linuxNew Linux Toy
I've just gone and got myself another Linux based toy :-) Yup, I now have in my possession a shiny new Nokia N9! I ummd and ahhd about it for quite some time - I know it's been effectively cut loose by Nokia, I know that Nokia's share price is so low right now that they are in danger of completely collapsing (though I note that the N9 is one of the phones that kept them afloat - it has been amazingly well received everywhere it was actually launched). I am well aware that I'm buying into yet another dying platform.
So why did I buy it then knowing all that? Well, basically I'm a tech magpie and a sucker for a new toy and I *really* liked MeeGo after playing with it in a store (it's super smooth, as smooth as my girlfriends iPhone 4 at least). I like the way it multitasks (right up there with my beloved webOS), I love the Skype/google/etc integration, I love the hardware (sooo well built and sexy to boot!). And the real kicker? The guys (and gals?) over at Nitdroid have released alpha 2 of their port of Android 4.0 and it's looking really good - the hardware is well suited to Ice Cream Sandwich seeing as it has no buttons on the front and youtube clips of it in action are looking really good. It's still a few months away (at least!) from prime time but the developers are steaming ahead at a rapid pace so it's nice to know that should Nokia fold tomorrow and cease all support for MeeGo (they have promised updates until 2014) that an Android port is a viable option. It also helps that it is waaaay less buggy than webOS on my Veer is (though I'm still getting used to the on screen keyboard - the Veer's keyboard is really nice considering how small it is). And finally, it was on sale so I couldn't resist!
Did I mention it's shiny? :-)