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Open Standards for Cell Phone Components
PoisonousPhat writes "STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Nokia and ARM have formed the Mobile Industry Processor Interface Alliance (MIPI), who seek to define open standards for cell phone components. Forget that expensive camera phone, just plug in a third-party device." Update: 07/30 18:13 GMT by T : Thanks to Alain Mellan for the link to STMicroelectronics.
I bet it will be like PC standards are. Nobody really conforms to all of them, 100%. Plus, there are so many standards, you're not gauranteed anything.
I been wanting a standard interface just for recharging. I hate buying new recharging equipment (desktop, cigarette lighter, etc.) every time I get a new phone. I also hate buying multiple versions of charging equipment for the multiple cell phones in my household.
This has worked so well with laptops, which are much bigger and more expensive than cell phones, so there's obviously more of a demand for it.
I can take any laptop, and swap hard drives. And I can swap, well, PCMCIA cards.
I bet it will be like PC standards. noone conforms to them
Sorry? Haven't you heard of IBM compatable?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
An open standard could open up a huge market for 3rd-party products and accessories, much like the PC standard did for computer components. This is exactly the sort of thing that could really boost cell phone technology, by allowing smaller, more nimble companies to roll out new products into a broad market.
Of course, it's so good to think of, I can't imagine that it would actually happen!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
who insist on a completely new design of power supply and data cable for every phone that they bring out :(
This looks more like an internal standard to aid developers to devlop embedded software / hardware components that build a cellphone and won't have any real effect on users.
The possibilities for software reuse will be limited to low level things like drivers, because all phone manufacturers feel the need to customise the software to make their product unique
This idea is good in theory. I've always wanted to get a cell phone and have the availability of nice features without having to spend outrageous prices. Now (in theory) I can buy a cell phone, basic model, and then buy an external device for whatever extra features I want, and have them work on the next phone I buy in 2 or 3 years if I want.
There are a ton of possibilities for external things, they just need to design the OS for the Nokia phones, which also shouldn't be too much of a hassle.
But you know this is going to be expensive as hell.
I sell out to The Man every day.
I just got the sanyo 8100 for $100. It was a Sprint promotion for new subscribers. I also considered a third-party device on a cheaper phone, but it was rather bulky and unmanagable. Open standards however would make for faster development and deployment of new technologies. Not to mention two-way radio across service providers THAT would be great.
Whatever happened to Motorola? Palm and Apple both dropped the Motorola CPU line, and now you don't even see them mentioned as a candidate anymore.
Motorola... The next Xerox??
Strangely absent from that list is Motorola... This is probably a good thing, but their absence is very conspicuous.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
If the mobile phone companies start using standards how are they going to be able to force you to buy a new data cable, cigarette charger, hands free kits, and the like?
Oh, and God forbid that they have to stop charging $30 for a cheap as hell car charger and $50 for a data cable for the phones.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Did I miss something? What are you talking about???
I'll agree with you on the data cable, but I've had three Nokias and all use the same charger. I've also used the same charger on a multitude of other phones, many from other countries (I worked in a youth hostel). There were never any compatibility problems on that from in my experiences with Nokia phones.
Bah!
It will be undone by the competing standards for transmitting the signal (CDMA, GSM etc). It will still be impossible to move your phone from one service providers network to another (unless you are in Europe); which means you get to buy another phone. When they create a changeable module that will let you move the phone from provider A to provider B for substantially less than the cost of the phone, then cell phone sales/usage will go through the roof.
Kiss ass while you bitch so you can get rich but the boss gets richer off you. --Dead Kennedys
Is this the same Nokia who haven't changed the design on a charger since the introduction of the 5110 more than 5 years ago? And whose data cables are valid for a whole range of phones, rather than just the one model?
EGG, the Electronic Gamers Guild
Standardized rechargers will never come, though, because that would commoditize them instead of forcing you to buy a particular one for your phone. I would love to see the day when one "wall wart" can power anything, but it's just not gonna happen!
stuff |
1. if you don't like it, don't buy Nokia.
2. the phone costs you $0 to $50 on average (if you pay more than that for a cell phone you are either a cell phone freak or you are crazy) they have to make money on accessories (just like Lexmark printers, the printers are $0 - $99 and their ink is $30/pop)
With standardized cell-phone components, I am sure companies will be even more likely to stuff every last feature known to man onto their phones. Personally, I think it's getting ridiculous. I don't want to play Tony Hawk 4 on the 1" x 1" screen on my cell phone or struggle with watered down GPS functionality or grainy photos. On the other hand, what I do hope is that chargers become standardized. Now that would be something useful.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
This seems like ARM trying to get everyone adopting their standards. You can bet that ARM IP will be all over it. The ISA will be ARM, communication will be AMBA and the only standards complient accepted development platform will be the ARM SDT.
ARM is trying to get more and more fortified in their mobile phone market and its very difficult to do anything different. Thats why they can charge redicelous prices for their toolkits and the favours to universities (such as discount/free software) have now stopped, because now if you are going to learn low level mobile application coding then it simply has to be ARM. No need for them to attract and convince people to use them any more.
We even wrote our own debugger so we wouldn't have to payt the ARM tax.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
What more standards do you need ???
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Here new cell phones cost about $100-$800. If you are paying less than a $100 for a new phone, you propably will be locked to one expensive service provider.
Data cables and handsfree headsets compatibility could be better though, but also that problem is going away with bluetooth, and IR has been there to replace data cables for a long time already.
Then again, are any other manufacturers any better?
Motorola chargers are the same way... one charger should work for a number of phones, but there are different classes of phones... the new 3G phones with cameras and big LCDs require a lot more power to run than GSM small-lcd screens (old RF tech = more optimized battery usage, to a point, just because engineers have had time to figure out how to save power). And you don't want to give a more expensive charger to a low-power phone user, so you have different sets of chargers.
"It will still be impossible to move your phone from one service providers network to another (unless you are in Europe)"
You mean: unless you are in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia or South America?
"When they create a changeable module that will let you move the phone from provider A to provider B for substantially less than the cost of the phone, then cell phone sales/usage will go through the roof."
This was done more than 10 years ago when GSM specifications were created. Your cell phone number and all provider related data is stored on a SIM card. If you want to get a new provider just replace the SIM card.
Unfortunately in some countries it's legal to sell crippled GSM phones which will only work with one provider. However should be able to find non-crippled GSM phones anywhere.
Troll was funnier a long time ago, when it first appeared.
The MIPI spec that is developed by this consortium is also mentioned here. They mention ST as a fourth player as well.
This is something I would apreciate. I've replaced cell phones from the same manufacturer and even then had to replace accessories. I think we'll need to see more big players like Samsung and Motorola jump on this, but this is something that is good for cell phone companies and users.
...a cell phone that would have as "flexible" architecture as PC.
Imagine this:
- Case: Different looks, about same width but different lengths. It provides two or three "slider layers" that enable you to install components.
- Necessities:
a) GSM decoder module (your frequency variant, possible sat phone)
b) Battery: Different sizes, different capacities. Separately a small power management module (change batteries, replace them, examine power levels, switch between batteries)
c) Main CPU. Different speeds and possiblities.
d) Internal memory (different sizes, may use more than one module)
e) Keyboard (normal, big, different highlight colors, qwerty whole, qwerty 2-parts (on 2 sides of screen)
f) Screen. Text-only, b&w, big, color, whatever you wish.
g) Speaker and receiver. May be different inputs.
h) SIM card socket. Possible double, triple, big, small...
- Extras:
MP3, Radio, FM, MIDI, IRDA, Bluetooth, USB, loud speaker, camera, TV pilot, whatever you imagine you can put in a phone.
And the case provides a single bus you plug your modules in. Each module occupies certain number of "slots" (of course keyboard, battery and LCD are big. Toys like MP3 player take way less).
You buy parts in variants you need. Want a good SMS'ing box? Qwerty and big b&w screen. Want gaming platform? Gamer's keyboard, color screen, strong CPU and a lot of memory. Want to keep it small? "mini" case and only necessary stuff of minimum sizes. Want a laptop-like thing? Carry a half-pound brick in your pocket with everything installed and 5 strongest batteries and built-in AC charger.
Add to that fully or mostly open-source communication software layer so people could write their own apps for it...
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Talking about cigarette lighters, why not power it with one of those microturbines that was discussed some time ago? Then you could run your cellphone, PDA, and Zippo off of lighter fluid.
TI/ARM/Nokia have been in bed together from the beginning of the cell market. With TI's OMAP structure(which includes and ARM and is the baseline for all of Nokia's future phones), it is not hard to believe that the three are trying to increase their market share by forcing out those nasty startups and the motorolas of the world. I can hear the sales pitch now, "and our software/hardware already meet the upcoming standard" Nokia has the software, TI/ARM the hardware. as for the various standards, change a couple analog components, and the they already have the software routines to handle it.
I find it interesting to see that Symbian isn't one of the founding members. Nokia is a major shareholder in Symbian (19%). I see MIPI as a move to try and prevent Intel and Microsoft to have a large share of this market, and Symbian is a key player in this game.
People who actually USE a camera function within a camera phone ONLY if it's on-board, not ATTACHED. Notably, Nokia 7250, Samsung V205, Sony Ericsson T610, and Panasonic GD87/88. People can standardize all they want, but the camera must be on-board. But still, the camera on phones is at best for party-shots and picture caller ID. Without a zoom-able lens or variable focus, it won't be useful for real photography. So keep your digital cameras for now. 6mp and 7mp are just around the corner =)
The Register have an article on this here: TI, Nokia, ARM team up for common phone silicon
Yeah the hardware is the first step, but I think the problem (at least in the USA) is that there aren't very good standards across the carriers. Up until recently you couldn't SMS an ATT mobile user if you were on Sprint. This sucks. In Europe and Asia you can SMS anyone (ok almost ~ 90%)as long as they have a mobile number, regardless of the carrier.
Interesting, I only beat them by 23 hours.
Actually, some phones coming out next year will be equipped to handle CDMA and GSM, allowing you to connect to whichever network is most available in your area... of course, this probably means that your roaming charges will be extreme
My Sig Beat up your Honor Roll Sig
here's the link for the qualcomm chip http://www.qualcomm.com/press/pr/releases2002/pres s678.html
My Sig Beat up your Honor Roll Sig
Why can't all audio jacks on cell phones for earpieces all utilize the SAME standard jacks such as on CD layers. And all power jacks should be the same, too. The ONLY reason to change the design every week is to force people to spend more money on home/office/car chargers, headphones, etc every time they get a new phone. It is nothing short of criminal. Cell phones are purposely designed to have different connectors to accessories for no good reason, other than extorting more money on the same accessories that need to be repurchased time and time again.
Get the fucking head phones and power cable standardized, THEN we'll talk about cameras/texting/keyboards and all that junk.
What are you talking about? Nokia's power cable hasn't changed since before the 5110 (I can't remember the model name). I work with Nokia's on a daily basis and even the new 6600 has exactly the same power lead and data cable slot.
Most manufacturers have standardised on data and power cables over their range in the last couple of years. Samsung have a square block, Siemens use a thin block, SonyEricsson have what looks like two hoops and Nokia is a round small female socket.
What Nokia does change frequently is the car adapters. The 6310i and 6100 may share the same power cable, but you can't use the same car kit.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
The standard jack on your cd player is probably a 3.5mm sterio plug, this is standard. Most cell phones i've seen have a 2.5mm headset jack, one channel to the earpice and the other to the mic. This seems to be pretty standardized, i can use my jabra headset, the headset that came with my cell phone, and the headset that came with my mini land line phone interchangably with my cell phone, mini landline and my cordless phone.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Yes and open standards are cool but open doc is *much* more better.
For example, it's impossible to find decent documentation about Texas Instruments OMAP 1510 processors (ARM core+ TI DSP) which is found in some Palm PDAs !
TI, I want open/free documentation ! Not pseudo open standards !
Unless I'm mistaken, don't all of your CDMA phones "have" to include Qualcomm hardware, only because they're the ones who own the IP to the CDMA technology?
If so, they seem to already have a legally-enforced "common" platform... they're in every phone, thanks to patent law. No real point for them to come to the table, eh?
they did that, so that they can save their asses before MS invades their market share with its smart phone. They felt threatened, but Nokia ofcorse wouldnt like to have standards being put upon it knowing that its dominating the cellular phone industry. But it had to come up with something to protect it from MS eating up its marketshare.
The lunatic is in my head
it sounds like a great idea from nokia (one of my favort companys) non the less however i think it would be alot harder to impliment in phones the same way they have in pc's mainly because at those sizes you need alot of intergration and have few resorces to spare for compatablity i think its a tricky thing to do and i dont think it will be posible at the same level as pc's for some time on the other hand i very very very very much hope that i'm wrong and they do manage it soon becuase it would be great for all concerend
Roses are Red Violates are Blue im not very good a poetry but i have many other redeming qualitys
Microsoft has given you low expectations.
pcmcia, compact flash, ISA and PCI all work great. I really like the fact that I can take my CF from my camera to my laptop or my PDA. The M$DOS file system may not have been free, but it's well known enough to have outlived Microsoft's use of it and will live on after they abandon it for their patented file systems. I also like the fact that CF can easily be used as an IDE drive and you can stick any filesystem you like on it. Standards in hardware that really nail down the interface are good and CF is a good example.
Those companies that follow the M$ way and make dinky devices that don't work are shunned and their crap does not sell. Yes, you can make a PCI card that won't talk or a USB device that takes some obsucre command language over the standard interface. If you can't use is without a Windoze driver, I don't want it. I have a few of these devices around and a windoze98 computer to talk to them. I refuse to buy XP as I know most of those devices I have won't have drivers for it. Microshaft tried to screw everyone. What they did was screw themselves.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
you dont need a modual to do that the phones are perfectly capable of doing that already but in the states everyone seems to think its acceptable to have your phone locked to a provider if enough people kicked up enough fuss the companys companys would realise they couldn't get away with it any more and stop doing it
Roses are Red Violates are Blue im not very good a poetry but i have many other redeming qualitys
you know...
this is only a problem in the states. the rest of the world's just fine. we use gsm. pity you poor fucks had to be different.
point in case: my current cell's good to go in Europe, Asia, and Africa. which is cool as I live in Africa and plan to visit Europe and/or Asia fairly soon. of course I'll go to the states just as soon as there's a vaccine for whatever it is they've all got over there.
ST has a website
..but why do you call it a phone????
If you want all those things, get a Palm or a PC... A wireless phone is exactly that....why should it have a big screen and a fancy keyboard....???
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
hey! this story is on the front page of GOOGLE NEWS! "PoisonousPhat writes..." ha! :)
I have to post anonymously for reasons that I work for Nokia.
Nokia used to have 2 data cables, the DAU-9P and the DLR-3P. Both are RS-232C cables. With the change to USB came 2 new cables, the DKU-5 and DKU-6. The RS-232C cables are being phased out.
Nokia has redesigned the ports in the bottom of its phones to standardize it and all new phones will use the DKU-5 data cable, infrared, bluetooth or a combination there of.
As for power, most of the chargers are interchangeable, with the biggest difference being charging current. The higher the current the faster the phone will charge, and some phones require a high current.
I've had a Nokia 5160, 5185i, 3360, and now I have a 3586i. All four phones use the same home charger and the same car charger. Hell, the two 51xx phones even use the same external car antenna and batteries!
I think your on crack, or trolling for mod points. If I didn't have a comment that so completely proved your statement wrong, I'd use my last remaining mod point to mod your ass back down.
bork bork bork!
How about open standards for cell phone protocols? Who cares about taking pictures on a cell phone. They should first make the protocol (CDMA) open, at least give people an API to work with. I want to see software that runs on my Linux based cell phone that can (for instance) take Caller-ID information and based on that, totally control the functionality of the phone (i.e. dial another phone number, play some PCM WAV audio out the port, etc etc).. This is long overdue.
This is an open standard for cell phone manufacturers, not end users. It reduces "time-to-market" and produces standard platforms that manufacturers can use their own OSes, etc on top of.
It will NOT produce standard accessories like chargers, cameras, etc for end-users.
Ummm...Tjis consortium could be cooperate with this.
;-)
Hey Nokia: remember that you are from Finland
MIPI: "You will be assimilated"
BILL GATES: "Excuse me, the word 'assimilated' is a registered Microsoft trademark, you will be sued"
I'd love to be able to use some of the newer high-res laptop LCD panels as desktop LCD displays.
The laptop panels have much more pixels/cm^2 than the desktop ones. With a decent dual-head desktop card you could have a pretty sweet highres dual-head setup for even less desk space than an equivilent desktop LCD panels, let alone glass tubes.
First, move to a GSM phone. The idea is built in, and the network is rapidly becoming the global standard (even in the US).
Now, you just change your SIM chip to your provider of choice. Phone number portability is even coming to the US.
There's one caveat. If (and only if) you choose not to purchase your celphone, but want your provider to give you a free (or heavily subsidised) one with your account, it will only work on that subscriber's network.
Fair enough.
If you think that's bad (and some people do), think about this. To use another major network, you'll need an account with them. They'll give you a free phone with that account thats probably as good as the one your first subscriber gave you. If you prefer a nicer phone, then buy one from someone other than your provider. You'll pay more, but your phone will then work on any (GSM) network.
Makes sense to me...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
is that there are so many to chose from.
You must be a communist terrorist or something,
so go report yourself to H.L.G.Bush for your
punishment.
H.L.=High Lord
It's on the web...
See subject...
www.clarke.ca
But, will this mean we can keep our existing phones if we switch providers? Sometimes the extra "features" aren't exactly worth the expense of buying a new phone. Also, if I want that handy dandy phone that only insert name brand here provides, it would be great if I could stick with my provider and use that phone.
A good bit of OMAP documenation is already available on the web.
(An AC already posted this in reply to this comment, but I think it deserves more visability)
What do you think is lacking in this documentation? They give you CodeComposer, have a device driver writing guide, give you the instruction set, etc.
I haven't used these particular documents myself, but have been pretty happy with other TI documentation.
Why oh why did my mod points expire yesterday!
This is so true.
A cell phone market where all the phones are unlocked and operators are forbidden to subsidise the cost of the phones is completely different than a market where phones are operator-locked and heavily subsidised by operators.
It's like buying a car from Shell and then being allowed to use only Shells fuel.
Karma: Good! Napster: Baad!
You mean like:
"NT Technology" reads "New Technology Technology"
or how about:
"NTFS File System"
This post brought to you by the department of redundancy department.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
A wireless phone is exactly that...
When have you been to some local wireless phone dealer last?
The problem is, it isn't anymore. At all. For quite a while now.
Most of nowadays phones come packed with features, lot of them useless or unwanted. You won't find any "plain phone" nowadays. All they come with phonebooks, various ringtones, uploadable logos, alarm clocks, SMS templates, WAP webbrowser and a LOT of such stuff that's not really phone-related. This way you could FINALLY get a "vanilla" phone, just by including "only phone" features. And if you want it with MP3, you get it with MP3 and don't pay extra for voice recognition, qwerty keyboard and a ton of other stuff you DON'T need, because the cheapest model that supports MP3 comes with them.
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...a day when you can make love to your mare through wireles cell phone :)
Wouldn't true competition be the ability to offer the same product at better prices? For instance, Wal-Mart and Target offer many of the same products, often at slightly different prices. A customer can then choose to go to Wal-Mart, which is a bit more crowded but usually cheaper, or go to Target, which is usually cleaner and quicker but more expensive.
Seems to me that this would offer the ultimate competition.
Fucking stupid moderators.
As every other follow-up post has attested, and as I will also attest, the same wall charger that I got with my original Nokia 5110 coming on four years ago still works just fine with phones on sale today.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
Sure I can buy an inverter for my car, but that doesn't solve the problem I want to solve. I normally charge my phone by my bed, I want my charger there perminatly. Once in a while I take a long road trip and so I want a charger in my car. However I'm forgetful and likely won't bring the charger with. So I want a charger to leave my my car. For many road trips I car-pool, so I want the people I ride with to have a compatable charger too, we can share. Considering we choose the smallest car (gas milage) for the trip, sharing the charger is a way to save space.
Everyone in my family used to have Nokia phones, and it worked perfectly. Everyone had a charger for when I needed it so I didn't think about bringing mine. Then I broke my phone and discovered the new Nokia models suck. I know the standard keypad layout, don't mess with it. tri-band phones seem like a good idea eventhough I don't travel to Europe. Cameras are interesting and I wanted to try one. (I'm not sure if it was worth it) In the end I found that a non-Nokia phone offered the best price/feature combonation, but now I need all new chargers.
Yes for OMAP 5910, there's documentation, but for 1510, 1610, ... nothing but marketing data sheets.
Since when has troll Tuesday's been moved to thursday ?
Anyway, I would love a standard anything compatible connector at the bottom my phone. Say, USB compatible so you can hook up to anything from another phone with it, laptop, pc, palm whatever, and it always works.
Don't the manufacturers realise that exactly this approach to device standards was half the reason for the massive growth in the computer industry ?
Interopting makes products more attractive not less.
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"