Maemo is Debian

That really brings us to what we haven't talked in depth about before; Maemo. Nokia's Maemo operating system started - as I mentioned earlier - as a tablet operating system for the N770, and saw updates for the N800, and N810. As it stands now, all three legacy internet tablets can run up thorough Maemo 4.1.

The N900, however, launched with and continues to exclusively run Maemo 5. The N900 we played with was flashed to PR 1.1, and recently Nokia released PR 1.2 - unfortunately just a few days after we had to part ways with our N900. PR 1.2 brings bugfixes and a few new features to the platform, including support for Skype and Google Talk video calling (which I'll get to in a moment), performance increases for the core OS and browser JavaScript engine, and Qt 4.6.2. The core of the Maemo OS remains largely the same however.

Maemo is derived from Debian and runs natively compiled code, uses GNOME for much of the UI, has an X-Window system, and uses BusyBox core utilities. For all intents and purposes, using Maemo is exactly like using almost any other computer running Debian. What other phone seriously ships with X Terminal installed and presented front and center in the launcher? It really is a bona-fide handheld computer by day, smartphone by night.

N900 Desktop

 

One of the first things I noticed is that the N900 is meant to be used almost exclusively in one orientation - landscape. Maemo's tablet heritage is so ingrained that, outside of the phone interface itself, the N900 is exclusively landscape. But at the same time, this really starts feeling natural when you're using they keyboard and after you've oriented yourself. To start, the N900 has a four-page desktop wall where you can drop launchers, widgets, and browser shortcuts. It's obvious that Android took some nods from Maemo here - you can swipe back and forth between screens and pressing and holding on an item lets you move it around or close desktop items. Notably, the desktops loop back around unlike Android which has a hard left and right window. It can get a bit confusing the first time you scrub through all four windows. By default, there's not much here, and there aren't many widgets, but you can install more from the applications manager which we'll get to in a moment.

 

Status Window - I've added a few more applets, but this is what it looks like

In Maemo 5, up at the top is the menu and status bar. This is a bit of a strange departure for earlier Maemo users who likely are used to the same bar being at the left. Regardless, tapping on the icon at top left from the desktop brings up the application launcher, which consists of a 5 by 3 grid of applications overlaid on a beautiful defocused version of your desktop. What's really impressive is how buttery smooth the transition from desktop to launcher is; no doubt a huge testament to some GPU acceleration on the OMAP 3430's PowerVR SGX.

Applications Launcher

Getting to the next page of apps is unfortunately not a scroll gesture away, instead, you have to tap more in the bottom right corner. This is something that has changed in PR 1.2 however, as 'more' has been removed in favor of touch scrolling, and apps can be rearranged.

This out-of-focus blur is a consistent UI element that acts as Maemo's way of establishing what many on the desktop would identify as window 'focus.' Of course, in this context, it's more likely to be applied to a menu or some launched property panel.

For example, tapping and holding for a copy/paste or save file command brings up a blurry background surrounding the new property window. It's impressive how smooth this transition is, I just can't stress it enough.
 

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