Slashdot Mirror
Linux Smartphones Race To Be 1st In U.S.
An anonymous reader writes "The race is on for first mover in the domestic US Linux smartphone market! Last week, Motorola announced a new Linux-based business user smartphone that's expected to ship to US customers by the end of 2004. Meanwhile, Chinese phone maker e28 will debut its latest Linux-based smartphone at LinuxWorld this week, and will soon begin distributing it in the Chicago area. Both devices are pretty cool. The quad-band Moto phone features a 1.3 megapixel camera, Intel's latest cell-phone chip, and fancy sync software that (currently only) works with Microsoft email servers at this point (others pending). e28's phone is an upgrade to its previously announced e2800, which became the world's first commercially available Linux phone when it shipped in China in August, 2003 [Slashdot discussion]. Interestingly, e28 was founded in 2002 by the former president of Mot's Asia Pacific cell phone division -- the world's largest mobile market."
Competition is great, I would love to get a smart phone that runs linux based kernel and allows for development without strings attached. Currently, Symbian phones are difficult to debug for. Microsoft phones... I won't even go into that.
;)
Some phone manufacturers are attempting to lock users from installing their own custom software, some are trying to prevent people writing for the phones without paying royalties (signed apps).
Power to the user, if I can tweak with my phone as much as I can do with my pc - it's all good news.
I just hope it won't take minutes to boot like my Fedora Core 2 at the moment
-- shortcut - the longest distance between two points.
Check out their new RAZR V3 as well ...
A linux based phone that only works with M$ mail... What is the world coming to!
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
something you should remember, just because it's linux based underneath doesn't mean it'll give the customer(you) any access to the system underneath or means to customize it beyond installing j2me apps. in most(all) cases these 'linux based' phones are not supposed to show what they are to the customer at all anyways(linux just happens to be a good fit for the os underneath, the customer isn't supposed to ever see it though and the customer apps supposed to be all java which makes software & sdk support a whole lot easier for them).
symbian phones give surprisingly(scary) good access to the hardware underneath.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
That's a pretty narrow-minded view of what Linux is. It's not like Windows-CE, which, IIRC, only comes with InternetExplorer for I/O, and uses SQLServer as it's filesystem and will open any attachments any callers send to the phone before you even pick it up.
Things I want in my phone:
rsync my text-file-phone-book with my desktop.
cron / at as a reminder service.
scp my voicemails and photos and text messages to&from my desktop.
If I can do all that, I'm getting one. Otherwise, I agree, what's the point.
Narrow minded. You can call it a SMART-Phone or a PDA which has telephone function buildin. Now, you don't have to carry a telephone and a PDA and a walkman and a watch whatever your carry with you.
Besides, your dumb phone already has an OS in it just like your PDA, being it Linux or not.
I don't want to carry a PDA or a walkman. I don't carry one now. Why do all the 'phone manufacturers think that I'd want to go through the hassle of having a horribly overcomplicated 'phone for the "convienence" of having to deal with a PDA and walkman that I don't even want?
The OP is right; where can you get a normal phone, without any fancy gegaws or blinkenlights that has a decent battery life?
It's like the tagline for Alien vs. Predator, "Whoever wins, we lose." Only by "we lose," I mean "we win."
The easiest way to get karma nowadays seems to be ./ phone article.
1) posting some vague praise for Apple in an Apple related (or even non-Apple related) story, or
2) declaring that you only want a phone that makes phonecalls and nothing else, and that nobody seems to be willing to make these anymore in a
Then why do you want to carry your phone arround when everything was normal when there were no mobile phone around.
Do you want to try that again in English?
When I have a credit card when I could carry enough cash with me 20 years ago?
A credit card is smaller and more convient than cash yet performs the same function. A credit card does not add functionality I do not need. I do not need a PDA or a walkman; why would I want to carry one when I only want a phone?
News flash: the world keep advancing every minute.
Advancing where? Why is convergance an "advance"? It clearly isn't an advance for me; I don't need a PDA or a walkman, I need a 'phone!
I can understand that a cave man has no business with a mobile phone.
No you fucking moron, I want a 'phone. I do not want a PDA and a walkman. See how that works? No, you probably don't. Go play with your geegaws and watch the lights blink you twat.
iam fed up of carrying around multiple gadgets (and chargers etc) when they could be assimilated into a single device making my life a bit more convient than looking like batmans toolbelt
heres wishing
I don't need or want a camera in my phone either, but for 95% of the population, it doesn't hurt. And it certainly isn't expensive.
You don't have to see the "use" of Linux on a phone. In the case of the Motorola, that only means that their Java software base runs in Linux. I'd expect more stability than an equivalent Windows-based smartphone and better interoperability with my desktops. Since it's apparently just a USB Mass Storage Device to the computer, sounds like that was granted.
The email syncing is only with Microsoft Exchange, but both products can do POP3 and the Moto can even do IMAP4 - that's pretty darn flexible.
As for those other features you don't know about, the article often includes more information than the summary. The Motorola is a quad-band phone, the E28 mentioned some ungodly amount of battery life, and both I think had Bluetooth.
And lastly, I'm sure even someone as annoyed as you at new things can figure out how to use them as phones. It's not like the interface is BASH on these - they look just like phones and people who don't know it's Linux will have no trouble using them as such.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
Take a look around the phone market... For those who want a good smartphone, the pickings are slimmer than those who want a good normal phone. Don't complain that all the manufacturers are making smartphones with tons of features you don't want just for the sake of complaining.
With my Visorphone Prism starting to see it's final days, I'm looking for a replacement... and I look forward to this as the first viable option. You want a good normal phone, go to the mobile phone store where they have lots. I've seen them and they didn't interest me.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
Color harmony
Why does every phone maker nowadays insist on cramming as much as possible in cellphones? Can't they just leave a phone a phone? Maybe they should sell them as a pda/camera/gameboy/mp3 player that also happen to maker phone calls. It seems that the more junk they put in them, the easier they will crash. And it makes navigating the UI a chore.
I really wish Apple would take a shot at designing a phone UI, they still have some of the best UI designers anywhere. With the iPod they found a way to navigate thousands of songs that really works.
> A credit card is smaller and more convient than cash yet performs the same function. A credit card does not add functionality I do not need.
Actually, a credit card adds functionality compared to cash: you're taking a loan when you use it. A debit card would perform the same function as cash in a smaller form.
the new colours look great in elinks.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
"No you fucking moron",
Up until that position, I was reading carefully and taking into consideration your points. But when you threw a personal insult and lost your cool, all previous considerations, and future, will be swiftly placed in the trash can.
Take your flaming elsewhere.
I love the lousy camera in my phone. I do a lot of business travel (in europe) and it is nice to have a camera to take shots of various landmarks. I never have my good camera "handy".
However the point about some firms not liking cameras it valid. I wish the camera could be physically extracted so I could leave it at the desk sometimes, instead of the entire unit.
I don't see why we should care that the phone runs linux. It's not like you can do anything with it unless you have windoze anyway. Gimme a PDA/phone/whatever that actually COMES with tools for Linux, and I don't give a crap what runs on the unit itself.
Visit my blog http://www.protocolostomy.com
It was comming out in august I think. I'll wait for that. Personally I like a full keyboard and the ability to type faster than with 1 as 'a', 'b', and 'c'. I can also ssh into my linux server, which is more powerful than anyfone could hope to be (well maybe not 30 or more years down the line ;). Selling point for me are 'full' keyboards.
No, I got them all morning.
People on /. who moan about linux on phones only do so because they dont have anyone to call, or to call them.
Im surprised that theyre not excited at the prospect of ordering a double xl pizza using ftp in a terminal though.
it's ugly....I just got a Motorola MPx200, which as much as I do not like microsoft, is pretty nice. If their was a linux flipphone that had as large of an lcd....I would definitely bite. Hopefully in 1-2 years, when I upgrade again, there will be.
Most of the day, annoying isn't it ?
A completely new battery technology to run all that crap for more than 20 minutes.
Things really take off when you put mesh routing into VoIP phones and they start jabbering at each other.
Seastead this.
What I'd really like is the ability to ssh into a remote server from my phone. I know you can buy an SSH client for the Nokia 9290, but the phone itself is huge and why pay for an ssh client? I would hope that a Linux based phone would allow for porting of existing software such as OpenSSH. Okay, I must admit I love my bluetooth phone, so I'd enjoy that being added as well.
Second the notion. Let me know when I can buy a Linux-based stupidphone that just dials, picks up, and lets me talk with people out of earshot. A basic personal phone book is a plus. My years-old Motorola ST7868W already has far too many features I don't use and don't want to use.
OTOH "long standby time" is good. They're trying to say that it will run for a long long time between chargings when you don't actually talk (assuming that talking is still provided). An active connection drains the battery at a higher rate and doesn't count as "standby"; only time spent switched on but not connected is "standby". You want standby time to be somewhat longer than you usually go, or would want to go, between chargings. And "triband" is good too -- it means that the phone's radio section can communicate with all mobile phone gear, at least until they discover that most Americans now have triband so it's time to invent another band to keep the riffraff out.
You know what would be *really* smart? Letting me tell my phone to take big wads of unwanted features *off* the menus until I decide that I want one of them back. Let them all hide behind one "manage features" menu pick.
The mobile phone was an improvement over the immobile phone. The PDA was, for lots of us, a disimprovement over the paper and pencil that continue to do everything we want in a note-taking system. My DayTimer doesn't run down, doesn't break when I drop it, retains *exactly* what I wrote instead of its best guess, also holds the day's receipts when closed, and doesn't fail to do anything I want it to do.
I suppose someone could make electronic digitalized chewing gum, but would it really be better?
(Don't go telling me I'm opposed to change. Making *useful* changes is what I do for a living. Some changes are not useful, or not broadly useful.)
If all you want is a cell phone, why bother with an Apple interface?
Yeah, I would probably pay *more* for a simpler phone than for one of these overcomplicated gadgetphones.
I didn't see in the article what windows system the moto would run. Opera7 works on Qtopia and X11 to name two possible candidates.
My Treo 600 is a fully integrated (stereo, DSP) audio player, (Palm) PDA, and (CDMA) mobile phone. Its network HW includes a 100-128Kbps radio for Internet connections, in addition to CDMA voice and SMS/MMS. Other peripherals include SD/IO slot, USB (slave) RS-232, VGA camera and color touchscreen. But this brilliant smartphone runs only PalmOS5. Which is adequate, but not nearly as flexible as Linux. Who's porting, say, uCLinux to this cutting edge networked computer?
--
make install -not war
* megapixel camera
Set you standard higher, 2 Megapixel with optical zoom & nightvision! also having the possibilty to recod movies.
* MP3 player (4-20gb please)
And usb, so i can use at as a plug & play hard disk for any pc. Must also play mp4 movies?
* Gaming platform (c++ or symbian)
& java !
* IR remote (saves having a table full of them)
& IR interface to laptop in case it does not have BT, or wifi.
-small form factor. (PDA?)
-must have moneydetector (to detect false money), that is a UV + IR lamp.
-ringtones... it is a phone?!
When the price of Sony Ericsson P800 had fallen down to about 350 Euros (without any service agreement etc.) two months ago, I've bought one. It does have a camera and even though I don't use it, it doesn't hurt (It's nice to have a shot of car plates named PHP etc.).
It runs Symbian as its OS, but the only thing I'm mad is, it only synchronizes with M$ software (Outlook etc.).
A phone that is more than a phone might be life saving, and anyway, even if you don't use it for something serious, how on earth a geek would refuse a smart phone?
And think about it when it runs Linux, wow..
Can it run WINE ?
I just posted this junk to see if the moderators would fall for it, and it's now at 4 Insightful, while my previous post was marked as a Troll.
The rumor mill is going on about a new Treo phone due in a month or two.. perfect upgrade for the visorphone. Right now, I'm on CDMA, so the motorola thing would require porting my phone number.
You probably will not see any CDMA carriers with Linux phones due to Qualcomm's licenses with their CDMA technology. GSM is a open standard and that is why you are seeing this.
http://www.yopy.com/korean/products/overview.htm
In a mesh, your phone might be used as someone else's jump point to the Net. Do you really want to drain your battery to help guy next to you to download mp3s?
So would my mother, God rest her soul. She was finally able to run the VCR before she passed. The whole "channel 3" thing was confusing. Myself, at just 42, I'm looking for HP-48 functionality married to python numeric. Oh, and it surely should *also* be able to make a damn phone call.
Free China or Communist-occupied China?
Nortel beat them too it almost a decade ago. Sitting on my desk at home is a Nortel Smartphone that runs Java applets. I've had it since at least '97. It has an lcd display that has 4 buttons down each side, much like an ATM. It can get weather, news, and other things if your phone company provides that service.
Yeah, I've been holding my breath for way too long now... A Treo 600 would be awesome and there's little else I'd need if I had that. I know I've heard Bluetooth will be on the next one, but that's been rumored for awhile now.
And regardless, the Treo 600 is like $700. And has stayed at that price for a ridiculous amount of time now. And I'm sure whatever else they make next will do the same thing and the 600s will be almost impossible to find except on eBay, but I need a warranty.
Handspring had a loyal customer in me and I've bought and recommended tons of Visors, but I really can't justify their products anymore... And I've never really gotten over being abandoned on the VisorPhone when they made all the cool stuff in the original Treos and even the Sprint PCS version of the VisorPhone and ignored us early adopters.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
The energy trade off is time vs power. If you're communicating to a nearest tower rather than a nearest neighbor, your power requirements go up as a square. Than means you can afford to be on a lot less of the time. On the other hand, if you are part of the mesh, you can be on all the time at low power which has all the advantages of being on the net all the time, etc. There are some accounting problems to resolve -- just as there are with any P2P system. But the P2P systems out there are resolving those problems. I see no reason to expect meshes will ignore them nor be unable to solve them.
Seastead this.
I actually went to the Sprint, Cingular, Verizon, and T-mobile's websites. Every time Slashdot posts an article about a smartphone this same comment gets posted. If you don't want a smartphone, DON'T BUY ONE! If you want a simple phone, without a camera or tons of gee-whiz features, they are available. All you have to do is go to your carrier's website! All the above carriers' cheapest models, in most cases free after rebate, have very basic, almost no-frills, certainly not smartphones, handsets. I don't care if you don't want a smartphone! I don't expect you to care that my Duron 650 machine still does everything I need it to do! I don't expect you to care that people are still using TRS-80 Model 100s!
I have the A768 as it is sold in Thailand, and it is a great phone!!! It looks good, lies good in the hand, and it is the best phone I ever had (and I have / had a lot!).
What I love most that it is really fast, no waiting for the phone to react on your selections.
Regards,
Matt