N900 "Best Linux Smartphone", and MeeGo "Best New Open-Source project" awards in LJ Readers' Choice

With many publications wrapping up their coverage of the year, Linux Journal shares the results of its Readers' Choice Awards; with the N900 winning "best Linux smartphone": No Linux Journal award show would be complete without a Nokia N-series device, and the 2010 Readers' Choice Awards is no exception. The Nokia N900 takes the award for Best Linux Smartphone. We're not too surprised that you chose the N900 given that it's the most early-adopter phone out there. That's us. The honorable mention in this category is an Android: HTC Nexus One. MeeGo won "best new open-source project".

The Nokia N810 (running Maemo 4) came third in the "best Linux-based gadget" category.

MeeGo got "honourable mention/runner-up" as "best mobile OS"; with Maemo at number four and Moblin at number five.

MeeGo also got third place in the "best distribution for netbooks/limited hardware" category - a fact that owes more, in your editor's opinion, to the limited offerings in this area rather than the strength of MeeGo Netbook. However, things can only get better.

Book - Beginning Nokia Apps Development: Using MeeGo, Mobile Qt & OpenSymbian

A sign of how seriously Nokia is touting MeeGo and Qt to journalists, publishers, analysts and professionals can be seen in the release of Apress' new book, "Beginning Nokia Apps Development". From the catalogue blurb: While buzz often circulates around iPhone and Android, Nokia still leads the pack in terms of world market share. Symbian, for instance, remains the most widely used mobile operating system. With the emergence of Nokia's open development platforms, the opportunities available for mobile developers to target these vastly popular operating systems are clear. Beginning Nokia Apps Development is step-by-step guide that introduces mobile development using Nokia's variety of open platforms like Mobile Qt, OpenSymbian, and MeeGo. This book brings beginners up to speed and shows experienced developers how to work on a mobile platform. A brief sample seen by your editor seems to suggest that this is well written and deals with both the fundamentals of Qt & C++ and also the strategic approach of Qt Quick and/or HTML 5.

Amazon.com's top phone given as a gift in 2010 was Nokia N900

Interestingly, the N900 has ended up on the top of Amazon's "Most Popular Gift Products of 2010 - Wireless", making it the most gifted device in Amazon's inventory in the category. Of course, given that most consumers (at least in the US) tend to buy cellular devices direct from carriers and that Amazon is one of the few places where the N900 was actually available, well... you can draw your own conclusions. Mark Guim says, Amazon.com today released its “Best of 2010″ lists, which include the bestselling, most-wished-for and favorite gift products as determined by Amazon.com customers in 2010. The Nokia N900 was the most frequently purchased as gifts in the wireless category! Yay for Nokia and Maemo! The Nokia N900 started shipping in the US last November. The data from these lists came from January 1st, 2010 to December 15th, 2010.

Qt 4.6 in Palm's WebOS 2

Many of you will remember that Ari Jaaksi moved from heading up Nokia's MeeGo Devices to Palm's WebOS division. Whether or not the inclusion of Qt 4.6 in Palm's own next-generation mobile OS has anything to do with this is completely unknown, but - according to Ryan Paul of Ars Technica - it wasn't there in the previous beta. If this ultimately led to Qt Quick, we may really see Qt win as the next-generation mobile platform of choice, rather than aiming at the OS level. This is, ultimately, Nokia's strategy: abstract the OS with the Qt platform.