ESPOO, Finland – The MeeGo community is already looking swell, and it’s about to get even bigger with the launch of MeeGo v1.0 for netbooks. MeeGo‘s initial code release saw a raft of developers jump at the chance to get going and this latest announcement should get even more itching to stretch the legs of the new OS. It’s an exciting time for MeeGo as this is the first time we’ve seen an example of the cross-platform capabilities of the new OS. Interested in what it looks like? Is it what you predicted? Read on after the jump to find out what’s in store.
The MeeGo netbook user experience is the first of its kind for the flexible cross-platform OS, allowing everyone to get a taster for what’s in store when a device is launched in the near future. Building on the latest open source technologies the MeeGo netbook experience boasts instant access to synchronised calendars, tasks and files, along with real-time social networking updates on your homescreen. It doesn’t end there, the OS also provides aggregation of your social networking happenings, allowing you to see all your feeds on one screen and keep all your buddies informed with what you had for breakfast.
When it comes to browsing the MeeGo netbook user experience integrates Google Chrome or a fully open source browser solution plus Google Chromium is also on board.
The OS also includes easy to use applications for email, calendar and there’s also a brand new media player offering. There’s also support for a myriad of languages including Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Swedish, Polish, Finnish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, English and British English.
For those technically-apt developers amongst us there’s more than enough fodder for you to get to grips with. The release of MeeGo API includes Qt 4.6, the MeeGo SDK with an integrated application development environment, and various other operating system tools. Currently, the MeeGo SDK is focused on netbooks, but the next version of the MeeGo SDK, an early developer release in June, will support touch-based devices, such as handsets and tablets.
There’s also more to come from MeeGo. MeeGo v1.1 will be released in October and will include support for touch-based devices such as mobile phones, tablets and in-car systems.
We’ve got an idea about what your ideal handset would look like after Design by Community, but what about netbooks? One of the may perks of MeeGo, as we’ve mentioned, is that it’s cross-platform and opens the OS’ doors to many devices, but what would you like to see happen in each device? Got to grips with the new OS? Let us know what you think in the comments below.