It's really easy to cheat on the benchmarks - Bob Colwell, former Intel chief architect
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Opera previews mobile browser on Maemo
PLUCKY ALTERNATIVE WEB BROWSER OUTFIT Opera is showing off the first preview build of its Mobile 10 browser for Nokia N900 and N800/N810 handsets.
Opera's web browser used to appear on Nokia's handsets, but in 2008 it was kicked off in favour of an internally developed option. Now, almost three years later the firm has thrown its browser hat back into the ring and announced the preview's "unofficial return to the Maemo platform".
"This Maemo version of Opera Mobile 10 was created as a hobby project by a small team of developers in their spare time", wrote Fredrik Öhrn of the firm's software group. "It's worth pointing out that this is not an officially-supported release," he added.
The preview has not seen much in the way of rigorous testing, he said, but it does have a lot of new features. More casual users may baulk at statements like, "This also means that there may never be a 'final' release of Opera Mobile 10 for Maemo devices, since it's just that much more fun to add shiny new features rather than fixing boring old bugs," but hobbyists or developers might enjoy breathing new life into the Nokia mobiles.
Many of the features cross over from Opera Mobile 10 for Symbian and Windows Mobile smartphones, including things like Opera Turbo, its quick web delivery gadget, and speed dial and bookmark pages. However, brave Maemo users will get to see firm's first public use of Carakan, a Javascript engine that should speed things up, as well as the mobile debut of the Vega rendering library.
Listed known bugs include no support for Adobe Flash, some screen tearing, non-working on-screen keyboards, and no power management features. This latter issue may be serious for anyone who uses the phone on the move. As Öhrn explained, "Power is drained even when Opera is running in the background and/or the screen is turned off."
Users can report issues to the team using a bug wizard, and we expect they will encounter some. µ
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terrific essay there jimbo.
all you have to do now is ask for the job.
Anyone who has ever had an N800 or N810 Internet mini-tablet will either laugh or cry after reading articles like this one. There is no doubt that Nokia makes some very excellent devices from a hardware standpoint; the N800 and N810 included. Both are well designed units with great hardware multimedia capabilities, even today. They were actually way ahead of their time when they were introduced in my opinion. Unfortunately, from a software or OS perspective they can be so frustrating to use as to be nearly useless. Why? It's the insipid, half-assed, unprofessional, buggy, HOBBYIST written Maemo platform apps environment that Nokia seems to cherish. Nokia only half-heartedly supported the Maemo platform for these units, and even today keeps vacillating over which OS platform they will use in their next smartphone model, but that's another story for another day.
Of course, the fact that Nokia has depended largely on the hobbyiest programmer segment to take up the slack of their own lack of support for the platform is the real problem. While there are a huge number of Maemo apps available, almost none of them are professionally written, properly debugged, well-rounded, or include proper help features. What, you actually wanted to sync your audio files across both installed mem cards (N800) as well as internal memory? Hahaha! Create a playlist? Hahaha...how can you create a playlist when you can't sync your files? muah hahaha!!!
In spite of the software multimedia shortcomings, I have tried to keep my N800 updated as I still use it for short trips to check emails, or Skyping. OTOH, trying to compose emails is an exercise in futility because the installed browser is utter shiite. I even installed Mozilla's new Fenneck mini-Firefox version hoping to fix the problem. Again, it's complete shiite! Even Skype's Maemo port is half-assed and doesn't see the built-in webcam to make video calls or provide full Skype features. Of course the lack of webcam could be a result of installing the latest Maemo OS version.
Interesting that when I tried to warn potential buyers after a previous INQ N900 article, I was flamed to the max. Oh well, just like I did, the N900 fanbois will find out for themselves the sad truth of Nokia's "superlative" support for the Maemo platform.
WoW! A great idea just occurred to me. Steve, the son of Satan, Jobs should trade some OS and apps writing/vetting ease-of-use expertise to counter some of the many patent infringement lawsuits Nokia has filed against aPple.
Hobbyist Maemo programming...BAH FREAKIN' HUMBUG!!!!
"created as a hobby project by a small team of developers in their spare time"
That's how much of Opera's finest work was done. Oh, for the good old days when Opera were a very hands-on company, before they had a higher management ratio than the NHS, with much the same effects on consistency and attention to detail.
Since version 9.0, Opera's interface hasn't been evolving, it's been playing musical chairs. Much like the staff turnover.
That episode of Doctor Who, "The Doctor's Daughter", may as well have been about the development cycle of Opera releases.