MeeGo smartphone at some point this year. Aside from the fact it'll run MeeGo, not that much else is known about the Nokia N9, so leave a comment below and let us know what you'd like to see in a high-end MeeGo smartphone.

Would you like to see a Nokia N8-rivalling camera? Perhaps more memory? Maybe even a QWERTY keyboard, just like the Nokia E7? Either way, with MeeGo on board the Nokia N9 promises to be a cracker!

Tags: Meego Microsoft Nokia Nokia N9 Stephen Elop
/ View all comments
  • amir

    i dont believe in windows phone it hangs alot and is really no competitor to android nor ios , i think Nokia must stick up with Meego thats grate also

  • Martin

    I had to blink a bit when I read this.
    You don’t honestly think that Meego will still be alive by the end of today ?

  • lucas

    OK who will buy a Meego device now (or symbian for that matter) knowing that it is a “burning platform”

  • Pingback: Tweets that mention Nokia N9 Launch: MeeGo Smartphone Set For Shipping This Year | NokNok.tv -- Topsy.com

  • et3rnal

    I wanna cry bcoz of Nokia 2day :(

    still hope 2 see wt i been waiting 4 4m MeeGo not that FAIL WP7 ;(

  • Paladin

    I am an Android user now, but have used Nokia phones before and hoped that MeeGo will provide me with an alternative should Google slip too much on the Android (they already are, but just a little).

    Too bad there is no such alternative now. MeeGo will be abandoned, and WP7 might be an alternative for the Iphone, but it’s not to Android.

  • Paladin

    I am an Android user now, but have used Nokia phones before and hoped that MeeGo will provide me with an alternative should Google slip too much on the Android (they already are, but just a little).

    Too bad there is no such alternative now. MeeGo will be abandoned, and WP7 might be an alternative for the Iphone, but it\’s not to Android.

  • Glyn

    I’ve been Nokia for over 20 years and love my N97 – the full qwerty has really spoiled me. The E7 though was dead before it was ever launched (16GB and NO SD slot? Insane!) so I’ve been hanging on hoping for a release date for the N9.

    With rumours that Elop had killed it being circulated yesterday I was somewhat crestfallen. It became evident that I was going to have to join the mainstream and abandon my trusty keyboard for the hell that is touch-screen typing all over again.

    Hours of research later and the only candidate I can find is the Desire HD but that’s let down by its unwieldy size and the poor build on the parts of the case that aren’t aluminium.

  • MeeNo

    Nokia went from bad to worse. Now that MeeGo is abandoned there is no real option for American dominance in smart phones. The \"new\" continent has gotten way too much attention now and the \"3rd world\" together with Europe will abandon Nokia. Sure hope that Meego will carry its momentum and replace the WP7 in some point in the future, but it seems highly unlikely now.

  • Jon

    I bought an Android Samsung Galaxy S after I lost my N900.

    Two months later I bought another N900. Maemo is a real operating system running proper applications, Android is just a Java interpreter and most of the apps are pretty basic “one man band” efforts.

    I would buy a Meego smartphone, or even a Maemo smartphone now if it had updated hardware (bigger screen, faster, more memory than the N900).

  • a phone to phone and wakeup

    Why not using Qt above ANDROID-NDK at short term, this would save quite a bit of effort on boring tedious OS level (and put them on google…)?
    In my PC, thanks to virutalization i constantly use 2 os because of the maturity of the apps in each of them. Shall we really expect a phone to run a single os in future? Future omap 5 and alike i guess will support virtualisation.

  • DieForm

    Was really looking forward to this phone, but now it’s being launched with an MS prison-tag, I’m going to go look for an Android.

  • sandy

    Nokia still releases the meego but they won\’t be serious about it.

  • Pingback: Nokia N9 to be launched this year | Nokia Site

  • JuhS

    After using the N900 for over a year now I had high hopes for Meego, I still have. But Elop’s deeply disregarding tone which he uses when he speakes about his current company’s products eg. “the platform is burning” is unacceptable. If I wouldn’t know better I would say that Elop is still working for Microsoft and planned this with Balmer from the beginning.

    When the original head of Meego, the guru himself, Ari Jaaksi left Meego I came suspicious. I sincerely hope that Nokia will contribute even one percent of it’s current R&D budget towards Meego and I will buy the N9.

  • Jomeyq

    I’ve been using symbian for a long time, and have been waiting for a Meego phone since the earliest news of the platform. It appeared to be the only real potential competitor to Android, but would have required Nokia’s full dedication and confidence. Now that Nokia has made it clear that this is not their focus, Meego will at best remain a niche OS, and I can no longer justify buying into it. It looks like Android is the only choice left, which is disappointing to say the least.

    I actually had high hopes for a focused and continued development of Meego given the recent Nokia rumblings about failing to move with direction. This shift to Win Phone 7 is just another example of how Nokia’s lack of a focused, long-term development strategy has all but killed the company. I can’t help but think there will be another similar announcement in a year or two, just before the first Nokia WP7 phones arrive that they are changing strategy again. I have zero faith in a company that not long ago was the far and away leader in smartphones, and which I fully supported. Now they seem to be flailing having jumping from their “burning platform” into the sea.

  • http://os-cms.net Dennis

    Please don’t drop meego for windows platform … they will be saying like homer in a year: Doh! Hope they will use meego to compete with android.

  • Mato56

    It’s all over now for Nokia, I guess Microsoft will eventually buy them…

  • david

    I want to see it be able to use WIN PHONE 7 lol

  • Kountry

    If the N9 comes out with meego I will get it, if it comes out with windows I wont, plain in simple, have a N8 and want to upgrade, love nokia and I develope programs on the linux enviroment for mobile platform. Been waiting on this item for a while now, hope its not canned and its still alive.

  • s karthik

    good to heart the news

  • s karthik

    good

  • Martin

    It should have a faster processor a keyboard a big 4 in. screen, plus other hardware from the n8 such as the camera, HDMI, usb-on-the-go. It would be awesome

  • Pingback: A word about Nokia and the future of mobile phones | Information…The Blog

  • http://www.wimco.com Tim W

    Thinking of Jomeyq’s points – One could really see the demise back when the Symbian 80 was cut and the 9500 communicator became the the E90 – Having lost the independent cover and internal operating system.
    One could sense that the minds behind the earlier communicators – so practical – so useful- so smart had to have been crushed by a decision to return to the simplistic S 60. Imagine how hard it would be to get excited about creating something great know that corporate at that point had already lost their way – This is well over 5-6 years ago now. For many the hand writing was on the wall at that point –
    But it is also true that hope springs eternal and so I too hoped for the N9 to be the lost future incorporating some of the earlier brilliance and complex simplicity.

  • poiuytr

    Some of you seriously need to Google about MeeGo.
    MeeGo will run in about 35-50% of ALL NEW CARS starting with the first in 2012. I’ve been to car shows and seen several models which runs MeeGo. Just as Android have their own system that SAAB was the first to show on a car show.
    So read up.
    Just hope Nokia will keep running MeeGo on some of their phones.. or else they will seriously fuck up.
    Also.. stick with Symbian phones. just work on the UI some more. People like eye candy.

    Intel use MeeGo as the operating system for Intel chips (together with MS WP7). Intel has a goal of selling 1-2 of their moorestown SOC for every new car made.

  • Andy

    I have been using my E90 for many years now, it’s still running well though old and grey…, am longing for a perfect successor though, E97 was not at all a match. Have also used HTC with windows mobile, fxxk such a crap…, am using iPhone in parallel and other apple products, but my E90 never left me standing in the rain, good old technology.
    So please continue to develop a valuable competitor to android smartphones and apples and most of all a good successor to the E90 !!!
    And please NEVER any windows clones, then I am sure Nokia will start to loose the rest of the tiny market share that is left after all!!!

  • Pluto

    I hope Nokia will deliver on the promise of a N9 with MeeGo or a successor of the N900.
    The E7 overall is a great phone. Besides the camera and lack of expandable memory it is a good consumer product. I certainly prefer Symbian over WP7. WP7 is a loosing proposition for Nokia!
    The least would be a device that you can load with MeeGo or WP7 similar to what is doable with HTC devices.