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Motorola To Release Linux and Java-based Phone/PDA
clapton_fan writes "Motorola will release a combination phone / PDA this year in Asia using the Linux operating system and Java software. No U.S. release date set." It also packs a camera, Bluetooth, and a media player. Looks pretty sharp too. Update: 02/15 15:25 GMT by CN : Whoops. We mentioned this a couple days ago, but this time around there's pictures!
For my internship I have been developing software for mobile phones such as this one, using the Java 2 MicroEdition.
:-) But for decent fast working software, please, please use C++ on these things.
Most applications were games, because that is what the market appears to be interested in. (The youth who wants to look cool with the latest Nokia).
Unfortunately, this shrinked-down version of Java is as slow as it's big brother, and not great for gaming. The alternative is SymbianOS programming, which is done in C++ and thus much, much faster.
The bad thing about this is that Symbian is not implemented on many phones.
I don't want Java to be removed from phones, because with Java my mother can still write working code
But now I see that Linux is used, you can expect a C/C++ subsystem which can possible be used.
I've had mine for about 4 months and I still love it. I'm using the crow rom which runs from the SD card instead of a ramdisk. Resume is a bit pokey, 5 seconds or so before you can actually do anything with it. Stable as hell, there's been a couple of times when it's gone wonky. Haven't found a really usable compiler tool chain for it, and haven't gotten a cross-compiler setup on one of my other systems yet. I've got apache, php, and mysql running nicely, though without the options I would have chosen if compiling them myself. Battery life could definately be better, about an hour of hard use with wireless, 4 hours taking care not to drain it too fast, off and on usage for me goes about a week without charging. So far all the browsers I've tried are adaquate for occasional usage, but run into problems with anything complex. All in all, it feels like the ultimate evil genius tool. Tend to giggle when bringing up a mysql prompt on a text console with the realiazation that everything is running local.