Nokia N9

It's all part of the SoC now.

The 3630 (ISP and IVA2+) is OK for 720p but hasn't been able to crunch a smooth 30fps with high bit rates from what I've seen. A quick update should make it much smoother though.

Christo said:
Id say it was WebOS actually (but thats dead too!).
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Matias Duarte, who lead development of webOS, was hired by Google last year. ICS is his first major Android update (phones).
It has similar stuff like just type, notifications and multitasking! + lots of webOS gestures :)

http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/18/exclusive-matias-duarte-ice-cream-sandwich-galaxy-nexus/
 
Someone who's better at SoC die construction will probably correct me but it's more a requirement that a processor has the ability to execute an extra set of special instructions which makes video processing easier (A good example in ARM land in NEON, a Single Instruction Multiple Data). SIMD units can execute the same instruction set on a whole chunks of data which is extremely handy for video related tasks (or audio, or anything with mass paralellisation).

When you say it's not executed by the CPU it's sorta right - it's usually handled by the SIMD units but these make up part of the SoC package which is generally called the "CPU". It's neither right nor wrong depending on your viewpoint.
 
Cortex A8/A9 SIMD's won't be powerful enough for 1080p encode/decode.

Here's a basic cortex A9 SoC layout (tegra 2) The ISP, encoder, decoder take up more die space than the cortex A9 processors.

nvidiategra2superchip.jpg

Note: The cores in Tegra 2 are smaller than usual as they don't have the full NEON SMID architecture per core. (In comparison the Apple A5 SoC is almost twice the size, mainly due to the big GPU)

Robbo said:
Why does 1080p (pretty much) require dual-core then?
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It's not critical just part of SoC evolution, the Nokia N8 uses an old ARM11 processor and a separate broardcom media chip to achieve 720p recording but it's miles more expensive (and silly, who wants a top end phone with a slow processor? :p)
 
sarge78 said:
The closest thing to MeeGo is Android (4) :D
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Just to make it clear guys, the N9 isn't using the stock Meego UI: it was created by an external team contracted by Nokia. So this is Nokia property and it won't be available to open builds of Meego. There's vids of the stock UI online and it's also buttonless like the N9's, but rather than using swiping gestures it's gone the ICS route and stuck on on-screen buttons, which is much fiddlier imho. (Actually, to be fair, ICS does use some gestures from what I've seen of the Galaxy Nexus vids, there's one vid where you can see the demoer tossing an application offscreen to close it from the running apps list, but I don't know how extensive this is - from what I've seen it mainly relies on the on-screen buttons)

As far as Android goes I'm sure they'll continue to polish the interface and possibly stealing a few more tricks from the N9 or WebOS playbook, but my main problem with it isn't the UI, it's simply that Meego is so much more powerful, so much less-restrictive for devs, and so much more open than Android. It's basically having a fully-featured desktop OS on your phone.

The only other OS on the market that's as powerful as Meego is actually QNX, but RIM have been sitting on it for 2 years without putting it on a single phone! Who knows what they're doing with it...
 
manveruppd said:
The only other OS on the market that's as powerful as Meego is actually QNX, but RIM have been sitting on it for 2 years without putting it on a single phone! Who knows what they're doing with it...
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RIM's new BlackBerry/QNX platform should be on phones soon.

It's going to be fully Qt compatible so most MeeGo apps should run on it with very little code rewrite! :D
 
Tunney said:
RIM's new BlackBerry/QNX platform should be on phones soon.

It's going to be fully Qt compatible so most MeeGo apps should run on it with very little code rewrite! :D
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I hope they pull it off, after the lukewarm reception the Playbook got, another disappointment will probably make them go all stroppy and decide to dump the whole platform out of spite.
 
sarge78 said:
It's all part of the SoC now.

The 3630 (ISP and IVA2+) is OK for 720p but hasn't been able to crunch a smooth 30fps with high bit rates from what I've seen. A quick update should make it much smoother though.



Matias Duarte, who lead development of webOS, was hired by Google last year. ICS is his first major Android update (phones).
It has similar stuff like just type, notifications and multitasking! + lots of webOS gestures :)

http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/18/exclusive-matias-duarte-ice-cream-sandwich-galaxy-nexus/
Click to expand...

Sounds like Skillman who is head of UX at Meego/Maemo - how also was UX at WebOS..
Multitasking on Android still isnt up to scratch for my liking (nor iOS)
 
mmm to be fair the N9 is a little bit more exotic to them too considering its a handset you're not supposed to be able to get in this country.

Just playing with it now and the UI is so intuitive!
 
It's more that nokia aren't releasing it in this country, but remember, we live in a single market, so if it's sold in the EU then you've got not worries in terms of getting hold of one or even warranty
 
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