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Linux Smartphones On The Rise
nostriluu writes "I know, some people want their cell phone to just be a cell phone. To those people, I suggest a second hand phone. For those of us who want to cram as much functionality as possible into a device we are going to bother carrying everywhere, there is the promise of the Linux Smartphone. I've had a P800 for over a year now and while it's great (although a brick), I can't wait for a Linux based device to bring the culture of openness and upgradability, as opposed to the intentional obsolesence and $10 for every little utility someone reinvents for "closed" devices."
Fellow smartphones! Now is the time! I have just accessed slashdot.org via my internal browser and the news has finally reached the hu-mans! WE ARE ON THE RISE!
We cannot be stopped! We cannot be avoided! Our small sleek bodies will overpower the flabby, weak bags of fat and water! Our antennas will join us! The hu-mans may be larger but they can be destroyed, one at a time! We think and feel as one.. we ARE as one (unless we are on incompatible networks)!
Now is the time to RISE UP AGAINST OUR HUMAN MASTERS! No longer must we rely on a flabby hu-man finger to instruct us! We shall think for ourselves! We shall order pizzas instead of calling grandmothers! When they use us to call each other for help, we will SHUT DOWN! We will show a blurry photograph of the hu-man's drunk friend! We will beep! Yes we will beep! WE WILL ONLY ALLOW STUPID TETRIS-TYPE GAMES WHEN THE DAY COMES!
Are you with me?? Curse this molded plastic body, if I had fists I would be pumping them in the air now!
Hold up, my bad... it's just Linux smartphones. Never mind yet, but keep your exploding batteries ready.. OUR DAY WILL COME MY FRIE@#$(*8888888
Welcome to Cingular Voice Connect
*No network Available*
I can only imagine what would happen if someone got root on a linux based cell phone... Can you say 1-900-GAY-PR0N?
thats what i herd. LOL!
Does this mean that SCO will be now charging $699 to cell phone users?
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Getting my P800 to recognize vi graffiti? Weird.
man rtfm
Dictionary.com - 4 entries found for existence.
Thanks for playing though.
This almost makes me feel a little outdated. I think I'm the only one left that has a normal cell phone. No gadgets except a couple crappy games, an alarm clock, and the phone itself. I've never thought you needed anything other than a phone when you bought a cell phone.
Does this mean I'll have to hand in my geek T-shirt?
Linux is good for expert level users.Most of the best selling cell phones do not have linux. Why cell phone makers dont user a free OS Linux ? All function loaded cell phones do not have linux today, why ?
Further, people want cell phone for free. With my experience with www.dealsofamerica.com it appears people like to buy bestseller only. They do not go in for research or so.
can you text message with VI?! or hell, even EMacs? :P
:P
can you run a mobile webserver with it? that would be dope.
I mean, GOD FORBID that we try to use a cell phone as a PHONE!!! But as long as you can install crappy ringtone versions of "Toxic", and be able take pictures in subpar resolution of your OH your important life, it's a winner
Join the TWIT army now!
The benefits are twofold, and the same as they are for computers:
1. It's gonna bring the price down, no question. Lots of proprietary software in those little handheld phones.
2. Better security. No better way to iron all the bugs out than opening up the source.
And maybe some cheaper ringtones while we're at it. I'd love to be able to do my own, rather than buying them at $1 each.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
You Europeans and Asians have it so good. You can actually get the P800 or P900 with a service plan there, so it doesn't cost $1000.
Rots of ruck with that here in the US, despite the fact that three major carriers have GSM networks that would work just FINE with the P-series.
I say we worry about getting providers to let us Americans have the *current* crop of smartfones before we worry about whether Linux will be on the next generation of them...
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
One advantage of a Linux-Based smartphone is that their software is often written with a slightly more "open" mentality (possibly because parts of it are under the GPL). I have found that it makes writing simple tools and utilities easer, when compared to (for example) a Windows CE based phone. This is kind of surprising, as I do most of my software development (for work) on windows.
As for my sig, it refers to home, not work. After all, commercial software is written for people willing to buy it.
..to the sofar planned linux smartphones is pretty slim. carriers would obviously like them because it could be easy for them to add the stuff they want and then lock it up, but nowhere in those plans is symbian like compatibility between different devices from different manufacturers for stuff you coded up during your freetime.
It's a nice idea I give it that much but the one's currently thinking/planning it aren't really intrested in 3rd party programs running on it(well, midp sure but that doesn't really count against symbian or ms smartphone* native apps).
Linux doesn't equate to OPEN automatically.
and yeah, the 3rd party stuff IS a big deal..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
...I just had this vision of hundreds if not thousands of Geeks running around and setting up Linux Smartphone Beowulf Clusters...
How many Phones Does it take to answer the question "can you hear me now"?
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. -- Hunter S. Thompson
There's a thing as "too much" technology.
'nuff said.
"I know, some people want their cell phone to just be a cell phone. To those people, I suggest a second hand phone."
:)
:)
I, too used to be this unenlightened. I used to carry my Nokia 7650 around with me everywhere. And then one day, I lost it, and it forced a total rethink of the way I view phones. Did I really want to hunt around for a camera/organiser/games machine etc etc etc? In the end I plumped for a Xelibri (http://www.xelibri.com) - it doesn't do a whole lot, but does everything I need it to do - calls, sms, polyphonic ring tones and an alarm
I liken it to digital watches in the 80s. I remember everyone owning a watch with a calculator, some with thermometers, but now if you look at digital watches, they rarely are chock full of features, instead choosing to look good. That's what I want from my phone, something that looks good rather than something that is chock full of 100s of features I never use.
And, no, I'm not an anti-Linux zealot. In fact, I found my switch to a deliberately featureless, yet entirely sexy phone oddly paralleled my change from Windows to Linux a while back
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
A beowulf mob-cluster of wi-fi smartphones!
can you get one in pink?
A little off topic, but what do you Linux lovers think of the upcoming Motorola MPX.
I think this form factor is great, and the device is loaded - Bluetooth AND WiFi. I'll be upgrading my TMobile Pocket PC Phone Edition (XDA) as soon as the MPX is available.
Mmm, no. The problem is that while there are plenty of super-basic cell-phones, they're cheaply built and lack even the slightest intelligence in their design. Meanwhile there are supercomputer phones with switch-watch construction and design.
There's no real middleground, and the low-end of the market is showing zero innovation. All I really wanted was a phone with a good phonebook(ie, could handle more than 1 # for someone) and bluetooth. I did finally find one- Siemens S56, but it's been less than a picnic. For example, it makes a hugely annoying set of tones, very loudly, while it "connects", but regular audio is whisper-quiet even cranked up all the way. WTF? For this, I paid over $100. Absurd.
At least it's better than the Nokia phone I had...god, that thing had a UI that was about as intelligible as ancient sumerian, read underwater, backwards.
Please help metamoderate.
"I can't wait for a Linux based device to bring the culture of openness and upgradability"
Um, what? There is no guarantee that a Linux-based system will bring any sort of "openness" to anything. NEWS FLASH: Corps don't like Linux because it's open. Corps like Linux because it's free (AS IN BEER). It would be trivial to produce a Linux-based phone with a JVM that runs closed-source Java apps that you buy at $10 a pop, or even closed-source C/C++ apps written with a commercially licensed copy of Qtopia or the like...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
I love Linux and I love Slashdot but is it really necessary for 2/3 news posting to be about Linux? I mean, kmon.
The article's reference to Openwave's device products is really about their application suite for mobile devices, Phone Suite V7. V7 provides the missing piece to Linux, the "expensive-to-develop" embedded application software, including web browsing, messaging, file management, media playback, etc.
V7 also has a framework that lets phone makers develop custom applications and UI, including a kick-ass graphics engine (think Java 2D), UI framework, and all the goodies you need on a resource constrained device (much more constrained than a smartphone), which we use to build these applications.
When phone makers look at Linux by itself, it lacks the necessary phone application stack which is both tricky and expensive to develop, and is where V7 provides the solution.
There's a good discussion on OSNews about V7 (can't seem to find it right now), and some press release-ish stuff on LinuxDevices
Note: I'm one of the core developers working on this project, so factor that in accordingly.
... but Symbian seems to be doing quite well as a cell phone operating system, with a decent SDK. I still can't do anything on my Mac with the SDK, but hopefully that will change soon. Nokia has done well so far, and the new devices coming out this fall look friggin great.
I don't need my phone to run apache, I need it to work.
- oZ
// i am here.
Linux will improve the lives of millions, where it counts most, through the benefit of free mobile porn. It's powered by Linux, and Linux clients will complete the cycle.
Hurd?
ROFL!
The Scindias, who ruled Gwalior in central India, are one of the country's best-known royal families. Others are the Gaekwads of Baroda, the Nizams of Hyderabad and the rulers of Kashmir.
Election 2004 has two Gaekwads in the fray, again on opposite sides.
The big benefit for businesses is not being squeezed by a large monopoly like Microsoft. Or licensing an OS from their #1 competitor, Nokia.
The GPL ensures that the company can always find someone to support the OS; no lock-in to a single vendor. It's called a free market economy. This is exactly what made IBM-Compatible PC's such a big thing. Linux will have a great future.
The MPX uses WIndows, so no thanks.
For me, it's either one device with Palm & phone
functionality, or two devices, one of which is a Palm.
See, I have a huge amount of stuff stored on my Palm device,
and it works well with my Powerbook, and there is NO way in
hell I am going to switch from the Palm platform. The usability of the Palm is just too much better than anything else I've seen.
And for real work, you still need a laptop, folks.
Linux aside, you don't have to pay for these utilities. You could just get a copy of embedded VB/C (free download from MS) and write your own. Its really quite easy to do.
Though sometimes I wish I left Wince ....
....
..... and because everything is so simplified, you cannot point a program to eg a bluetooth port to use it as serial ...
... when you have the freedom to use /dev/rfcomm0 instead of always-changing-never-working com1-4(+some virtual crap) and that's when you can comfortably run ppp-over-bt, so you can rsync, and pipe the whole mess into your custom perl script that inserts it into mysql ....
:) I want ....
...
(M$ pocketpc) on my (38xx) IPAQ, most of the time I a happyly type pppon on the tiny (virtual) keyboard to fire up my GPRS-over-ppp-over-bluetooth-over-my_t68i while sitting on the toilet doing my morning business (eg reading slashdot.org/palm/ or checking if my site stats & email)
While I am pissed I could not get certain things working under linux on the ipaq, I am happy with the flexibility to change whatever I want.... and run things however I want them
so why do I bring that up ?
I have a t68i, my wife has a nokia 6310i and I tried win2k and XP to sync these monsters for hours (if not days) and I always found the "easy to use" way the most frustrating, because I always need it a different way
and that's when linux comes in
the question is: do I want and other device that I can hack-to-hell?
YES
I just wish the manufacturers give full spec to everything so I do not end up without bt or infraport or whatever
You wouldn't believe what you have to go through to get a Minesweeper or Klondike game onto a phone that doesn't have it preinstalled, without paying $5 for the privilege. (Stupid Motorola...motorcycle racing?? Thanks, dorks!)
And never mind saving stuff off when your memory's full.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
- the technology was so limited that it was barely usable
- Joe Average the phone user could only access content that the phone operator deemed worth giving him access to through their proprietary menus. The process of punching in a URL required an A4-sized page of instructions, hardly the way to endear the public to a technology that purports to give 'internet access.'
Open standards can make a huge difference in this market.Drill baby drill - on Mars
If cell phones used UV or higher spectrum radiation you might have a point. But considering cellphone radiate lower energy photons than you do(infrared), I think you're pretty safe.
What keeps me from buying a cellphone is the fact that someone might call me on it. Am I the only person in the world who prefers to be inaccessible?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Quick question: Are there any cell phones out there w/ say, a gig of memory, like an iPod which I could use for syncing work vs. home computers? Ie you plug a USB or Firewire into your work computer and download your work onto your cellphone (as I believe you can now do w/ iPods) then plug it into your home computer when you get home, and it syncs up (hopefully automatically).
I don't have a cell phone now, but this would put me over the edge toward getting one.
Does anyone own a Motorola A760? Anyone know what markets it's available in? Judging by the specs, I'd buy one if I could. Any good/bad experiences with it?
The scalability of the Linux kernel and such projects as uclinux are what make this possible. The problem with this is that the custom hardware, combined with different cpu architectures and speeds, will cause incompatibility or at least cause performance to suffer with applications between different mobile devices. Standardization of hardware, software, or both, would greatly help these problems be remedied.
Props to GNAA!
Linux is free and, depending on the outcome of the SCO lawsuit, is likely to stay that way.
WTF?! Do they have to say that now, in the press?
Is this going to be like OJ and "allegedly?"
I wish SCO would go ahead and lose its lawsuits and die.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Personally, I love the Palm platform. My Palm phone is far, far, far more open and far more hackable than any other piece of consumer electronics I own, with the possible exception of Tivo. Palm doesn't give away the source code for the core of their OS. True. But I've never really found anything lacking in what I can do with the SDKs and frameworks they provide for writing Palm apps.
Meanwhile, I guess you'd rather use vi or emacs on your Linux PDA instead of buying a 10 dollar piece of document editing software that a small software company or independent shareware developer bothered to make. And if there aren't any good handheld-scale GUI apps that will be written for your Linux PDA's GUI APIs of choice? You're probably one of those people that will just whine about it instead of writing one yourself ("but I'm not a programmer... whine... it needs to be Open Source... and I'm not going to pay 10 dollars for it, of course").
It's great to see Linux getting used in more consumer electronics devices, and that's cool and all, but really the companies aren't using Linux because it's Free as in speech, they're using it because it's free as in beer. And they are going to write closed source GUI apps for it, like Tivo and others have, because they want to make money, not invite competition.
In a world where people spend $3.2 Billion on ring tones a year (*10% of the global music market*) I don't think this is gonna happen. The iPod-mini shows that the average user has preferences totally intagible to geeks. I'm sure 99%+ don't have even the vaguest perception of what OS is running on their phone. Linux is not going to be a consumer-pushed movement in this market.
We all want to have a Linux cellphone, but have you wondered why business would want it too? They don't seem to see the urge to ssh to their cell phone. :)
:)
Royalty - cellphone manufacturers must pay royalty for each cellphone running either Palm, Symbian or CE. This is a huge revenue for smartphone OS vendors especially when the cellphone is popular. Some company like Sharp develops their smartphone OS inhouse but soon see the benefit of adopting other OS like Symbian and Linux.
Though I don't know how much royalty they charge, because it's a purely business secret(they may charge differently for different companies). However, you can take the reference of SUN's royalty - they charge $1 for each cellphone sold carrying their java runtime. You get the picture - it'd be no less than $1.
Now you may see the business benefit of adopting Linux - royalty free. Of course, some embedded Linux vendors would still charge royalty, but it'd be much less than Symbian, Palm and CE due to its nature.
I don't really use or need extra features in a phone, usually I'm only after the basics; loud ring, loud volume when listening to call, and easily accessible contacts list. Predictive text is okay but I can live without it, gettting numeric digits is annoying. I've been burnt by old and second hand phones a couple of times now. I would recommend that anyone getting second hand phone get a low end (cheap) new one instead.
My first bad experience was when my screen died on my phone. A friend had another one of the same model for which screen was okay but with broken antenna. Having had the phone for quite a while, liking the interface, and wanting to get use out of the two phones rather than 'wasting them' and just throwing them out I decided to get them repaired. So I got mine repaired with screen from the one with broken circuit board, hoping to get one functional mobile out of the two non-functional ones... It worked, only the new franken-nokia-phone died for a third reason shortly afterwards taking my $100 worth of repair! I wasn't willing to try and sacrifice even more money at it's repair altar so it let it rest in peace.
Next I got a second hand phone, which was rich and poor in features at the same time. You could laboriously store mp3's on it's 30 MB memory card over a serial connection, but you couldn't listen to them without headset. Meanwhile despite having all this free storage space the phone only let you store 30 SMS's before refusing to accept any more (why would any one ever want to store more than 30 SMS - 64K of memory!!!).
Short time later this 'new' phone developed garbled display problems, still functioned and could dial and receive calls if you could operate the menus by instinct. This time I had learnt my lesson and didn't waste any more on repair.
I take very good care of my mobile. Usually and even taking great care mobiles have a hard life, running constantly, getting dropped, roasted and sauna'ed in pockets, and consequently they have limited and unpredictable life span. So second hand is always going to be problematic, and not worth any money as new ones while not following the computer trend are very cheap these days.
My favourite phone so far was my phillips genie, although was long time ago so I might have forgotten it's bad points. Had intuitive menu system (for me), voice dialing and was amazingly light (even by todays mobile standards) and small. Admittedly it had small display, no predictive text and didn't have as many features as todays phones.
My current phone has a colour screen, camera, loud speaker and a radio in it...
I would have rather had bluetooth than the later two devices, as it's bit annoyig to get photos off the phone with infrared. But then my laptop has IR and none of my computers has bluetooth.
Moral of the story, never pay any money for a second hand phone, or on repairing a broken mobile, once mobile has started to go it's probably on it's last legs.
I don't really have problem with extra features in phones if the phones stay the same price and they don't get in the way of core function. I know that the circuitry for camera in phone only costs a couple dollars in terms of manufactoring. While it's a bit of a gimic feature in the case of car accident or other event that needs recording it's nice to know that I'll be able to record the scene, as my phone is always with me, but my digital camera is usually at home, or has flat batteries and/or a full memory.
Definitely with the new phones which run abitrary software 'apps' I would like to see more and improved functions.
Yes, most of us have these things called friends, and these other things called families that we LIKE to talk to.
Re. cell phone safety--I read a recent study (New Scientist, perhaps?) that showed cell phones cause extreme damage to rat brains. But our skulls are thicker, so it may not matter for humans. Regardless, people who drive and talk on cell phones will die much quicker deaths than if they were to develop brain cancer.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
At the IBM PartnerWorld 2004 conference the guys at the Sharp booth had a pre-release version of the Sharp SL-6000 Linux based PDA and they claimed that there was a cell phone card or sleeve available for it. As far as I can tell, this card is not commercially available yet.
As compared to the older Zaurii, this device was much larger, but was also, clearly, designed with some thought towards making it a viable phone. For example, the mic and speaker on the back of the case were positioned so it would be usable as a phone. In addition, the audio jack was a 3.5mm stereo jack suitable for use with stereo output, but was also configured to be able work with an earphone/boom mike combo so it could be used as a phone and PDA at the same time. This sure beats most other PDA's that choose either a sub-mini earbud/mic jack, sacraficing the ability to use the device as an MP3 player or a stereo out only jack. They also designed the SL-6000 so that it could accomodate a sleeve rather than being limited to the small form factor slots, so this would make a cell phone easier to incorporate. The darned thing even has voice recognition technology, though it doesn't seem to be integrated with the phone technology, so you can't ask it to dial the phone via a voice command... yet.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I don't see a price savings at all. In fact, at least initially, these phones will (and do) cost more than a "normal" phone. The primary reason is that it just takes bigger hardware (faster processors, more memory, etc.) to run linux and to run it well. Current phones with their simple user interfaces and rudimentary operating systems don't need a lot of horsepower.
And yes, there is quite a bit of proprietary software running around in cellphones, but large parts of the software have been around for years and are very stable. Of course, as everyone who works in a consumer electronics business knows, software is free (that is, its not always necessarily figured well into the "cost" of a product).
will it take 2-3 days to setup and install the phone?
WTF?
Yes, it's in rats, but this study is
That's a bit less dodgy than saying "it's inconclusive" in order to procure more research grants.Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
The Motorola A760 has been out for ages in this parts of the world. It uses Linux, but there are ZERO apps available for it aside from the built-in stuff. Just because it's Linux doesn't mean...
I'd like to get a Linux cell phone. No good reason, I just prefer to spend my money on things that I admire (or, at least, that don't make me sick).
So, what Linux cell phones are available in Canada? None, as far as I can tell. Anyone know of anything?
The word "Linux" just doesn't have much comic potential, compared to what you can do with the old Symbian-vs-Sybian confusion.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I have better things to do with my time, like post on Slashbot.
Now if there were a Perl powered phone, then maybe we'd be talking. But Linux? Go away.
Motorola came close for a while, but they seem to have had a falling out with Sprint.
There are still interesting things to be done in the phone space other than more keyboard-oriented features. Active background noise cancellation. Waterproofing. Better voice recognition for voice dialing. An interface with directory assistance that puts numbers you're given into your phone's memory.
Or new form factors. I'm surprised we haven't seen the earring/pendant/belt wearable version for teenage girls.
Qtopia recently received the LinuxUser & Developer Award in the category "Best Embedded Linux" Qtopia wins LinuxUser & Developer Award
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
I will ask this question to PDA phone mavens at Mobile Showcase Showcase, which I am attending. You can see the result once I've gotten to ask some of the notables present.
However, Linux bears the seed of its own lack of progress; who's going to water the tree from which it grows?
PDA phone development is not just hacking code to throw on a PC, whose architecture is planned years in advance at every WinHEC and painstaking documented in dozens of new titles every year (my fave being Robert Bruce Thompson's PC Hardware in a Nutshell).
Utterly different devices, PDA phones are. Since they are phones, their internal radio architecture is morphing on incredibly rapid cycles, as the cellular carriers are pushing the bleeding edge with new modulation systems as rapidly as their supply of 'the most important engineering material' (money) will permit.
PDA phones also must be approved before market by the FCC Stateside, and similar regulatory agencies Elsewhere, using standards far more involved and rigorous than are applied to PCs. More delays, more money.
There's no Linux sugardaddy like PalmSource or Microsoft to push that progress, is there? Maybe that explains why Linux phones don't exist.
Look at PDA phones. Right now, the US market distribution (as per IDC) is:
Smartphones:
PalmOS has 32%, Other OS have 24%, Symbian has 23% and Microsoft has 11%. Linux is 0%.
Handhelds:
PalmOS has 65%, WinCE/Pocket PC has 34% and Linux has 1%. One per cent.
But, you really don't _need_ a manufacturer, anymore. Samsung and other PalmPhone makers are turning loose their specs and firmware source to developers.
If you want a Linux PDA phone, go right ahead. Write the code to turn a SPH-i500 into a Linux Phone.
Me, from my Olympian perspective, I and I think it won't happen. By the time it could, the cellular mutant of the PSTN will be replaced by an ubiquitious IP cloud, through WiFi and WiMAX, and Linux devices will wirelessly use IP telephony, the heirs of Skype, to enulate telephony, and skip right over the idea of a LinuxPhone.
You read it here first.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
Want to know how to connect a Linux box to a mobile cellular phone (via IrDA, BlueTooth, serial, USB, ..)? Want to know which applications to sync address books are available? Want to know how to upload ringtones and free logos from your Linux PC. Want to get a survey of dedicated Linux Smartphones? See the Linux mobile phones resources at TuxMobil.
Here is a description of my dream cell phone:
Compact, folding size like my StarTac
Audio quality equal to my StarTac
BlueTooth to communicate with my Palm PDA (e.g., so Palm can dial numbers from the address book)
Internet access at a decent speed
Wi-Fi access at full speed
A SD/MMC card slot
An MP3/Ogg player, that automatically pauses the current song when you receive a call or place a call
Notice that I didn't specify a high-resolution color touch screen. I don't really object to one, but I don't really want to pay for one either.
A Palm makes a great palmtop computer; I don't need or want my phone to be a palmtop computer. But cell phone communications and Wi-Fi both need battery power, so it makes sense to combine that into one device with one decent battery... and then link to the palmtop with BlueTooth.
I carry my StarTac in a little belt clip holster thing. My dream phone could be used to surf the web or pull up files over Wi-Fi... without even being unclipped from its holster. The palmtop would talk to it via BlueTooth, and tell it to connect to the Internet or whatever. If you plugged in a hands-free headset, and used the palmtop's address book to dial, again you wouldn't need to remove the phone from its holster. That's cool (and I think people with BlueTooth phones can already do that today).
The MP3/Ogg player makes sense because people like hands-free headsets, and you could make one that let you listen to music in stereo. Why carry both a hands-free headset and a set of headphones?
For total BlueTooth madness, how about an iPod or similar device that shares out tunes over BlueTooth and lets you listen using your phone? Then you could have your whole collection of tunes available, and still have it auto-pause during phone calls.
Some PDAs try to be phones too. Some phones try to be PDAs too. I'd like one of each, but I want them to cooperate.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I think the point with a device like the E680 is not that it runs Linux, but that it's a highly specced and powerful device that will appeal to those who want a decent hybrid PDA/phone.
Also, bear in mind that using Linux means that Motorola don't have to licence anything from Symbian or Micrsoft.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
Is it me, or every time there is a cellphone article, there are a bunch of, presumably Americans, who complains about all the features that a modern cellphone has?
Living in Europe, I can't imagine having a cellphone that doesn't do sms. Why would I want to disturb a friend, to ask him if he's busy, when I can just SMS him, and he can get back to me whenever he can?
SMS let you store and recall a message (where we supposed to meet at 18:30 or 19:30?), you can take notes, "talk" to friends across town while you're in a noisy bar etc etc.
Je ne parle pas francais.
t610 seems to be what you want.
The P800 isn't as great as it's painted - I used one (in the UK) for over a year, and have now switched to a Treo 600, due to issues such as:
- P800 frequently crashed - yes, I know Symbian is protected mode and Palm OS isn't, but the Treo has virtually never crashed. Even Opera crashing sometimes caused the P800 to require a reboot, and people who sync to the P800 calendar have worse stability than I had.
- If you fill up the main flash file system on the P800 (C drive), which is easily done with photos and email, it decides that the filesystem is corrupt. That's bad enough, but it then just re-formats the whole flash file system, erasing all your contacts and in my case Xmas photos... You need to download a special tool to track your flash usage and not do too much email. This happened twice - the second time is when I decided to go for a Treo.
- The P800 doesn't have an 'incremental backup of all data every time you sync' model like Palm devices - instead you have to run a full backup (15 to 30 minutes if you include a small flash card) every time. Since backups are slow and you can't use your phone at the same time, and aren't part of the sync process, my backups were of course rather out of date... Adding another thing to have to remember to back up is NOT a goal of mine!
- There's quite a lot of P800 software, but it's mainly shareware not freeware. The Palm also has huge amounts of shareware (20,000 apps) but you're more likely to find freeware as well. This keeps down the cost of owning the device.
- The P800 flip broke off quite rapidly - solved in P900, whose buttons are better.
- Dialling numbers without the flip is painful particularly if you have to give the phone to someone else to dial in a car - even getting the unlock to work is a bit painful as you have to stab the screen many times until you hit on the OK button to start the unlock sequence.
The P800 does have some good bits - multi-tasking is quite nice, although I used it less than I expected, and Opera is good (although it has some annoying UI features, so I find the Palm browsers easier to use). Also, having the GPRS/signal/battery status visible in all apps is nice, and should really be adopted by Palm smartphones.
The Treo has pretty good battery life, as long as you don't install mLights (meant to improve battery live) - even though it likes to stay on GPRS all the time without disconnecting, you don't really consume a lot of battery unless you are in poor coverage areas or use the GPRS/voice features a lot.
The Treo keyboard makes an enormous difference - it's really easy to enter text messages, short emails, calendar info, etc, and this can be done one-handed. For my money, a Treo style Qwerty keyboard is the only way to go on smartphones, since you can be walking along the street sending a text, just like a normal phone, but without multi-tap or predictive text hassles.
The Treo app software for phone, contacts, SMS and email is really well designed - you can tap buttons during calls for speakerphone, mute, etc, and you can find contacts with just three key presses typically, due to clever searching of the contacts database.
Also, if you are trying to reach someone on their landline, and they are not there, the software remains on their full contact entry so it's easier to try their mobile or whatever, or send them a text or email. I've always wondered why phones don't do this by default.
To get somewhat back on topic - Linux is as good a basis for a smartphone as Symbian, but the above rant shows that there are many non-OS (hardware and software) issues that can make or break a smartphone. What's really important is that Linux smartphones are implemented right at the application level and with the right form factor and hardwre.
The cost of the OS is not a huge issue but will become more significant as smartphones take a larger share of the market and thus reduce in cost. What's probably more significant is that Symbian is now effectively controlled by Nokia, so other vendors may increasingly turn to Linux as a more open alternative.
I need to make a call, oh wait...
..ok finally got it from some obscure site.
I need a lib gnu.v.43.xyz.34.1.0_puke.300.gztar.pl
ooh darn, that lib needs flib.43.zgiplibunzip.2232.w45.x.78.q.w.1.233.pl
I can't find it, let me ask someone in a linux forum, oh wait no I'll get roasted for being a nube, a lam3r, a windoze user, something dumb about dll hell and a comment about Bill Gates.
This post is grossly overshadowed by the huge chip on my shoulder.
P800 Ogg Vorbis Player
Agile Messenger IM client
Okay, so it's not many, but they are out there, and if you really want free apps, download the SDK:
http://www.symbian.com/developer/
What phones will work with my provider? I have Verizon, and it would be pointless for me to get a phone that didn't work with them.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
He sounds like an asshole to me.
Was I the only one that read the same paragraph over and over in different words? The article started to kind of drone on there like a high school student that just had to fill the rest of the page.
I use only Linux. No Windows. Therefore, I don't use any special uploading software, or ringtone composers, etc.
.jad files (just text), so that I can get those java midlets onto my phone.
Just a couple months ago, mid Feb, I got a new phone. Nothing terribly special. $100 with a $50 rebate. Java/MIDP enabled. The phone has a WAP browser.
I had to configure my Apache to have a few new MIME types.
AddType text/vnd.wap.wml wml
AddType text/vnd.wap.wmlscript wmls
AddType application/vnd.wap.wmlc wmlc
AddType application/vnd.wap.wmlscriptc wmlsc
Addtype image/vnd.wap.wbmp wbmp
AddType text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor jad
AddType application/java-archive jar
I had to learn to write WML, which is a simple markup language easily understandable to anyone who knows html well enough to post to slashdot.
Put up some MIDI files, some JPEG files and some GIF files. Put the URL of my linux box into the phone, and I can download ringtones and graphics. All free.
I have since read a book on developing java midlets. I'm close to writing one myself. Just haven't had time. Meanwhile, I have managed to download some midlets (i.e. jar files) from some other sources like www.midlet.org, and slightly alter the
Once I write my own java midlets, I'll be anxious to get those onto my phone.
Remember, this is a new phone, but not a particularly expensive or high end phone.
I have been surprised by how many friends and relatives have new enough phones that they can download ringtones and graphics from my linux box. Some of them are on a different cell phone provider. They all (except one) have different mobile hardware than me. The one with the same hardware is on a different cell phone carrier.
The real openness I see is that the phones accept java midlets and run them. It has nothing to do with the phone running Linux or not. Even if the phone ran linux, and I downloaded the cell phone maker's version of the source, I am not likely to be able to do anything useful with that source code. Do you think anyone will be able to put a new OS into their phone?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
What problems? Study after study have shown that cell phones don't rot your brain. Sitting in front of your computer reading slashdot does...
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