The predictions were that Nokia World would largely be a software and applications event but Robert Scoble has stirred the pot and seen something else.

I asked “what about the touch screen cell phone that I’ve seen rumors about?” He said that no one had gotten it right yet. He said that even internally only a handful of people have seen the new device they’ll be announcing on Wednesday

‘Device’ he says. Does that mean its not a phone? It may be wishful thinking on my part but maybe it’s the announcement of the new Nokia Tablet. The one with 3G, hi-def camera and a Cortex A8 core on the Ti OMAP platform. Or is that just too small a deal? Are they going to announce something to go head to head with the iPhone? Are both the tablet and the new device one and the same thing. Is this the device that’s going to replace the E90 and see the tablet and phone products coming together for the first time? Somehow I doubt that. Fortunately I’m in the Barcelona timezone so I’ll be looking out for news as it breaks on Wednesday morning. Stay tuned.

Update: This Nokia countdown clock indicates that the announcement might be in the keynote tomorrow morning (0915 GMT+1)

It seems like it has been forever since we heard about the WiMAX equipped N810, and yet the device wasn’t made available… until now that is. Probably owing the delay to the fact that the WiMAX network was hardly even a reality until a few weeks ago when they started testing WiMAX in Baltimore, Maryland (or they might have been waiting until October to match the black and orange color scheme…). The N810 WiMAX edition appears to be finally purchasable directly from Nokia at a price of $443 (after an instant $50 discount), which is right around the launch price of the original N810. The N810 WiMAX edition is exactly the same as the N810 aside from its black color and WiMAX capability.

Jenn from Pocketables tells us that WiMAX’s next stops will be in Washington DC and Chicago, followed by Dallas, Fort Worth, Providence, Boston, and Philadelphia. As far as I have heard, WiMAX tests are going well, and Nokia might be able to cash-in by having one of the first readily available WiMAX equipped products.

It’s so funny. One of the last comments I wrote last night was that I thought the next Nokia Tablet would be based on Omap 3. Today, its confirmed. Dan (Thoughtfix) is out in Berlin and has just started live blogging. The other thing I wrote in my comment was ‘I’ll be extremely interested to see it, how fast it is, whether they include 3G/4G’ That seems to be happening too.

However, there has been no device announcement. It appears that Nokia are just giving details of the platform. The three previous tablets were seriously lacking in processing power and connectivity but this should fix all that. I just hope it doesn’t take so long.

Keep tuned to TabletBlog.com where Dan is updating.

See yesterdays news item about Ti OMAP for more info and links.

Update: InternetTabletTalk also have a brief news item

Watch Tablet Blog for news as Thoughtfix has just put a tip up. All he says is:

Major changes are on the way for the Nokia Internet Tablet line. Here’s the partial scoop: The "Internet Tablet" line may be ending in name but the maemo platform is going strong. Wait a few hours, watch this space, and there will be more.

New hardware platform? Moving to X86? Built in WWAN? Keep watching  TabletBlog.com to find out what’s happening. Thoughtfix is at the Open Source in Mobile conference in Berlin. I’m almost tempted to jump on a train and go up there!

Update: Ari Jaaksi of Nokia’s software group speaks at 11:55 (just over an hour away as I write this.)

Live From OSiM. The Last Internet Tablet.

Jenn over at Pocketables came across an installer that will put Android on your N810 with very little work. She mentions that it was possible previously, but never with this level of ease. All it takes is the a download of the image file to your N810 onto internal or external media, then a download and install of the .deb file (Settings -> Application manager -> Install from file). Reboot and voila, Android on the N810. Jenn says the software works fine on the N810, it appears as though it is running at the N810’s native resolution and the touch screen even works. So far this has only been tested on the Diablo release of the N810 software so be sure you have recently flashed your N810 to ensure compatibility with the Android installer. I might have to give this a try on a friend’s N810 that I just flashed to. It would be awesome if maps worked with the N810’s GPS. See additional pictures of the install process on Jenn’s post.

It looks like the folks at Nokia are still working hard as ever to improve the user experience on the Nokia Internet Tablets, specifically the N8×0 models. While the new update isn’t OS2009, it offers some significant improvements to OS2008 that were frustrating to users. I can tell you personally how annoying it was to have to reflash my N810 if there was an update to the system. No back up media meant that I would lose all of my applications and data, and for those that did back up the process didn’t always work correctly.

The Diablo update will turn on over-the-air updates that install incrementally. The User will now be notified of updates to the official OS as well as third-party applications right on the home screen. Previously, one had to manually go to the Application Manager and refresh all sources (which could take several minutes if you have a lot of sources installed). Nokia calls this update feature SSU or Seamless Software Update, I call it SHBTTBW or Should Have Been There To Begin With. The least they could have done was made it possible to back up to your computer before reflashing. At least it is here now, though ironically you’ll still have to reflash for this update, but hopefully never again. Additional improvements include an updated email client based on Tinymail and Modest. The old default mail app was very buggy, an d most people ended up using Modest installed via third-party sources anyway. Now they just need to do the same with the Wayfinder GPS app and replace it with Maemo Mapper.

Source: [Maemoapps.com]

Bravo Nokia! Nearly a year before I started writing about ultra mobile devices, Nokia had launched the 770 Internet tablet. It was the 2nd device I ever mentioned over 2 years ago on what was then the Carrypad journal.

Nokia 770.
I got very excited about this device to start with. The screen and connectivity options looked perfect. Until you find out that its got a rather weak ARm-compatible Ti-Omap that doesnt look like it will get about 500kbps of divx, let alone the 1mbps needed for a reasonable 320×240 25fps experience. No keyboard and no pim software too. The 350 Euro price tells us something about where its marketed and that could be that its a test-device. Nokia have already announced that they might release new hardware with a keyboard. If they address the processor issues, they could be spot on. I’ve recently read about Naviflash - a commercial Navigation product built on Linux over Xscale so there’s potential even for decent nav software.
Fingers crossed for this one. For me its Nokia against Apple at the moment. [Feb 2006]

The TabletBlog.com has always been one of the best places to get the latest info on the Nokia Internet Tablets and Dan, AKA Thoughtfix, who runs the blog, has just published a really great read about what is effectively, a MID before MIDs were launched.

Nokia Internet Tablets Turn 3: Happy Anniversary! - TabletBlog

News links about the 770 going back to May 2006 can be found here. Datasheet here (product id #4!)