[fpc-pascal] More Win CE

[Matt Emson]

On 17/11/2010 09:16, Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote:
>
> You could try MeeGo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo

Which is. at least in this instance, based on Maemo.

> At the moment with this phone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900


My best advice - and this is real world experience speaking - keep clear 
of Nokia and Nokia devices. Nokia have a very real history of completely 
screwing over developers for their tablet based OS. I was an N800 owner, 
and I developed for that platform. I went through NIT-OS 2007 and 2008. 
Nokia released the N810, and we were told that "this was just a 
revision" and all would continue. The N800 was dropped 6 months later 
and we were then told "the N800 will have no further updates, buy an 
N810 if you want future releases.." Guess what? They released the N900, 
they pretty much shelved the N810 and there was never more than a "hack 
level" version of any future OS for the N810.

Next beef - Maemo used "Hildon" as the UI kit. It was based on GTK+. It 
was okay - we all may well know the pain of using OO based C API's, but 
it certainly was not impossible to develop for at all. So, Nokia 
acquires Qt and Trolltech. Announces that Qt will sit along side Hildon 
- no one needs to worry about anything, they will both be "first class 
citizens" in Maemo land. Um.. well, sure, that lasted for one OS 
release. Now Hildon is pretty much dead and all the skillset learned for 
the device is gone. Maybe Hildon might still work in part - I don't 
really care to find out. All indications to me are that it is gone though.

Next beef - and this is unrelated to Tablets OS; my company was 
developing a system using RFID based technology. Nokia had a product 
that was almost off the shelf. We were woo-ed by their technical sales 
guys and so agreed to sign a contract to use their services and buy 
their hardware. We had a substantial amount of custom we were willing to 
put their way. Myself and two other guys went on an expensive 2 day 
training course and learnt the technology. We scheduled in the 
development. Two weeks before we commenced the project, Nokia announced 
they were dropping the product, no longer selling the RFID capable 
phones and we could only have the service for a maximum of 2 years, 
where after it would be shelved. So, we were left high and dry and out 
of pocket.

Nokia really does not treat customers of parters well. I would never 
willingly develop for their platform(s) again, including Qt.


> I hope that in 2011 Nokia will launch cheaper phones with MeeGo and
> that the platform will get cheaper, more stable and with a larger
> market share

There is little chance that will happen as it assumes Nokia will focus 
on Meego... Nokia can't focus on a blade of grass on a sunny day - they 
will carry on as is IMO and be shamed in to releasing cheap and shoddy 
hardware in a few years when it will be too little too late to save 
their business.