MeeGo: A New Linux OS to Fight iPhone, iPad and More

Nokia and Intel have just announced the creation of MeeGo, a new Linux-based operating system designed for portable devices including netbooks and smartphones as well as other non-desktop platforms like connected TVs and vehicles. The new OS is a combination of Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin, both Linux-based computing environments. This partnership is notable not just for combining two different Linux platforms under one roof, but for its cross-platform support of both Intel and ARM chips, the latter currently popular in mobile devices like Apple's iPhone thanks to its low power consumption needs.

The MeeGo operating system is designed to let developers write once and then deploy to a number of hardware platforms including everything from smartphones to netbooks and more, a popular strategy these days in an increasingly fragmented mobile world. The same strategy has also been recently embraced by Adobe, who now lets their developers write once and then deploy their Flash apps to any operating system, both desktop and laptop-based or mobile.

Applications that previously worked on Maemo or Moblin will work on the new MeeGo OS, too, say the companies. Also, the new platform is not intended to replace Nokia's own Symbian OS, Nokia assures. Instead, using the Qt application and UI framework, developers can deploy apps to both MeeGo and other platforms, including Symbian. The resulting applications will then be marketed through Nokia's Ovi Store, for all MeeGo and Symbian-based Nokia devices while Intel's AppUp Center will handle the marketing of apps for Intel-based MeeGo devices.

Open Source vs. iPhone OS...and More

Both companies are positioning the new OS an open source alternative to the iPhone App Store model. Although they don't come out and directly call out the popular Apple iPhone OS by name, they hint at it by stating that with MeeGo, people 'are not locked into one kind of device or those from any individual manufacturer.'


Both companies are also preparing for a new range of tablet devices that will compete against the trail-blazing iPad. In an interview with CNet, Renee J. James, a senior vice president at Intel, affirms that 'this kind of operating environment is targeted very well for a tablet-style device.'


However, the platform isn't meant to just compete with Apple products. It will also go up against the upcoming netbook OS from Google, Chrome OS, as well as mobile, tablet, and in-car OS's from other vendors, including Microsoft.


MeeGo will arrive in the second quarter of 2010 with products becoming available starting in the third quarter. Read more...

How We’re Using Social Media on Our Mobile Phones [STATS]

Mobile analytics company Flurry used its January data to look at the top application categories for iPhone and Android device owners. Parallels between the two types of smartphone users are very similar: social networking apps are by far the most frequently used category of apps.

For Flurry’s January report, the company decided to dissect application usage based on the following categories: games, entertainment, social networking, and news and lifestyle.

On both iPhone and Android phones, social networking apps were used most frequently — about 20 times per month — with news coming in a distant second. In fact, in terms of frequency alone, we’re using social networking apps at double the rate we’re using news applications, and four times the rate we’re firing up mobile games. Based on Flurry data, it also appears that the frequency at which we use entertainment, games and lifestyle apps in totality still doesn’t rival how frequently we use social networking apps each month.

It’s interesting to note, however, that in terms of actual session length — duration of individual application usage — smartphone users split larger chunks of their time between news, games and social networking respectively, with users devoting nearly 10 minutes on average to news applications. What it boils down to is that we use social networking apps most frequently, but spend longer periods of time consuming information in news applications.

These findings are especially striking and essentially confirm that social media has become integrated into our lives, so much so that we’re using our smartphones to stay connected while we’re away from our computers. In fact, social media has become more entertaining than entertainment itself.

Read more...