“At the Maemo Summit last week in Amsterdam, Nokia unveiled its
ambitious goals for the next version of its Linux-based mobile
platform. Maemo 6, which is codenamed Harmattan, promises to bring
a significant user interface overhaul and will offer a number of
important new capabilities. Nokia has already started to release
portions of the source code in an early developer preview of the
Maemo 6 SDK.“Another major, though possibly controversial, goal for Nokia is
to tightly integrate support for commercial content delivery
channels in Maemo 6. The platform will have a sophisticated
security framework to enforce DRM policies.“Maemo 6 will provide more seamless and pervasive support for
switching between landscape and portrait orientation. The platform
will also introduce multitouch capabilities and a sophisticated
gesture system. To accommodate multitouch, the N900’s successor
will have a capacitive display. The look and feel of Maemo 6 is
closely guarded secret, but various Nokia developers at the summit
have indicated that the device will feature a canvas-like user
interface that will scroll in all directions and house interactive
widgets.”