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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."
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.
Don't feel too bad, I imagine that you actually bought the cell phone to be used for phone calls. :)
I used to have a Nokia 5165 that was pretty decent, although it had issues with keeping the battery attached, thus it would crap out during phone calls, or even when I dialed something in.
Join the TWIT army now!
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.
For a lot of phones you can just download utilities to upload new ringtones into them. I finally got the serial cable and some ringtone software which works with my phone, but it's a monotonic midi-only phone (a POS old siemens jobber) and thus I can't really do much with it. It's easy to get most music to play on phones with polyphonic ringtones, and typically not too difficult to find some software to do the job of loading images and midis.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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!
well, the usual for getting a phone with a plan is to knock $150 off the price..so that $1k phone would still be $850..however, if you look on ebay for a p800 there's one for $325 now, and a p900 for $675. if you bring your own phone most service providers will waive the signup fee which is more affordable to them than giving you a $150 phone.
i've had a p800 for a bit under a year, and as much as i like it, i wouldn't buy another or recommend it. using a touchscreen dialer is not as perfect as it seems..they may have improved it some with the p900, but with the earpiece in, dialing while driving is not safe because you must look at the screen as you dial. the other major complaint is lack of a d-pad, the jog dial doesn't cut it for games. i like the design of the sidekick, haven't held one but something like that running linux will probably be what gets me to upgrade. oh and waiting for those 4gb toshiba drives to get in there.
insightful my ass....this is a nonsensical post that's working in a plug for his website somebody please mod this crap down to where it should be
Re. cell phone safety--I read a recent study (New Scientist, perhaps?) that showed cell phones cause extreme damage to rat brains.
Click around PubMed for a while. brain cell phone is a good query. No one has shown conclusive evidence of damage due to RF radiation. Though everyone says "more research is needed" that's just a standard hedge, cause they don't want to miss out on any grants.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
here ya go. I was off a bit, the number is actually $3.5 billion a year. The article notes that this is "good news for the music industry". People spend $40 billion on SMS a year.
You must be living in the USA. i Have a p800, and i have never had to pay for a ringtone. these phoes are VERY open as it is. Try a modern SonyEricsson (T610 etc)one day. its as simple as sending a MIDI file via Bluetooth/Infra red or Cable, the software is already free and available. And for bluetooth or infrafed, you dont even need software, as the phone appears as a computer, and simply accepts files thrown at it and vice versa.
as for bringing prices down. i dont think so. over here in Europe, the prices are already cheap. the cost of licensing Symbian is not expensive.
Proprietry software is not a bad thing either. IF it works. and in the case of most symbian apps. they DO work, and use exisiting standards (XML, SMIL, SMS, EMS, MMS, MIDI, WAV, MP3)
Better secuity? well again here in europe. if a fault is found, the phone can be taken to a service depot to be flashed. simple as that.
Have a nice day!