Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Motorola+Qtopia=Linux Smart Phone

Posted by timothy on from the tricorder dept.

lems1 writes "Start compiling the excuses you will tell your boss to upgrade your cell phone now. Motorola has opted to use Trolltech's Qtopia to power up the next generation of SmartPhones. Get the scoop/specs from here and a nice high-res picture from this other link. The phone will have 'digital camera, video player, MP3 player, speakerphone, advanced messaging, instant Internet access and Bluetooth wireless technology' capabilities. On top of being Linux-based of course." Update: 11/12 00:44 GMT by T : Yep, this is the same phone mentioned a few weeks ago.

11 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. "Phone"? by Beg4Mercy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    MP3 player? Video player? These things are awesome, but are we sure we can still call them 'phones.' Somehow I think being a phone is no longer their primary feature.

    1. Re:"Phone"? by yog · · Score: 3, Informative

      yeah we need a new name for them. PCA's (personal communication devices) or something.

      I'd like to see a few more features:

      a real camera: 3 MP camera (minimum), 5x optical zoom, USB port and SD slot

      VGA port: display images on big screen

      takes mpeg video/audio clips

      webcam functionality--turn it on, scp an image every 3 secs to your server

      built in laser pointer

      voice recorder (can send as voicemail message to others, like a mailing list)

      IR beaming capability a la Palm

      PalmOS, for that matter

      wi-fi, embedded httpd; people could browse to your phone while connected

      MP3/Ogg/WAV stereo output

      biometric security: require your fingerprint or retinal pattern to activate

      about 128MB to hold all this stuff

      Am I forgetting anything?

      --
      it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
    2. Re:"Phone"? by I+Be+Hatin' · · Score: 3, Funny
      yeah we need a new name for them. PCA's (personal communication devices) or something.

      Or maybe an acronym that actually makes sense?

      --
      I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
  2. I wish they'd stop... by HarveyBirdman · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I went browsing for a new phone last week. Everytime I found a form factor I liked with a nice display or whatever, it always have some friggin' blasted camera function or voice recorder. Enough with the added features. Where I work, if I walk in with a phone that contains recording devices of any kind beyong phone number storage, many burly men in black suits will wrestle me to the ground and pummel me into submission while tossing my phone into an incinerator. On the second offense, *I* get tossed in after the phone.

    How about a solid, reliable phone that just makes really, really, really good, clear calls? To many of the current generation have that "disposable" feel to them.

    --
    --- Ban humanity.
    1. Re:I wish they'd stop... by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

      you know why those features appear there? most of them don't really 'cost' anything, they're just bits of software. and really, if people just settled a phone that 'just phones well' the sales of phones would be much much much lower, there's been such phones available for years(this year for example massive amounts of people switched to color screen phones, that as phones essentially work exactly like their old phones did). though many just buy a new phone instead of shelling out the cash for a new battery too. the phone can't do miracles about the providers network though.

      how about a nice nokia 2100 if you don't want any features? or siemens a50?

      the thing is that those phones(that don't have much features) do exist, but they're a horrible deal to actually buy(cost nearingly the same as the next phone in the range with couple of more useful functions), you essentially save a bit(not nearingly enough) of money to have things disabled.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  3. Ogg Vorbis? by Pyro226 · · Score: 3, Informative
    The phone will have 'digital camera, video player, MP3 player...

    Anyone know (or have reason to guess) if this thing will play Ogg Vorbis or FLAC audio files? Despite my decided lack of money I would buy an iPod if it had Vorbis support, and while I don't need a walkman, I do need a cell phone.

    --
    This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
    1. Re:Ogg Vorbis? by robla · · Score: 3, Informative
      I can't speak to Motorola's specific productization plans, or to what sort of mechanism that will be available for updating software. However, Ogg Vorbis support isn't much of a leap for the following reasons: Any help we get with the Xiph project on Helix helps us toward making this happen.

      Rob Lanphier
      Helix Community Coordinator

  4. Qt/Embedded vs Qtopia by rhysweatherley · · Score: 4, Informative

    Qt/Embedded is the low-level widget library - essentially Qt ported to embedded Linux. Qtopia is a suite of PDA/SmartPhone applications that build on top of Qt/Embedded. I belive that Motorola is using Qt/Embedded and its own suite of applications on top, not Qtopia.

  5. Re:Yeah... by swv3752 · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://killefiz.de/zaurus

    --
    Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
  6. VisorPhones by dark-br · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have the forefather, one of those old VisorPhones that you put in springboard of a Visor. It's about 2 years old now I think, and quite big in my pocket, if you compare with these new models. Still, I wouldn't trade for any of those other "smart phones" out there, except for this new Treo 600 of course. Why buy a phone that also tries to act as a pda, when you can get a really good pda, that can also act as a phone? I mean, the gadgets of a cellphone are more important than the phone itself, right. :)

  7. mistake by penguin7of9 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think Motorola made a mistake by choosing Qt/Embedded, and one that may cost Linux the phone market.

    Choosing Qt/Embedded means that Motorola is now tied to the fortunes of Troll Tech. The GPL option of Troll Tech's license may be acceptable for open source developers, but it wouldn't be an option for Motorola should Troll Tech decide to take a wrong turn somewhere with where they take Qt/Embedded (some would argue that they already have). Furthermore, commercial developers for these phones have a much higher cost of entry into the market than if Motorola had chosen one of the LGPL'ed toolkits.

    Altogether, Motorola is in roughly the same situation with respect to Troll Tech as they would be with respect to Microsoft if they had chosen Windows CE. But Microsoft at least is guaranteed to stay around a little longer.

    What is particularly sad is that Qt/Embedded really has technically no advantages over any of the alternatives. Even compared to X11 and Gtk+, Qt/Embedded is slow and memory hungry; it's less featureful and without open implementations.

    Congratulations on a good marketing and sales job to Troll Tech. But this is a pretty sad day for Linux and open source.