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Can Linux Dominate Smartphone OS?
Jeryl Kesh writes "Does Motorola's roaring success with its Linux-based 'Ming' phones in China indicate that the open-source platform is now a serious contender against Symbian and Windows Mobile in the handheld device software platform arena?
The world No. 2 mobile phone maker, which debuted the Ming smartphone in March this year in China, shipped more than one million Linux-based units in China alone last quarter, according to research firm Canalys. However with Nokia refusing to adopt Linux, Symbian remains by far the top mobile device OS, according to Canalys, with a 67 percent share, well ahead of second-place Windows Mobile, with 15 percent of the market.
Eirik Chambe-Eng, the co-founder of one of the most popular mobile Linux platforms, Norway-based TrollTech, has also reportedly predicted a 'revolution' in the use of open-source software on phones and handheld devices. His contention was that Linux gives handset manufacturers and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) 'complete control,' and in turn keeps Microsoft and Symbian at bay."
Thats all good so long as this translates to customer savings.... does it?
http://religiousfreaks.com/Nokia has yet to announce plans to develop mobile devices based on Linux, although it has introduced "selected open-source elements" such as JavaScript, to its S60 phone.
JavaScript? Woot-Woot, I'm excited. Aren't you? Blah.
I would have to say yes. Being open source, any manfacturer could use it on their phone. And considering that phones aren't really OS dependant...why wouldn't they go to linux. I don't buy my phone based on what software is on it, I want a phone that is loud, easy to use and has long battery life.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
I use my Windows Mobile based SPV 600 phone all the time. It's pretty much perfect for keeping my work diary on.
I need to buy a more modern phone, my old motorola is limping along on three legs now but I refuse to buy a phone that is based on MS or Symbian. I do NOT trust either of them, at all.
I DO trust Linux.
Last I checked Windows Mobile almost doesn't exist in comparison to the installed base of Balckberry and Palm OS Treos (yes I know theres a WM version of Treo, but everyone know it's crap). I smell fud.
Is there anything that won't run Linux? PCs, Linksys Routers, PDAs, and now cheesy supervillains. What next?
Argh.
Where have you been? Windows Mobile is still around. Microsoft never cancelled it...
Here's a market share study by Gartner for worldwide shipments. Note that it counts windows smartphones only and not PDA phones. (Smartphones do not have the touch screen; instead, they have a numeric keypad like a normal phone.)
Microsoft's recent earings call indicates that their market share is increasing -- the article quotes a 90% increase. These statistics don't seem to include Linux based phones.
There's been more selection from Symbian phones in the past, but right now there's more Windows Mobile devices available in the USA. Symbian has also been in the market longer.
This article states that Microsoft has a 17% market share and some analyst expects their market share to grow.
Note that almost all Linux phones are shipped in Asia -- I have never seen a Linux phone for sale in the United States, but plenty of Windows phones and a few Symbian ones. The number of Symbian devices available retail from cellular providers seems to be declining here.
I personally use a Symbian phone.
Why do thay call phones which need time to boot(!) and which need virus killer to function properly "smart"?
Thank god I still have one of those "stupid" 5110's from Nokia.
If there is some kind of Linux at the bottom of it - great, but running Linux is not much of a selling point if the UI is junk. I have an ADSL modem & wireless router which uses Linux. Fortunately it's an excellent bit of kit because I would curse it everyday no matter what OS was underneath if it wasn't.
Any other markets you want to know if Linux will soon dominate? I'd be glad to offer my opinion, which is about as good as your own opinion.
Gadget News at Gizmo.com
Finally I know what to call those irritating loops of so-called music.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Having used almost all currently available cell phone OSes (Palm OS on a Treo, Symbian on a P800, Mobile Windows on friends' phones and some weird choices like Ogo), I can say with some authority that they all suck. Well, "suck" may be a bit strong a word, but each of them has both huge shortcomings and lots of small areas where they simply don't pay enough attention to details.
What smart phones really need is for Apple to fix them. This probably won't happen, so the next best thing is a Linux based OS which allows us programmers to fix what the big companies don't seem to be capable of fixing.
"However with Nokia refusing to adopt Linux..."
?? I smell FUD. They may not have gotten around to using Linux in their cell phones (yet), but as a company Nokia has definitely adopted and supports Linux.
Maybe.
What? You asked!
Nokia certainly hasn't 'refused' to adopt linux. They are, after all, responsible for a huge initiative in mobile computing with maemo (http://www.maemo.org). They have a linux device (the 770) in the market today. It may not be a phone, but it shows a commitment on Nokia's part to pursuing Linux.
Nokia has also been quite involved with OpenSource, particularly with their KHTML based browser that ships on S60 phones.
The point being, Nokia actually seems like a prime candidate for a Linux device. I would be SHOCKED if they didn't have one in the works right now. I would certainly expect them to have one in the market before the end of 2007. Every indicator points in that direction.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
My company markets reference designs for handheld devices (typically cell phones, media players, etc..) to OEMs. Our customer demand for Linux has increased dramatically in the past year. We've doubled the size of our group, and we still can't hire engineers with Linux experience fast enough.
Yes, we do WinCE development too. But, the WinCE group not only has at least twice as many engineers, they are also behind the Linux group in terms of features. When it comes to rapid development, there's simply nothing better than Linux, because most of the work has already been done. This allows us to concentrate on adding features that differentiate us from the competition, rather than on merely getting something working.
But WinCE also places substantial roadblocks to rapid development. A routine build of WinCE takes 20 minutes; a clean build takes more than an hour. By comparison, our average Linux build time is about 30 seconds, with a clean build taking about 15 or 20 minutes. But it gets worse for WinCE:
Quite frankly, I'm glad to see the demand for Linux growing. However, I'm also putting in quite a bit of overtime because of it, so it is sort of a mixed blessing.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
This is the first step for linux getting the major foothold it needs in the market, when people find out the interface they're using is linux, they might not consider linux to be the hard to use peice of shit they thought it was. I know a lot of people who think that all distros of linux are CLI only, which is rather worrying until I re-educate with the back of my hand.
Having to install a VIRUS KILLER on a frickin' mobile phone doesn't make me feel smart!
I think sometimes Linux fans start to worry more about what's under the covers and less about the actual UI experience.
I haven't used WinCE derived stuff much, but Palm had a lead for years in the department.
I just wish there was some kind of toolkit for letting me roll my own UI (I had some very definate ideas about what an optimal TODO UI would look like for me)-- and without resorting to Java. It's funny, for a language that was originally meant to make life cooler for mobile devices, it provides some of the worst, loading-screen heavy craptastic UI I've seen on a portable device.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Have we seen Linux-based cellphones being offered from cellphone companies operating in the USA? I don't read about such phones from Sprint/Nextel, Verizon, Cingular, T Mobile, Metro PCS, and so on....
First, I wish all the people who don't want a "smart" phone would just be quiet. We know. Go buy a basic phone. It's not like there aren't any. All smartphone postings should include this disclaimer.
Second, I'm wondering really how open the linux is that's installed on these phones. If proprietary interfaces and device drivers are used, it might as well be running symbian|windows|whatever. Could you develop an app for these phones as easily as you could for gnome/kde/etc, and release it 100% open source for use by others?
Note that almost all Linux phones are shipped in Asia -- I have never seen a Linux phone for sale in the United States, but plenty of Windows phones and a few Symbian ones.
The Motorola Ming ships outside of Asia as the Motorola A1200. You might've seen that around.
It would surprise me if they hadn't at least measured Linux up for mobile phone use but in view of the fact that Symbian is owned by Nokia along with Ericsson, Panasonic and Siemens IIRC Nokia is probably not in a hurry to adopt it as standard for all their phones. Linux is the top choicle for smaller companies who either cannot afford to license Windows Mobile or Symbian or more likely because Linux gives them more control and thus enables them to get a foothold on the market with good hardware integration of the embedded OS and innovatively designed user interface and software. That along with an innovatively designed device/casing/keyboard is what matters most to customers. There is a growing perception in the business world that only Windows Mobile can be truly integrated with Windows/Exchange etc.. and that using phones running Symbian, Linux &Co will be only cause problems. I just hope Microsoft doesn't manage to netscape these competitors and get a 90% share of the mobile OS market as well, it will kill off every last spark of innovation if they do.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Currently, there's loads of open source programs available for the symbian phones, especially series 60. With your choice of C++, Python or Java, it's easy to get started with writing code. Lots of apps drives consumer demand.
More recently, Nokia stopped supporting Linux for developing applications (previously there was decent support for Java, and help with C++). This makes it much much harder to develop S60 apps on Linux, so a load of potential developers won't bother.
The big issue now is symbian signed. With S60 version 3 onward, they've seriously locked down the platform. If your code isn't signed, it won't run on most devices, and even where it will, it won't be allowed to do interesting things (write to filesystem, talk to network etc). If you want to get your code signed, you have to have an expensive verisign certificate, and pay a bunch of cash to have your app reviewed.
In one fell swoop, almost all open source programs have stopped working on S60 version 3, and won't work again. All the developers are really pissed, and no-one's willing to talk about it from symbian (try emailing them about it, and they just mutter about python). All of a sudden, your new S60 phone is half useless, as you can't get any decent apps for it.
Not the brightest move ever.....
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
I've dealt with a lot of the new 200-500 mhz generation of embedded devices coming out. Smart phones, game systems, PDA's, control systems, etc, etc. Both programming for and using. By far, the worst I've dealt with has been Windows mobile. It's a joke. My work pocket PC "smartphone" freezes up 3-4 times a month (completely unacceptable for that sort of thing). My personal cell phone with a specialized OS has never frozen in 2 years. I've never even loaded 3rd party apps on my smartphone. Windows mobile's interface is horrible and inconsistant. Nothing is ever kept in a logical place. Basically, it feels to me like they took a full version of windows and stripped it. On the other hand, when I use embedded devices with a true specialized OS it feels like it was built from the ground up correctly.
I won't get into the Blackberry, Symbian, Linux debate. They each have their merits. However, all three are leaps and bounds ahead of Windows Mobile. It's the biggest piece of garbage embedded OS I've ever seen.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
is contention was that Linux gives handset manufacturers and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) "complete control"
I would imagine that it also empowers the users, as many of the licenses would require the cellphone providers to supply their code if they've used GPL components. Consequently, the phone-service providers probably wouldn't be very happy with this as it makes it easier to bypass their $2/ringtone and assorted other lockdowns and crippling of the phones they provide. Speaking of which, wherabouts do the cellphone makers provide their source for OS-using apps?
According to everything I've read via Google, the phone is primarily for Asian markets.
"This Linux PDA-phone for Asia"
The A1200 is expected to launch in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in mid-February, with US availability sometime after that.
As far as I can tell, this US availability has yet to surface and this phone is only available imported and is not actively sold/carried by any US provider.
No good developer story. Nuff said.
If you want to see the wide range of Linux mobile phones that have been introduced, check out this list.
I googled but couldn't find any detailed information about the OS on the Ming/A1200. It looks like a gorgeous device. Does anyone know:
:)
- How awful the handwriting recognition is?
- If it is possible to load my own code on it?
- If the Bluetooth is locked down or if it has DUN support?
- If the browser is any good?
- If it multitasks (lets me switch apps without losing my place in any of them, like a Blackberry and unlike Palm)?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can point me at in-for-mation
Justin
"Why would God give us a waist if we wasn't supposed to rest our pants on it?" - Rev. Roy McDaniels
Actually Symbian are committed to Open Source as a way of getting more people to develop on their platform (and hence get more phones into the mid-range market).
For details about how to get freeware apps signed (for nothing) have a look here.
I can't see how you can lock down security without some insecure apps failing on the new platform (even if it's not their fault they were insecure). And I don't see how Symbian Signed could have been any more lightweight and still be useful. Seems like a good balance of openness and security to me.
Anyway, the good news is that Symbian have done the right thing and concentrated the disruption (including the compiler ABI change) in one place (Symbian OS v9.1) so the migration only has to be done once.
The big issue now is symbian signed. With S60 version 3 onward, they've seriously locked down the platform. If your code isn't signed, it won't run on most devices, and even where it will, it won't be allowed to do interesting things (write to filesystem, talk to network etc). If you want to get your code signed, you have to have an expensive verisign certificate, and pay a bunch of cash to have your app reviewed.
I was able to install Putty for Symbian OS and other self signed software on my Nokia E series phone running S60V3. I had to turn off the signature checking in App. Manager to enable installation of self signed apps. This is set to 'Signed only' by default which does keep out malware but is still kind of annoying but Putty works as close to what was advertised as one can expect from Beta software.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
They were probably pressured by mobile operators to restrict their platform, being death scared of VoIP and IM on 3G networks which have a potential to become massive if everyone with a symbian phone suddenly gets right application (possibly with ability to use encrypted tunneling via custom server and similar stuff).
Teh evil system should be cracked. It's the future, and they can't stop it.
Both Linux and Nokia S60 are from Finland! Quite a feat for a country with less population than New York..
I have been using a Symbian phone for the past 3 years. It's been a great phone with all the free/commercial applications available on-line. I could install either symbian based apps or java apps (which is always slow). I owned a Moto Razr and didn't like the firmware one bit. It sucked! I just threw the razr away and kept using my old symbian phone. This is why I'm afraid what Moto is going to do with Linux. Symbian gives true multitasking with a taskbar so that i can switch between applications. Does your current mobile phone do that?
I don't want a signature.
It's more important that it be a stable applications platform. If Linux has 90% market share, but constituted of 10 incompatible versions, then really you have 10 differen OS's and it wouldn't be fair to count market share in that way. What makes Windows Mobile and Symbian really interesting is that I can write an app and be pretty sure it will run out the box on devices I never tested with.
Many free apps that stopped working on Series 60 3.0 stopped working because the APIs they use have been changed; Symbian 9.1 (upon which S60 3.0 is based) was used as the opportunity to remove a lot of deprecated functionality, and fix many design problems. Doing all the compatibility breaks at once hopefully saves breaking things a few at a time over all the subsequent releases (the Windows approach, no? *grin*).
:)
There is some reasonable provision for freeware and OSS software under Platform Security, as other posters have pointed out. The problem seems mostly to be a matter of perception at the moment; the information as to what is and is not possible is not perhaps as obvious as it could be, and OSS developers haven't had enough time to deal with the changes yet, since 9.1-derived phones are relatively new to the actual consumer market.
Nokia are increasingly using S60 as a marketing tactic, and this will gain them nothing if 'this phone uses S60' doesn't mean 'this phone can run loads of apps you can find easily online'. This is going to mean supporting free (and Free) software, even if there's been a bit of a bumpy start perhaps
from the article and tagline of this thread:
9 750 ) in its smartphones, it catapulted Linux to became the #2 mobile phone OS, behind Symbian. All the other smartphone manufacturers in the Linux camp built the numbers up even further.
"Symbian remains by far the top mobile device OS, according to Canalys, with a 67 percent share, well ahead of second-place Windows Mobile, with 15 percent of the market."
Why the switch from comparing smartphone OS's to the state of "mobile devices"?
There is enough in the article to make it look like valid research but this is a blatant flaw IMO. Most of the article is about smartphones except where it goes and switches to comparing marketshare of mobile devices. We all know that in the mobile device market, Microsoft has recorded about $10 billion in losses to 'win' that market. It is very interesting that it is used in this article to provide a 'low blow' to the prospects of Motorola and others in the smartphone market using Linux...
From what I had heard/read( http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS8804000399.html ), when DoCoMo, in 2004, started using Linux( http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=1
So, seeing that Linux is actually the #2 smartphone OS instead of Microsoft Windows, the article should have read more like it was a foregone conclusion that Motorola's use of Linux was going to be a win for Motorola and its shareholders.
It's amazing how one little bit of misleading information can change a story if not tarnish the perception one walks away with. But this is a CLASSIC ZiffDavis trick, one prefected in the OS/2 vs Windows war of the early 1990's. Notice how the last sections/paragraph(s) of the story end in such a way to put doubt in all that was laid out for you in the beginning of the story? This is CLASSIC ZiffDavis, or should I say classic Microsoft marketing.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
My work phone is a Cingular 8125 which runs Windows Mobile 5.
Service: 4/10
Hardware: 9/10
Software: 2/10
In terms of hardware, the phone is great, but when it comes to software, I have a hard time imagining anyone doing worse. It takes a ridiculous number of 'keypresses' (it's a touch screen) to simply add someone to my address book. Even worse, however, is that the phone **crashes**. My cell phone actually will simply up and reboot, or the system will hang until I power it down. I for one cannot wait for the day when Linux phones own the market. It may not ever happen. If it does, it may not be all delicious smelling roses. But I certainly can't imagine it being _this_ bad.
-Charles
FUD. You can use self-signing and still make use of most features - file system access and opening network connections included.
Most likely, the companies that are developing cell phones (and not using Linux as their underlying OS) are ones that have been in the market for many years and were doing so back when Linux was not available as a platform for this purpose. That means they bought into an expensive toolchain (operating system, compiler, debugging tools, source code editor, repository if any, system libraries, etc.) and have sunk costs as well as developer inertia to moving to a new platform. As long as they figure in the royalties (if any) as part of that cost they can decide whether staying with that platform makes sense. They may also feel that the requirement to include source code (which might give away what they consider proprietary information about the internals of their system which might give competitors an advantage) may not be appropriate and thus prefer a licensing system that does not require them to do so. This is why some companies pay for licenses from open-source developers in order to get the "you must relase too" requirement of the GPL to be waived.
In switching to another platform (like linux) they also have to figure in training costs (whether or not they are willing to spend money to train people which they then figure will run to another company) and the costs in lost productivity as programmers learn how to use the new toolchain and platform, and/or new APIs for programming the new operating system. Availability of ancillary tools can also be important (is there a PC-based emulator for their phone (or embedded device) available for Linux? There may be one available, included or previously developed with the toolchain they are using.) Any time you change technologies there is a learning curve unless the new and old systems are identical, and chances are they are not. If the new system is considerably better, then the learning curve could be small and there would be an increase in productivity. If it is not better, the learning curve could be steep and there can be a significant permanent decrease or even loss of productivity.
And to put it bluntly, until Eclipse came along, the toolchain for Linux basically sucked with the possible exception of Borland's Kylix, but since most software for Linux is C/C++ and not Pascal, (and quite potentially for very small embedded devices, assembly) that doesn't help much. Having been a programmer for over 20 years, and seeing the difference with tools like Visual Basic and Turbo Pascal for Windows/Delphi, let me tell you there is a big improvement in usability and in productivity over writing Fortran using punch cards on an IBM 370 equivalent mainframe (which tells you how far the technology has changed, at least during the period I've used computers, and the changes (and improvements) are coming even faster). Using text editors alone to develop software (unless you're developing for a text-only environment) to be used in a graphical interface environment is a big pain. Especially once you've experienced the difference. In fact, even if you are developing for a text-only environment, a number of the features of these Rapid Application Development systems can b
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
You can also build your initial program loading firmware to refuse to run a kernel that's not signed with your company's crypto key. Then even if you provide all source to the device, no one else will be able to build a kernel image that will run on the device.
These measures might be circumvented by a dedicated hacker, but Joe Average User isn't likely to take his cellphone apart and replace a firmware chip just so he can run a different kernel on it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Point me please then to the PcSuite linux binary! Didn't think so.
Red Leader Standing By!
I hate the Symbian company. They are the model of proprietory software. If you try to get documentation from them for APIs you want to use for YOUR OWN personal phone, they will refuse even if you offer $20,000. The number is real..we were trying to access low level real-time communication APIs and they were unknown..my university made a 20000 offer and was refused. They even asked us why we wanted the APIs for. Later they replied saying $30,000 would be better. This time we refused.
Having said this, they are fantastic developers. On a crappy ARM architecture they have managed to do amazing things at incredible speeds. The reason why Linux (and certainly Windows) will never fill the gap is because you need solid reliability plus high quality development plus assurance (i.e warranty, support). The fact that windows offers "support" particularly at the corporate level, makes even knowledgable people select MS over Linux.
Let's just say community forums are not for everybody [and please note that I run FC5 Linux on all my own hardware].
Closed platforms make it hard to do these things, often try to tie me to their own proprietary desktop offerings, and try to hold my data hostage.
What you're describing is what Microsoft does: Port Windows to anything that contains electricity on some way, shape or form. Apple works differently: Look at the iPod. Look at the Newton. They define how a system needs to work, then they write software to do it. Microsoft works the other way around: The port Windows, and the device gets to do whatever Windows does.
And where is your point?
The Newton is dead. Obviously, Apple would not use the Newton OS for a modern appliance.
G'Day,
Linux itself has a number of issues which have been outlined in various other comments. Lack of proper real-time support, speed on ARM, reliability and security. While these probably limit how useful Linux can be, there is a solution being developed. Two companies in particular are building it: Jaluna and ERTOS at NICTA. That solution is para-virtualising linux on top of a fast, real-time, and secure operating system. Performance, I hear you say? The ERTOS solution is so fast that in some cases it out-performs native linux, and in most others performs comparably. These systems have already started to make it into mobile phone manufacturer's hands
Dave.
Don't mind of this whole Linux based SmartPhone OS thing, it will eventually go away with the GPLv3...
No sane company will use GPLv3 code in their devices (in this case: phones) - remember: the kernel will stay with GPLv2 but what about the rest of the system (busybox, glibc, uclibc, etc)? Probably some Chinese company will use Linux, since they did not care about the copyright AT ALL...
- Anonymous Coward -
Atleast in the EU there are laws that forbid changes in how the phone access and use mobil networks because of radiation values, thats atleast how we were explained the lack of GSM in the 770(study visit to nokia and developers). Licencing isssues i.e
As cool as it sounds, Linux on Motorola Smartphones essentially is NOT an open platform.
...
Motorola doesn't encourage or support native application development. They tell you to use Java. Some parts of the phones are completely undocumented (e.g. the GPS part of the A780). Access from Java is possible but not native access (OK, hackers built an Java proxy as a workaround, but the point is that it is not officially supported). You don't get access to built-in phonebook, etc. pp.
It took months before someone managed to telnet into the A780 and it took months to telnet into the A1200 (yes, they protected the A1200 even harder). The toolchain for building native apps would still be in its infancy if the official development kit from Motorola hadn't leaked somewhere.
For my A780 there is exactly ONE native application: CoPilot, the navigation software that comes bundled with the European version of the phone. And that's about it.
So these phones could be SOOOO cool. Think of Opie on them. Perfect! Nothing but perfect. But Moto doesn't get it. Like a lot of the major vendors that use Linux but are of no help for the community.
If you are interested in helping out, check out Motorola fans (forums --> development ; you need to register btw.). You can find a lot of How-Tos and downloads there. And some guys are working on a 100% open source kernel that works on these phones. Their homepage is here. For kernel hackers this is supposed to be a lot of fun
Bye egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel