Apologies for those who have already seen it, but today Tim Samoff announced the launch (as a Beta) of the redesigned Maemo.org website next Wednesday, 22 April.

http://maemo.org/community/council/n...oon_to_launch/

I think this is good news in itself, but combined with the upcoming Nokia Developers Summit, http://www.developersummit2009.com/ (April 28-29 in Monaco, with Maemo specifically mentioned), the upcoming launch of the Ovi store, the increase in activity in these forums, etc., maybe we'll see something announced in the next week or two. Here's hoping!

Tim, nor any other member of the council, have any inside knowledge on the release or announcement of any future Nokia hardware.

The release date has been chosen by people like timsamoff and dneary to push the long-running task to completion, and nothing more should be read into it than that. In other words, this is the "proper" launch of the community taking ownership of the look, feel and content of maemo.org.

I'm not claiming that the council has any inside knowledge; I've been following NIT development to know that asking such questions is a waste of time.

Instead, I'm trying to connect the dots. If no one is willing/able to provide open information to this open community, speculation is what we have left.

It's currently mid-April, and several major competitors will be releasing products in the next few months (FruitPhone 3, Pre, and even Nokia's own N97, depending on how you view "competition"). So Nokia would be well served to have an alternative available for purchase by the time those are out. Not just announced, but real, touchable product(s). If not, they stand to lose a generation of users who just in at this stage - it's much harder to move someone to a new platform later, after they've become comfortable on their Symbian/OSX/Pre/whatever device.

And if you're going to have new hardware, you need something more than just an OS for it, hence the mention of the developers' conference. And the developers will need to know some details about why they should care, right? If not, they'll just choose another, more "real" target for their efforts.

I recall others suggesting a beta version of Maemo 5 around the time of new Ubuntu release, which is next Thursday (sorry, can't remember where I saw this). And Nokia's just announced quarterly earnings, so the next few weeks will likely be used to announce new initiatives, to encourage investors.

So, I suspect something will be unveiled in 1-2 weeks, and shipping about a month after that. If I'm wrong, so what? It's been a better mental exercise (for me) than debating the merits of a $0.02 plastic stylus...

I have as much fun speculating about release dates as the next person, my point was that although there are dots which may or may not be valid to connect, the beta launch of the new maemo.org is not one of them.

BTW, I think your "open information to this open community" jibe is unfair, but this isn't a thread on the unprecedented (but still, admittedly, sub-optimal in some areas) levels of openness finally being shown by Nokia in the fremantle release.

Fun-filled release date speculation is not something I have a problem with (as long as it's clear to all involved that it is just rampant speculation without any information behind it) :-)

Since we're talking about Tim Samoff, I just want to give props to him for the work he's doing. Maemo.org has been a very valuable tool to me.

Edit: Never mind then. (see post below)

Tim is only one part of the team that has been working to bring maemo.org to where it is today. If you want to give props, you should also give them to people like Dave, Niels, Andre, Jeremiah, Henri, Lauri, Tero, Quim, Glaubert, and Ferenc (for a large, but incomplete list).

I predict that a tablet per se will never be released -- a tablet + phone will be released, and the work done here will be absorbed into other Nokia productions. This prediction is of course subject to being wrong, as are all the other predictions made in this thread.

Whatever you're predicting, it's clearly not on-topic for the subject of this thread.

Oh, how I would love to be a dot. One can only dream.

And, GeneralAntilles is so correct: I'm a very small piece of the puzzle!

Tim