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Hacker-Friendly Wireless Phones w/ GPS?
Milo_Mindbender asks: "I'm looking to buy a cell phone that is reasonably accessible to hacking. Not illegal stuff, I'd just want to be able to write and load programs on the phone myself. I particularly want access to the GPS in the phone. I'm not picky about what language or environment I have to use as long no hardware mods to the phone are required and I don't have to pay someone an arm and a leg for a developers kit. Can anyone recommend something (just normal sized phones please, not the big PDA hybrids) they've had good luck with?"
The i730 is a Java & GPS enabled phone that should fit the bill.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
You bought an N-Gage, didn't you?
Most (perhaps all, not sure exactly) Sprint PCS phones don't have user-accessible GPS co-ordinates. Instead, it just relays the raw data from the satellites to the Sprint tower to do the math involved to locate you. Of course, they don't let the end users have this data. I've heard rumors of them having an extra feature in the near future that lets you get the actual co-ordinates from them, but for an extra fee. So for now, i'd stay away from Sprint and look towards other providers.
IRC
Don't waste your time looking at any of Verizon's phones. I don't think that any have full GPS capabilities (just the tower-dependent form for e911), and none use J2ME. In fact, the only ones that can take non-BREW apps are the Palm and PPC hybrid phones. Almost all (if not all) of the VZW phones also prohibit downloading of ringtones and wallpapers over WAP, even on my Nokia 3589i. Sadly, Verizon Wireless seems to be gaining a stranglehold on the US wireless market, so good deals, phones, and features will be found elsewhere.
Not sure about the hackability of PalmOS, but I would tend to think that it'd be pretty pliable. The new Treo 600s are the size of a normal cell phone, it's really amazing, so you shouldn't count it out based on size.
the LG 6000 picture phone has full GPS Capabilities and I know people that have hacked it a bit for ringtones and such.. just need interface cables I believe.. USB dongle??
Check out the cryptophone. http://www.cryptophone.de/ May not meet exactly the criteria the original poster is looking for, but definately a hacker friendly phone nonetheless. Has strong encryption, not the pseudo encryption used on most wireless phones. Works over GSM and both parties must have this type of phone.
If Java is an option there are plenty of phones out there that support J2ME to some extent. However, to be able to do serious stuff, like TCP/IP you need a J2ME with MIDP 2.0, which is still quite rare.
I don't know whether it's around in the US, but my Nokia 6600 manages all that and more. You can install/uninstall applications, write them with the free SDK from Nokia and test them on their emulator.
:-)
It's got a full-blown Symbian multi-tasking OS, and you might even be able to do what you want with MiniGPS. It cost me the equivalent of about $180, with contract.
The important thing for me is that MAME runs on it.
Meep meep
why dont you check out nokia forums? there is a lot of free SDk fot theri phones and you can get a lot oh help for whatever you are devloping, about the phone, get one with Symbian, preferably nokia 6600 og Sony-ericsson p900, the n-gage will do, but not in functionality only beacuse of the symbian
*resistance is futile, or fuzzy, i dunno*
There are several sites out there...
try http://www.cellphonehacks.com
~GoAT~
Okay, this is slightly off-topic, but related (I guess). Feel free to mod me down AFTER I get an answer...
I just got a Nextel i95cl phone. Where can I find documentation to do things that the vendor does not want me to do, such as download my OWN wallpaper (my wife wants a wallpaper of the kids).
Web searches turn up mostly sales sites, with very little actual info.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
lots of phones have Java J2ME support. Perhaps you could find one that supports the location API (JSR-179)
http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=179
I have a sony ericsson T616. The T610/T616/T630 are very small normal phones (not PDAs) and support many of the optional APIs. I don't know if they support JSR-179 though. There are several links worth following from the above link.
Also, I understand AT&T's m-Mode has a locator service, that let's you go to a web page to see where your friends are. Perhaps the application you could write your application as a server-side web/WAP application that uses m-mode. Many simple games, for example are WAP applications instead of code on the phone itself.
I don't know any non-PDA phones that let you write C++ code and upload it. Most phones make your code run in a sandbox, such as BREW, J2ME or morphun. In my short experience, writing code for phones is a royal pain. You have to learn about all the different mutually-exclusive APIs/engines for the particular phone, only to find that none of them will let you do something you thought was simple (like add an entry to the datebook). Writing for PDAs is easier - it's more like writing traditional desktop apps.
Hope that helps
Hmmm... sounds like you need a big PDA hybrid. In addition to being big, they're also PDAs. Why, funny that, looks like I'm running an ebay auction selling one right now!
t em =3072222516&category=38331&sspagename=STRK%3AMESSE %3AIT&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&i
Seriously though, I've seen people selling T-Mobile Pocket PCs with GPS attachments.
I'm not sure about the GPS side of things, but the most hacker-friendly phones I've found are the Nokias from AT&T wireless. They don't place any restrictions on the phones, and the development kits as well as software to transfer the applications are freely available for download from Nokia's website. Mine is a J2ME environment and has been fun to play with so far. AFAICT, they are the only ones in the US who have not restricted their phones.
Lots of good developer info is available on forum.nokia.com, and some basic win32 tools are available here.
Hint for buying one: Shop Amazon for the best price, then go to the AT&T wireless store near you to purchase. Show them Amazon's price, and they will often get close or even match it without requiring you to mail something in for a rebate.
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they even ran a competition to build an app that used the GPS
not really looked at it to hard but it seems pretty nice I dont know where you are in the world but you should be able to import it use the java software and use a GSM provider of your choice
I got a P900 and its great if you want a full JVM (it has the personal edition akin to JVM 1.1 ) and not sucky MIDP !
yeah and most PDA's can get JVM which has the personal edition so code for the that and even your TV can use your app's !
anyway have fun
regards
John Jones
Java Modem GPRS Color Display (4,9096 colors) MMS/SMS Polyhonic Sound Dual-Band GSM (900/1800)
I'm not sure if this even works or if this fits into your budget and I know it definately doesnt meet your no extra hardware requirements, but maybe there is some way to hook up a bluetooth GPS receiver to the cellphone and get your work done. I haven't tried it...(BT GPS receivers are still a bit beyond my budget)
It would be nice to know if anyone has had any luck with this kind of thing
Gujju
Not just the phone, but the carrier is also
h on e/j2me_phone_apps.htm
important. There are a lot of phones which can
be programmed in j2me, but some carriers, such as
Verizon, have rigged their phones so that the only
way they can be loaded is through their official
portals, for cash. Others, such as ATT, are much
more open platform. Look at
http://www.colinfahey.com/2002dec14_j2me_cell_p
as a good starting point.
I don't know of many phones with GPS. Perhaps you mean location services (which I believe is carrier dependent) or perhaps GPRS (which is just data connectivity, not location).
Either way, you should probably look at a Symbian based phone, probably from AT&T. There's tons of development tools for Symbian... several phones that use it (I love my 3650)... and it's got all the features you could need (including Java and Bluetooth).
AT&T also has a reasonably active developer's forum... and lots of documentation.
If you do need GPS, then I can't help ya... sorry.
--D
You're not going to get a phone with GPS. I believe the other poster was correct in stating that this is calculated on the provider's side using triangulation. I'm only speculating but that sounds reasonable. GPS is satelite based and fairly different from cell phone technology. The most hackable phones right now are the Nokia 3650, and all of its "Series 60" and "Series 90" cell phones. What other phone offers video? Additionally, I have seen a pseudo-GPS program available for the 3650. But all it does is keeps a list of towers and tell you which tower you are closest to. Not even close to the kind of GPS your question implies.
The Sony Ericsson P800 can do GPS. Infact there is an app that will record the ID of the tower you are currently connected to and you can configure it to alert you next time you connect to that tower. It will also run Opera! As well as many other java apps.
Microsoft Windows runs on stress and frustration.
Several Nextel phones provide GPS location information to the user, either onscreen as lat/long or via the serial cable, in NMEA format (standard format, readable by many/most mapping programs).
The GPS portion of the phone blows. I've set it on top of the dash of a car with a real nice swath of sky in front of it, and it would time out before aquiring enough satellites to get a fix. OTOH, one day I took it out to play with the GPS, and it seems that it had magically found some birds a few hours previous, while it was sitting on my desk, not far from a window.
Compare this with a "real" GPS receiver, of which modern ones can acquire a fix within a minute or less.
As for the J2ME side of things you can upload freely to most phones, develop freely and so on, for the most part. Nag screens while DLing unregistered apps are about the only thing I've encountered, no show-stopper there. I've had much success on the lowly LG 5350 with Sprint, although that particular phone still has little cable support. You can browse the file system on it with bitpim though. Um, one big problem I see with most CDMA phones is that they have no common AT command set as do their GSM counterparts. There's plenty of Googleable info out there on common AT command sets for GSM phones. This is important because beyond the usual modem stuff there are extentions that allow for changing data modes, phonebook transfers, getting into test modes - all sorts of fun. And because it's fairly standard on current GSM handsets and openly published you can focus more on tweaking the phone itself and not just figuring how to talk to it. I've yet to find anything like this for CDMA handsets, although I have my suspicions about the S/E T68i for the few lucky bastards that own them.
Oh, and for the record, for my personal use I have Tmo and a S/E t68i. I only use VZW for work and because they supply it. I canceled my personal service with them due in part to their deplorable billing practices and because $80/mo for unlimited data is just outa line. Credit where it's due though, they have one hell of a network. The Sprint Vision unlimited for $10 is sweet but my wife now has that phone and I just had to have bluetooth and a GSM phone to play with. The S/E was free, has excelent battery life and crappy reception. But hey, for free, it's a good start. Next month I should have me a Nokia 3650, chock full of Symbian cotton panty goodness and soon, Perl! Wheeeeee! Oh, yeh, Tmobile is $20/mo (on a voice plan, $30 without) for unlimited data with no NATing (yup, that's a real IP address there buddy!) and no port filtering/blocking. Basic WAP service is included in the voice plans if I'm not mistaken(80, 110, 25). As for GPS on GSM phones I really don't know much about that yet. I've not seen it on anything first hand myself.
As for the CDMA guys, I hope someday that they come out with some good phones (bluetooth, Kyocera palm thing that doesn't crash, decent battery life, get over the goddamned camera fetish already, ditch fucking BREW!) and realize that their poo does stink and that their data service is NOT worth $80/month. $40 I would pay, especialy for EV-DO when it gets widespread, but that's all I'd pay for their unlimited data. 'Nuff said.
T616 from ATT here also, I absolutly love the bluetooth feature so I can load midlets on it without paying ATT, and without having to connect it to the computer (well with wires I mean) neat little phone....now att on the other hand...lets see were on day 38 on the number portability and STILL no service...can't wait for that first bill ;)
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
This is sort of related to the GPS comment...
Most major carriers have implemented E911 location tracking in their networks. Basically this works by triangulating your position from two or more cell towers (actually, its considerably more complicated than that... and it gives me a headache to think about).
That means that your cell carrier can find your position in the event you call 911.
Also, for the more paranoid... the use of this service is an expensive allocation of resources; thus, in general it isn't used to snoop on people.