Maemo 5 - Fremantle - New Features
Some details are beginning to emerge about the next major release of Nokia’s Maemo platform, Maemo 5, which is being codenamed Fremantle. Although nothing is guaranteed until the bits ship, there appears to some fairly major new features coming with this release.
Among the new features
- HSPA / 3G support which will allow users to be always connected even when out of Wi-Fi range
- OpenGL ES which is a fairly powerful subset of the full OpenGL specification which has been designed explicitly for embedded systems
- OMAP3 support in order to take advantage of Texas Instruments’ latest processor designs and capabilities.
- Hi Definition Camera support
- A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) and AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile) for an improved Bluetooth interactions
- Adoption of recent Linux technologies such as Upstart, gUPnP, PulseAudio and OHM management deamon
In addition to a high level feature list, there is also a list of planned packages for the alpha version of Maemo 5 - Fremantle.
New Maemo, new tablets?
Judging from the feature list, it does appear that a new model of Nokia Internet tablets will be released in conjunction with Maemo 5 (Nokia N900 perhaps?).
Judging from the OMAP3 support to be included in Maemo 5, it is likely that the new N series tablet will include a new TI OMAP3 processor. Judging by Texas Instruments’ site, the new OMAP3 line should offer some significant improvements in power and capabilities. The OMAP3440 at the higher end of the processor line, embeds an Imagination Technologies’ POWERVR SGX graphics core which supports OpenGL ES 2.0 in hardware. The OMAP3440 also includes an IVA 2+ accelerator which enables MPEG4, WMV9, RealVideo, H262 and H264 encode and decode at 720 x 480 at 30 frames per second. The OMAP can also support XGA (1024 x 768) resolution at 24 bits of colour (16M colours).
Added to a new processor, the new tablets will likely have a high resolution camera, improved Bluetooth (A2DP and AVRCP) and 3G support. I haven’t any other clues however to what other hardware changes might be coming down the line in the new tablet.
