In this edition...

Front Page
- Fragmentation of Nokia N9 resources & community
Applications
- Extending the life of an N8x0: automatic Skype launcher
- Applications from n9-apps.com can now be installed using Nokia's MeeScan barcode reader
Development
- Showing custom services in Harmattan contacts app?
Announcements
- Map plugin for N9 Gallery now available
- Nokia Pulse (private location sharing service) now available for N9

Front Page

Fragmentation of Nokia N9 resources & community

Thomas Perl has posted a couple of articles on the fragmentation of the Nokia N9 community:

It's really tedious to hunt down information about Harmattan. It's not really MeeGo (and MeeGo Is Dead(tm), anyways) and it's not branded as Maemo, even though it's Maemo. Yeah. It's not really Maemo, but it is. And it's not really MeeGo, but it is branded as such.

The reason why gPodder 3.0.2, which has been released two weeks ago has not yet made it into Ovi Store is not because I was lazy (in fact, I uploaded the .deb on the same day as the release day, i.e. 2011-12-13) but because it took Ovi Store QA one whole week(!) to realize that the gPodder package isn't optified. Guess what? Optification isn't really needed by Harmattan anymore, and the Ovi Store has passed all previous gPodder releases which have been packaged exactly the same. Apparently they decided it's necessary this time.

This matches your editor's experience as well. Unfortunately, there's no easy solution. It's a real opportunity for someone to step up, gather requirements and make a proposal people could get behind.

Applications

Development »« Front Page

Extending the life of an N8x0: automatic Skype launcher

Andres Gomez describes how a couple of small tweaks allow an old N800 or N810 to be an always-on, ready-to-use Skype phone: Nokia’s hardware is superb and the sound quality of the N810 makes it a good choice for this. Still, I didn’t need another Skype phone myself but my parents, who have a lot of troubles for making use of Skype’s software in the computer, were the perfect candidates. Also, placing the N810 24/7 online side by side to their land line phone would let them receive and check at any moment for the availability of their regular Skype contacts.

Applications from n9-apps.com can now be installed using Nokia's MeeScan barcode reader

Nokia have released a barcode & QR code scanner for Harmattan; and n9-apps.com have added QR codes to all their pages. This makes it simple to install an app from your desktop by pointing your N9 or N950 at your screen. Unfortunately, n9-apps.com's catalogue although well presented and easy to update is another aspect of the fragmentation of the Harmattan community. It's infinitely more pleasurable to use than my-meego.com, though, and points upstream to ensure developers can get proper usage statistics.

Development

Announcements »« Applications

Showing custom services in Harmattan contacts app?

Sudheer K asks for assistance getting an additional service to appear against contacts in Harmattan: I need to display the action "Call with Vicar" for all telephone number fields on a contact card. This is very similar to how SIP (telepathy-sofiasip) works. I created a basic telepathy connection manager and a telepathy account to use the CM. I have set the property "com.nokia.Account.Interface.Compat.SecondaryVCardFields" as "TEL". This was sufficient in Fremantle to display "Call via Vicar" in contact details page. If anyone can help, please get in touch via the mailing list.

Announcements

« Development

Map plugin for N9 Gallery now available

One of the original features in the design documents of Harmattan was that the images gallery would show you a map with the geotagged information for your photos. Through a plugin, this is now available from Nokia Beta Labs. Describing the use cases, they suggest: where was this photo taken at, again? While viewing and sharing travel photos, quickly check a photo's location from a map; see where a photo shared by a friend has been taken at; edit the location & orientation metadata in EXIF of your photos, easily.

Nokia Pulse (private location sharing service) now available for N9

Nokia Pulse brings your everyday conversations to life by automatically tagging photos and updates with your location. Every conversation, from pickups and drop-offs to meet-ups, is as instant, private, and simple as sending a text, but far more useful and engaging. Nokia Pulse is integrated with Maps, so finding people nearby, discovering new places, and getting directions is a snap. It's now available for Harmattan from Nokia's beta labs. It's good to see that the engineers in Nokia still find time to release these for the flagship Qt phone.

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