The rumours around a Nokia netbook have gone curiously quite over the last few weeks, but a leaked shot of Nokia’s planned mobile operating system got us wondering: is this headed to a lil’ laptop from the Finnish phone maker?
MobileCrunch got word from an inside source that Nokia is working on a new version of its internet tablet operating system Maemo, that will be ad-supported and run on phones, dubbed Maemo Harmattan.
The source says Maemo Harmattan will part of a plan to phase out S60 on Nokia smartphones entirely, but the leaked shot of the homepage they provided has got us thinking. Could Maemo Harmattan be bound for a Nokia netbook as well?
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Take a look at the screen: only the top bit in blue will be visible on a Nokia phone. That sort of screen ratio suggest touchscreen, which is hardly surprising, but those arrows, calendar dates and widgets are mighty small for phone, wouldn’t you say?
Our guess – and it’s a wild flail with a knife in the dark – is that Nokia could be trying to beat Google and Android to making money off integrated mobile advertising in a big way. And if Android isn’t restricted to mobiles, why should Maemo Harmattan be? That’s where a Nokia netbook comes in, and we’ve said before how powerful one could be.
The source says Maemo Harmattan won’t be going public until late 2010 though so who knows: maybe this whole netbook fad will have blown over by then.
Out TBC | £TBC | Nokia (Via MobileCrunch)
