In this edition...

Front Page
- Upcoming security fix release for N900 for PR1.3 & CSSU
Applications
- In-development augmented reality app for Nokia N9
- Official Spotify client for N9 released
- Simpler way for synching multiple Google Calendars on Harmattan
Development
- Prepare your MeeGo and Harmattan apps for apps.formeego.org launch
- Harmattan: inactive doesn't have to be boring
- Harmattan PR 1.1 Quick Fix - Inverted Menu
Community
- Documenting maemo.org maintenance and community roles
Devices
- White Nokia N9 announced
- More info about Tizen, the MeeGo successor
In the Wild
- N9 manufacturing video
Announcements
- FM radio GUI for Nokia N9
- libconnui-dev and operator-name-cbs-widget for N900
- n9-apps.com launches
- NFC tag writer for Nokia N9

Front Page

Upcoming security fix release for N900 for PR1.3 & CSSU

A new security update is coming for PR1.3 and CSSU: Recently, Nokia has been in touch with some CSSU devs and the council about a Fremantle software update. As the version number implies, this is a simple fix for the DigiNotar issue and a fixed security control panel applet. The update should be released in a few days. Non-CSSU users can update immediately. If you ever want to install CSSU, the installer will work fine on PR1.3.1. Nokia has also agreed that the patches may be redistributed by the community and can be used in CSSU and Cordia. Users of the plain PR1.3 should see the update offered. Users of the CSSU will want to wait for the patches to be integrated before trying to update.

Applications

Development »« Front Page

In-development augmented reality app for Nokia N9

By combining the accelerometer, digital compass, GPS, and camera in your phone "augmented reality" data can be displayed as a digital overlay real-time images from the camera. As part of the Nokia Devstart Competition developer Astria Nur Irfansyah has put together an application for Harmattan, Manaya, which shows location overlays: #Manaya is an augmented reality places search application for the Nokia N9 or N950 Meego phones. It takes location data of common places directly from Wikimapia.org and Wikipedia.org. Current version is in Bahasa Indonesia only. This application was developed for the Nokia Devstart Competition in Indonesia, 2011, and held first place in the best local App category. Your editor is unsure whether the application is available.

Read more (bengkelaplikasi.blogspot.com)

Permalink

Official Spotify client for N9 released

Via: @Jaffa2

Although slightly beaten to the post by the unofficial MeeSpot, Nokia's Spotify client has been released. Spotify's announcement says that Nokia have created a Spotify app for their phone that brings you all the great features you’ve come to expect from Spotify. Access our catalogue of millions of tracks, manage and sync your playlists, listen to music with no mobile connection using Offline mode, and much, much more.

As with all mobile Spotify apps, it requires a Spotify Premium subscription. Your editor has tried both MeeSpot and Spotify; and they seem very similar. It is going to be a personal preference to which you prefer.

Simpler way for synching multiple Google Calendars on Harmattan

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Andrew Flegg

Petri Louhelainen describes a way of synchronising multiple Google calendars with an N9 or N950, without setting up multiple CalDAV accounts and transcribing long UUIDs: CalDAV server needs to be simply https://www.google.com/ (don't forget https) and tadaa - you have CalDAV enabled. This is not enough, however, as the protocol still synchronizes only your default calendar. There is a little knows settings page for calendar implemented for iPhone sync that you can use for N9 also.

One of your editors, Andrew Olmsted hasd tried it, as it's much simpler than the older approach, and it "worked like a charm."

Development

Community »« Applications

Prepare your MeeGo and Harmattan apps for apps.formeego.org launch

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Andrew Olmsted

Niels Breet has announced that developers can start getting their applications ready to put into apps.formeego.org: The development of apps.formeego.org is nearing the point where we want to go to public tests. Apps will fetch all metadata for your package from OBS, so we ask you to already prepare your package in OBS according to Apps Packaging guidelines. We ask developers to add screenshots, icons and a proper description to your package now, so we can start the community QA process testing next week. With the recent website makeover and now user submitable applications we are getting a nicely usable community site for MeeGo participation.

Harmattan: inactive doesn't have to be boring

Via: @fiferboy

Editor: Ryan Abel

One of your editors, Andrew Olmsted, has been working out the intricacies of the inactive application state and how it can be used to make the "Open Applications" view in Harmattan more useful: When an application has focus in Harmattan - that is to say it is the currently shown application - it is said to be "active". Only one application can be active at a time, which given the small size of the screen makes a lot of sense for the platform. All other running applications are "inactive". When looking at the open application view all applications are inactive. As an application developer there are ways to make your application a bit more useful when it is inactive. In the second screenshot here I have added a simple overlay to display some basic information about the application that can help a user distinguish it in the task switcher. A book title. A list name. A contact name. Follow the link to read about how to use this feature in your applications on his blog.

Harmattan PR 1.1 Quick Fix - Inverted Menu

Via: @fiferboy

Editor: Andrew Flegg

Andrew Olmsted, one of your editors, has posted a fix for anyone using PR1.1 of Harmattan who may have noticed that applications using the inverted theme (black background and dark components with light text) have a problem with the menu background. The background it is trying to load doesn't exist on the system, so the menu is completely transparent except for the actual menu contents.

This makes it difficult to use applications with a busy background and an inverted menu. Fortunately for us this has been fixed in later versions of Qt Components, and there is an easy fix you can do on your device.

The fix involves editing one of the core QML files of Qt Quick Components.

Community

Devices »« Development

Documenting maemo.org maintenance and community roles

Via: @Jaffa2

Momcilo Majic, a member of the Maemo Community Council, would like to assemble the complete list of all positions on maemo.org infrastructure, in order to fill in any empty slot with volunteers from community.

Devices

In the Wild »« Community

White Nokia N9 announced

Editor: Andrew Flegg

During the Nokia World keynote (where Kevin Shields showed how not to address a British audience during the reveal of the Windows Phone range), a brief slide showed the N9 in black, cyan, magenta and... white. Nokia Conversations confirmed what was also visible on the show floor - a glossy white 64GB N9 is being released: Nokia is happy to announce a new addition to the Nokia N9 family with the arrival of the white version of the highly acclaimed device. Current Nokia N9 users will also be pleased to hear that they will soon be getting a software update for their phone.

White devices are all the rave at the moment. So why was the Nokia N9 not available in white from the start? Frank Zillikens, who heads up the product marketing for Nokia N9, explains: “The manufacturing process for beautiful white products is quite complex and we wanted to make sure we deliver the best possible quality for our consumers.”

Your editor got to play with one of them, and it does look very attractive; although even with the glossy finish, I'd be worried about dirty greasy fingers leaving marks.

More info about Tizen, the MeeGo successor

Florent Viard writes to the meego-dev mailing list with some information about the Tizen Project, ranging from development to the merge with MeeGo to governance. When the Tizen project was announced, it was more a "political" decision about a view for a future system than the announcement of an already existing new technical platform. Ever since then, the Linux Foundation, Intel and Samsung are working on how they could create it based on MeeGo and Limo. It looks like they are still not sure of the architecture and this is certainly why they haven't disclosed any technical info yet. The sources from which the information was gathered are unofficial, so accuracy is not guarenteed. Still, with no official answers coming from the Linux Foundation some speculation is to be expected.

In the Wild

Announcements »« Devices

N9 manufacturing video

Via: @GeneralAntilles

Editor: Andrew Flegg

A short video from Nokia shows the Nokia N9 journey. A story about the making of the most beautifully simple smartphone. The 3 minute video shows the polycarbonate shell being milled out through to the final gluing on of the screen.

Announcements

« In the Wild

FM radio GUI for Nokia N9

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Andrew Flegg

Thomas Perl has put a GUI around Javier S. Pedro's work on enabling the FM radio receiver in the Nokia N9 and N950: I've spent this afternoon working on the GUI. Thanks to javispedro for releasing the fmrx code. Modified the fmrx code to accept new frequencies on stdin and then wrote a QML UI around that. Both pieces of software are at an early stage of development, so if you'd like to help out be prepared to risk possible, albeit unlikely, breakage. Videos, screenshots, source code and an unsupported binary are on the other side of the link.

libconnui-dev and operator-name-cbs-widget for N900

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Andrew Flegg

Jonathan Wilson continues his exploration and exposing of Maemo's connectivity innards with the release of it works pretty good, it applies the patch and it displays the right output (except for the operator name which I am still working on) but I want further feedback on what I should be doing differently.

n9-apps.com launches

Editor: Andrew Flegg

The folks behind n9-apps.com have unveiled the new aggregate application directory for Harmattan. Developers will have to upload the information themselves, and with no QA processes of their own, your editor asked what the selling point is, and why developers should care. Mikael said: Originally, we had the idea that Nokia Store and apps.formeego.com are 'primary' or 'trusted' sources, but others would be available too. I don't know if there's any real need for other sources though and I think we'll eventually allow just these two sources.

We will be working in the direction that it would be as easy as possible to submit new apps. So, we will definitely pull meta information from apps.formeego.com when that's possible. However, we quite probably won't index packages from there automatically, but developers would have the option to pull the information for their apps.

Certainly primarily pointing to Nokia Store or apps.formeego.org will solve the QA issues, and providing a unified storefront will be advantageous to users. It also looks pretty. However, the developer experience will really need to be very simple for it to avoid contributing to a similar fragmentation of "app stores" that afflicts Android, with a much smaller number of apps to do that with.

NFC tag writer for Nokia N9

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Ryan Abel

As most of you probably know, the N9 features support for NFC (Near Field Communications—think RFID), but there isn't much software for expiremantation available out of the box. Rodrigo Linfati is working to rectify this shortcoming and has released software to allow the N9 to write to NFC tags: It's program can write Text, URI, VCard and Smart Poster to a NFC Tag using the Nokia N9. The software is currently available from the developer's personal repository on MeeGo.com.

Maemo Weekly News

In this edition...

Front Page

Upcoming security fix release for N900 for PR1.3 & CSSU

Applications

In-development augmented reality app for Nokia N9

Official Spotify client for N9 released

Simpler way for synching multiple Google Calendars on Harmattan

Development

Prepare your MeeGo and Harmattan apps for apps.formeego.org launch

Harmattan: inactive doesn't have to be boring

Harmattan PR 1.1 Quick Fix - Inverted Menu

Community

Documenting maemo.org maintenance and community roles

Devices

White Nokia N9 announced

More info about Tizen, the MeeGo successor

In the Wild

N9 manufacturing video

Announcements

FM radio GUI for Nokia N9

libconnui-dev and operator-name-cbs-widget for N900

n9-apps.com launches

NFC tag writer for Nokia N9