MeeGo marches to 1.2 despite Nokia defection

MeeGo has a multi-touch interface for tablet PCs

Nokia’s decision to use Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system in its future smartphone devices hasn’t stopped the MeeGo open source project from continuing its development with version 1.2 released today sporting app and telephony updates.

MeeGo began life as a merger between Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin and is aimed at devices of varying form factors – from mobile phones to in-vehicle entertainment systems. The Linux-based operating system runs on Intel and ARM architectures.

In February Nokia announced it would discontinue MeeGo development over the coming years in favour of Windows Phone, but Intel has indicated it will continue to support the project.

Version 1.2 of MeeGo features the QML application framework and extended Qt mobility APIs, including those for location, system, connectivity, and sensor (including haptic) capabilities aimed at rapid development.

The telephony and wireless networking capabilities have also been enhanced with GSM, GPRS, and HSPA+ support, a SIM application toolkit, more Bluetooth profiles, expanded VPN and wireless authentication, data tethering capabilities and better multimedia support.

MeeGO 1.2 supports netbook, vehicle and tablet UXs (user experiences) and has Linux kernel 2.6.37 at its core.

When MeeGo 1.1 was released last November, a surprising omission was a tablet UX, however, the 1.2 release comes just days after the tablet developer preview was announced by the project.

The new tablet UX has a panels-based home screen and grid of application icons is also provided for app management.

The applications include a Web browser, camera, photo viewer, video player, music player, e-mail and personal information management and XMPP for chat.

MeeGo also has APIs for sharing content to social networks and other Web services and adding third-party content into the panels

Version 1.2 did not announce any mobile handset UX, which was released as a preview edition with 1.1.

However, Nokia is rumoured to be preparing to launch its first MeeGo handset in the N9 smartphone soon, with a teaser video appearing on the Web this week.

MeeGo will continue is six-month release cycle, with MeeGo 1.3 scheduled for October.

Among the features slated for inclusion in 1.3 are near-field communications support and an SDK for Mac OS X.

The MeeGo project is online at: https://meego.com/.

Follow Rodney Gedda on Twitter: @rodneygedda

Follow TechWorld Australia on Twitter: @Techworld_AU

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