MeeGo is the next-gen mobile OS being prepped by Nokia and Intel. Announced back in February, it’s due to burst onto real live products later this year, although we still hadn’t seen much of it, bar a few fantasy features, interface ideas and concept demos. Until now. The chaps and chapesses beavering away on MeeGo behind the scenes just dished up the first look at its interface, and it’s shaping up to be a rather tasty iPhone and Android alternative.
Sure, it’s lacking a few bells and whistles, but remember: this is the first developer preview so we’re expecting bare bones material. What we didn’t expect were the graphical flourishes Nokia and Intel have squeezed in. There’s rotation animation for photos (something Nokia’s own Symbian phones still struggle with), and even some tasty transitions between screens and menus.
Announcing the MeeGo release on its blog, Team MeeGo said: “The MeeGo project is happy to announce “Day 1″ of the MeeGo Handset user experience project. Many of you will remember this “Day 1″ concept from March, when we first made the MeeGo core OS source code available and started development towards the MeeGo 1.0 release. Today, the handset baseline source code is available to the development community.”
Developers can now get their first taste of MeeGo, with the Core OS underneath nearing completion. The MeeGo UI team has set down a staple of user experience and interface guidelines, so MeeGo apps work in a consistent and sensible way. It’s all shaping up rather nicely, don’t you think? We know the final version will support smartphones, with developers currently being ushered towards the Nokia N900, as well as netbooks and other devices. We also know MeeGo supports multi-touch.
Have a look at the video showing off MeeGo’s first iteration below, and give us your thoughts in the comments.
