A week ago, I attended the very first Mobile Geeks of Toronto at The Drake Hotel event hosted by Tom Hall of WOMWorld. Mobile Geeks of Toronto is a spinoff of James Whatley’s very successful Mobile Geeks of London events. The events provide an opportunity for mobile enthusiasts to get together to talk about mobile phones, compare devices, get their hands on Nokia devices (courtesy of WOMWorld of course) over great food and drinks. For the kickoff event, the special guest was Samir Agarwal, Nokia’s Head of Maemo Operations in Mountain View, California who was ready to discuss all things Maemo/MeeGo related. Simon from knownokia.ca and I were among the first few people to arrive so we were able to have an informal Q&A with Samir before the event officially started so we quickly bombarded him with several questions regarding Maemo 5, the N900 and MeeGo. As more people started trickling in, they joined in the discussion.
Photo courtesy of Tom Hall/WOMWorldNokia
I took this opportunity to ask the questions that were left in the comments section of my first post about this event and Samir was forthcoming with answers for most of them. We also asked questions regarding the N900’s successor but Samir was a lot more tightlipped on that subject. His response was “We haven’t announced anything on that yet other than it will be released 2H 2010″. I heard this answer more than once that night. Once most people had arrived, Samir kicked things off explaining his role at Nokia and what they’ve accomplished with Maemo thus far which was the lead in to his presentation on what MeeGo will be and how Nokia plans on getting there.
Samir Agarwal, Head of Maemo Operations, Nokia - Mountain View
The presentation began with a high level overview of what MeeGo is and the type of devices that will be powered by MeeGo (which includes connected TVs, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment systems, media phones and of course, mobile computers like the N900) before Samir got into the technical breakdown of how the OS is structured and how different manufacturers can each create their own unique UX (user experience) on to of the MeeGo core.
MeeGo Architecture
Among the things that we learned (or were confirmed) in the first half of the presentation is that MeeGo employs Microsoft’s PlayReady DRM solution to protect content and applications. This answers my concerns about Maemo being “too open”. We can also expect mobile computers running MeeGo to continue using WVGA (800×480) displays like the N900 but they will be capacitive as opposed to resistive and support multitouch gestures. The second half of the presentation was devoted to how MeeGo fits into Nokia’s overall device strategy and their MeeGo UX.
Nokia's device stategy and price points
Nokia's differentiation of MeeGo
Once the presentation was over, they brought in the food and we continued to discuss phones and hammer Samir and the other Nokia employees with our questions. There were also plenty of devices that weren’t N900s for us to play around with (N97 minis, E72s and a Booklet 3G among them).
Me with a few other #MGoTO attendees
It’s almost impossible for me to make a list of all of Samir and the other Nokia employees’ answers to our questions and everything that I learned so if you want to know anything specific, leave a comment below and I’ll see if I’ll be able to answer it for you.
The Drake Hotel (Photo courtesy of @Jamaalism)
Lastly, special thanks to Tom Hall, WOMWorld, Nokia Canada, Samir Agarwal and everyone who help put together the event and those who attended and made it a success
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Kyron has written 18 articles for your enjoyment.
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About: Your favorite blogger's favorite blogger coming at you live from Toronto, Canada. One of the original BMEs and a cell phone fanatic.
