An early release of the MeeGo OS that is coming to mobile phones in October was released to developers today. Combing Intel's Moblin software with Nokia's Maemo, this open source OS is designed for mobile phones and netbooks. The netbook version was released in May.

The release includes MeeGo APIs (application programming interfaces), a reference user interface and applications including a status bar, lock screen, application launcher, onscreen keyboard, phone dialer, short message service client, browser, contacts application and photo viewer. The OS looks to be compatible with Nokia N900 devices and Intel Atom-based handsets.

This OS is planned to replace Symbian on most high end Nokia handsets with the N8 looking to be the last of the N series to use it. Although Nokia will face stiff competition from an iPhone and Android dominated market, they remain confident. According to the source blog, "This milestone marks the completion of the merger of Moblin and Maemo as major architecture decisions and technical selections have been determined."