Slashdot Mirror
Trolltech Woos Developers with 'Open' Linux Phone
An anonymous reader writes "Trolltech, best known for its Qt graphics framework and toolkit that form the basis of KDE, will ship the Greenphone, an open Linux-based phone in September. The working GSM/GPRS mobile phone features a user-modifiable Linux OS, and is meant to jumpstart a third-party native application ecosystem for Linux-based mobile phones. Users will be able to re-flash the phone with modified Linux-based firmware, via a mini-USB port. The device is based on an unspecified Linux kernel along with Trolltech's Qtopia Phone Edition (QPE) application framework and mobile phone stack. Gosh, this has gotta be the perfect phone for KDE lovers!"
It seems like there's a phone for everyone now...
Support the Chagossians
Of course, there's no information about where in the world this will be available (although suggestions of both Aisa and the US) or how much it's going to cost you.
I'd like to get hold of one, but it looks like vapourware to me.
So if this will be available in US, what service I wonder. Be very cool if it cost about as much as the rest of linux does ;)
Cool! Can it run Skype?
-- Cheers!
Sounds like a nifty gadget. I want one, really. I'll take a dozen if they'll work with my provider. I break phones on a regular basis :(
Problem is, I just don't see these taking off. The big boys (Cingular/Verizon/Sprint) aren't going to want something like this on their lineup. What they'll see when they look at it is a massive increase in support calls as people flash their phones with something they downloaded of the interweb only to find out it's essentially spyware for a phone. The ability to flash a cell phone is downright frightening when I think about the sheer number of users I support who aren't capable of selecting the correct printer 30% of the time.
If these phones make it to market, expect to see the package offerings somehow disable their flash ability, or at least make it difficult to flash the phone and risk rendering it useless. That would be entirely too much of a headache for the providers.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Funnypics
Kphone is the name that KDE users will mostprobably call it, not Greenphone. Greenphone is GNOMEish.
Keep adding to this.
Automatic encryption of calls.
Powerful scripting: at [date], call [number], playback [message1], record [message2]...
Lots of games.
It does run Linux!
blow your mind already
It's not like the phone is environmentally friendly, but I guess they're trying to insinuate that it's good for the [software] environment.
The irony would be if this phone were released in the US bound to a single carrier.
-- n
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
From TFA: The Greenphone appears to be a working GSM/GPRS mobile phone
However, the important (and missing) bit of information here is, which carriers will let you use it? Around here (Arizona, USA) its all but impossible to get a carrier to take a phone you didn't purchase from them, even when it is locked up and in essence still 'owned' by them.
Who's going to let me use a phone they not only aren't making a profit from, but don't control and can't use as a lock-in tool to increase the hassle factor of changing providers? No one, and this device, for as cool as it is, will be useless as a result.
By all means though, if you can find evidence anywhere that any US carrier will accept this phone without 6 months of battle against staff trained to say it is "not compatable with our network"; I'd really love to be wrong.
~Rebecca
How can you conclude all this from what you've read? Besides, Joe User doesn't give a rat's ass about the OS the thing runs on. If it looks cool and has nice features, he'll buy it. so what's your problem?
-- Cheers!
All the comments about carriers not supporting it, or not feeling like they will start selling seems to be missing the point. The phone's primary purpose is to be sold as a development environment, along with Qtopia a license to spur development of 3rdbased party applications to run on Linux mobile devices. Trolltech does not appear to have any desire to partner wtih Verizon, or Sprint or anyone to sell this to consumers. Maybe I am wrong, but this is how I read it. It is called the Greenphone because that fits nice wtih Trolltech's marketed image they have been building over recent years.
It has a touchscreen. You could write your own keyboard app, assuming it doesn't already have one.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
It would not be hard to make a program for a device like this that talked to a GPS receiver. I bet there are several compatible programs already out there that could be ported over.
Funnypics
Answer: This phone isn't intended for commercial use. It sales will be limited. It is intended to allow developers to create content so that when real phone manufacturers consider QPE there is a suite of software to make it competitive.
Comment: Carriers won't allow this phone on their network.
Answer: It is a GSM phone. If it is certified, it will work on GSM networks.
Comment: Users will screw up their phone reflashing it.
Answer: It isn't intended for the average Joe cell phone user, it is intended for developers.
Comment: "Jack of all trades"
Answer: For a development platform having all the functionality you may need to test against is critical. Actual real world usefulness, not so much. This phone could be considered as a piece of test equipment, the fact that it looks like a phone is probably just to spur innovation.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Look at the homepage of trolltech. Look at the choice of color. ;-)
So...ask again...why green?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I couldn't find any specs which say this phone will actually have wifi built in. Only GSM/GPRS.
Keyboard? It's got bluetooth. You can use a bluetooth keyboard with it if you really want it to be a PC.
I just want it to be a phone. I'm glad it doesn't have a keyboard. I'd even be glad to ditch the camera.
Anyone in the states who buys the phone just needs to make sure that the phone is either quad band or, if it is a tri-band only, make sure that the area you are in has the 1900MHz coverage and pop your SIM in. Once that's done, there may be an issue configuring voicemail, WAP configs and the like but that's a 2 minute job. Course this requires one of the GSM based carriers (Stingular or T-Mobile).
My only beef with the linux based phones is the lack of useful apps (yeah, like spell-check). I own the Motorola e680i which is a good phone to listen to radio or mp3s but as far as business apps go, the choices are non existent.
Or are you one of those "backwards" users stuck using CDMA and thus (in North America and most other CDMA-using places (except Korea)) locked by phone and provider?
One of GSM's major features (and less so in Korea) is that your subscriber info is stored in a tiny chip. That chip came on a credit card sized piece of plastic a la a "smart card" (if you've used GSM phones in the 90's, you'd know that there were phones that accepted the entire card as is). That chip enables you to take it out of your current GSM phone, buy a new phone (unlocked or same carrier), stick the chip in the new phone, and voila, you have a new phone, with your existing subscription info!
And look, you can get those 10 phones for $1 contract deals and use those chips in different phones than what was provided (depending on the provider, this route may be more economical than just buying the activation kit).
This is one reason why I went GSM looking for a new phone - so I can use it with my phone, but then stick it in a PC card modem when I wanted to use it with my computer. One subscription. Two devices. Only one can be used at a time, of course, but I have the freedom to change phones willy-nilly, or in this case, surf the web using the modem's faster GPRS modem. (The provider can tell, since the IMEI number changes, but there's little they can do).
Korea is special for CDMA because they force CDMA providers to do the same thing ("RUIM" cards) but in North America, most CDMA phones are locked and activated by carrier. But from what I can tell, Cingular and T-Mobile both provide GSM service, and thus would work just fine.
All you have to do is make sure the phone supports the frequencies of your local area. "Quadband" phones (850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz) work pretty much anywhere. Triband phones are often 900, 1800 and 1900 and work in most places in North America (850 being the old AMPS frequency, and isn't in widespread use where a Triband phone will leave you stuck vs. a quadband phone).
Corporate phones with customized features that suit the corporation, things of that nature.
I think if you're considering it for "Your average Joe", you're missing the point. Its for both Linux/mobile buzz and IMHO, where it will shine is for large corporations.
Can you GNU me now?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Using Skype over the cell network would be kinda pointless, even if it were possible, wouldn't it? But the point seems to be that the device supports Wifi, which is fast enough for Skype. So if the 312MHz CPU is fast enough, you could have one phone device which can use the regular cell network, but can also use Skype to avoid cellphone charges whenever you're somewhere that has decent Wifi - offices, college campuses, coffee shops, bookstores, wifi'd buildings, wifi'd neighborhoods...
Ok, I want one. I don't care if its meant for the "masses" or not.
:)
Trolltech is making a smart move here. Once these phones are sold out, and nerds everywhere are hacking on it, they'll have a ton of good software to choose from when they start pushing their stack onto the major carriers.
Here's what I want:
1. Apt. I want to fire up a telephone version of synaptic (on my phone and/or my computer) and have debian style repositories to pick and choose from for software.
2. Real calendar/todo/whatever syncing with Evolution/Kontact. My current Sony/Ericsson Z520a can do this pretty well over bluetooth with multisync, but its not perfect, and the native PIM software on the phone blows goats.
3. Nethack. Had to say it
4. SSH - no nerd is complete with a ssh terminal in front of them at any time. Sadly, that includes me.
5. A stable API for companies like Opera, Yahoo, AOL, etc. to port their software to.
6. Push style email would be nice, but then Trolltech would get sued, a la RIM.
I work with the latest Xscale stuff, and I've never heard of a dual-core Xscale. Either Marvell have done major work in the last few months to make a PXA chip dual core, or there is some sort of marketing goof here.
ARM does design some multi-core chips for their very cutting edge stuff, but PXA chips are not doing that.
I'd love to get some links to this "dual-core Xscale" if I am wrong though!
Cheers
Damnit - I wanted my nick to be "WouldIPutMYRealNameOnSlashdot"
A lot of those "GPS" phones don't use the GPS satellites at all, they just triangulate your position using cell towers. All mobile phones can do this but only a handful allow the user to get to the data.
Sorry, I was going by what I read in Linux Devices yesterday. Looks like there is not builtin WiFi in the Greenphone. Too bad.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The specs are more similar to PDA devices with GSM support (like those by Qtec). Yet, it will be Linux-powered and flashable. That's a nice toy for geeks. It may even give rise to some kind of subculture.
Just one question. It is announced as GSM/GPRS+WiFi device, but it seems that for this price today it should be GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS + WiFi device. This is a must for a smartphone/GSM-PDA.
it is trilateration, using time of flight which is distance rather than angle.
(And it might use more than three, but since 3 is the minimum, tri seems reasonable).
"Ecosystems" have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with a phone.
According to Trolltech's site, this phone uses the BCM2121 chip, which doesn't seem to support EDGE, limiting its users to significantly slower plain GPRS.
Software
- Qtopia Phone Edition 4.1.4
- Linux kernel 2.4.19
Hardware- Touch-screen and keypad UI
- QVGA® LCD color screen
- Intel® XScale® 312 mHz PXA270
- 64MB RAM & 128MB Flash
- Mini-SD(TM) card slot
- Broadcom® BCM2121 GSM/GPRS baseband processor
- Bluetooth® equipped
- Mini-USB port
And as Lorn Potter points out in the QDevBlog http://blogs.qtdeveloper.net/, he's got one already, so it must be close to production.Hmmm... a phone with a freely modifiable OS. Let me use my psychic powers:
I am seeing millions more posting "wft dude how i clone a celfone?".
I also see the uncountable numbers of tech support calls from grandma who downloaded the "daily bible quote" program only to find that it dials a 900 number every 2 minutes.
I am seeing Stephen Carter, CEO of Cingular, actually falling off of his chair made of solid gold when he hears this news.
I am seeing an emergency RIAA meeting when they figure out that it COULD, POTENTIALLY be made to RECORD and DISTRIBUTE ILLEGAL MUSIC!
I also see a mac user unable to get his mac to talk to his cell phone; but no one really cares.
Nice try, thank you for playing.
If you had bothered to RTFA, you'd see that the phone supports 802.11, and is designed to be SIP enabled.
Has everyone on Slashdot taken stupid pills today????
I've said this like three times: Dude, it is for developers.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
A quick search on google suggests "Results 1 - 10 of about 9,000,000 for unlocking mobile phone". Every corner shop round here (in the UK) seems to be happy do it for you. Can't be that hard surely?
From Reuters:
Trolltech offers fully reprogrammable mobile phone
By Eric Auchard
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Norway's Trolltech AS (TROLL.OL: Quote, Profile, Research) has demonstrated the first fully reprogrammable mobile handset to help phone designers innovate as fast as their counterparts in the personal computer industry have done.
A major divide that separates PCs from mobile telephones is that while designers can freely reprogram a computer's software, most of a phone's functions are fixed at the factory.
"(Independent) developers are having a hard time figuring out how to participate in the mobile phone market," Benoit Schillings, Trolltech's chief technology officer, said in an interview after a news conference to unveil the phone on Monday.
Trolltech, the world's top supplier of Linux software for mobile phones, said it will offer a mobile cameraphone running on the international GSM/GPRS standard it calls Greenphone.
Trolltech's phone is priced at around $690 and comes with all the software and source code necessary to develop a complete mobile phone model, including core Linux operating system controls, a phone dialler, address book and camera application.
The phone is not aimed at consumers, but would allow a wide audience of designers to create new features for future mobile phones.
While the Greenphone, which is due out in September, opens up the field of mobile phone development to small design firms and individuals, it gives large organizations a fully functioning test environment with which to develop new models.
"This industry is in a deadlock over how to make new services evolve on mobile handsets," Schillings said.
FROM GAMES TO INSTANT MESSAGING
Trolltech aims to encourage everything from games to business-level applications to teen instant message devices to be developed using the open design of the Greenphone kit.
A corporation could find it economical to develop a custom phone for say, 1,000 employees, then take the design to a contract manufacturer who would build the phone using standard hardware components according to the design, Schillings said.
Trolltech, which held its initial public offering early last month on the Oslo Stock Exchange, supplies Linux mobile phone software controls to companies such as Motorola Inc. (MOT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the biggest seller of Linux-based phones to date.
The company also supplies a variety of Chinese and Taiwanese electronics manufacturers including Wiston Group, Compal Electronics (2324.TW: Quote, Profile, Research), ZTE (0763.HK: Quote, Profile, Research), China Techfaith (CNTF.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and Yuhua Teltech, which will build the Greenphone.
Linux is an open-source software system that has been gaining ground among electronics makers seeking common ground among the patchwork of hundreds of different phone designs that have fragmented the industry.
Phone makers have designed 40 models with Trolltech software, resulting in 4 million phones sold globally to date.
Yeah, I know, the baseband drivers/firmware/hardware won't let you so that, but it would be nice...
Erm, Cell tracking even in the best enviroments, such as urban ones is not very effective (bad resolution) good for roughly in the area stuff like social networking, but we are talking 150 meter areas at least, so not good for finding the local coffee shop. GPS phones hace GPS in them. There is no hidden functionality in other phones. All phones can be triangulated by the provider, but it happens at the provider. The phone has no idea where the phyiscal location of the cell is.
any thoughts how this may have an advantage over the www.savaje.com all java os?
pretty much able to build your own software to this device thats been available for a few months.
Cheers,
dean
Hm. I wonder how long they'll be able to prevent that.
But anyway, if they need that level of guarantee then, as another poster says, they'll need the code in question actually running in an entirely different piece of hardware; if it was just in a driver somewhere (even if only a binary), it'd still be possible to mess around with. So the other poster was probably right, and the code the spokesman was talking about here is actually running on a different processor and communicating with the linux kernel over some very simple interface.
(Though I don't know why they care whether the sensitive code is open-source or not. It's the hardware, not the license, that keeps you from modifying the code. Or does the code also contain information about using the network that's supposed to be secret?)
TDOA (Time difference of arrival, I think?) location with GSM can provide positioning to finer than 50m accuracy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Here are the links to the SavaJe GSPDA Jasper S20 developer phone.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
There seemed to be more lime at Linuxworld.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
But the round-trip shipping across the Atlantic and customs duties are a bitch.
Gosh, this has gotta be the perfect phone for KDE lovers!
OK. Now I understand that people generally consider apps written in GTK to be gnome apps, but pure Qt apps stand out like a sore thumb on a KDE desktop. Qt is merely the foundation that the multitude of KDE technologies is built on. In fact, about the only people that use KDE that care much about Qt are the developers. Even most of the default Qt widgets are extended in KDE. This phone does not use KDE. It does not use kparts, kio slaves, knotify, or any of the other technologies provided by KDE from the perspective of the end user or the developer.
To summarize, Qt != KDE. This is not a KDE lovers phone.
They can prevent it in part because parts of the GSM protocol are secret (the encryption algorithms, for example) or patent-encumbered. (UMTS is less secret, as I understand it, but it's also much, much more patent-encumbered.)
Well, at least the platform supports it, but the Greenphone doesn't have the chip? The article from 14 is outdated when states that "The device also includes WiFi, and comes with SIP middleware supporting VoIP calls"? My bad then. :)
It is a developer platform, you imbecile. Not a consumer device.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
In the long term I doubt they can really hope to keep stuff like encryption algorithms secret. Even if it's running on entirely separate hardware, I assume it's not *that* hard to reverse engineer. And of course if they ever release those algorithms as software (even if only in binary form), it becomes much easier.
Someone who wants to just screw around with the network on their own may not care about the patents. (And may not even be subject to them, in fact--I think of patents as intended to give a monopoly over commercial exploitation of an invention, not to control what people can fool around with on their own in their basement; but I'm not sure of the legal details there.)
I guess it all depends on who exactly they're trying to prevent from doing what.