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Linux Crashes the Mobile Party
superglaze writes "ZDNet.co.uk has a fairly comprehensive feature on the progress being made by Linux for cellphones. Seems a pretty consumer deal for now, but there are some interesting hints of Linux eventually challenging Windows Mobile and Symbian in business use. The article also seems to suggest that the two big groups pushing mobile Linux could be amenable to a merger due to common interests."
For one thing I can't really see how Linux falls down on being "rich enough to deliver applications", and his other points just seem to show that Linux doesn't yet have much market penetration in the mobile market. While this is true, slamming it for that in an article about the Linux entry into the mobile market seems odd. I guess maybe it's just a poorly chosen quote by the author.
So tell me what method you're using for time travel. Slackware 3 wasn't released until late 1995. http://www.jeepster.org.uk/history.html
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there aren't enough people who both want a smart-phone and have bought into the Linux ideology to sustain a single Linux-based smart-phone. That's not to say that such a phone couldn't be successful, just that the selling point can't be "it's got Linux!"
What are the real selling points of a smart-phone?
* The applications
* The development environment (promise of new, better apps soon)
* Linking to other devices (syncing)
* The interface
* The phone functions
Apple have just sewn up the interface, everyone gets the phone functions pretty much right, syncing is okay generally (non-Windows phones are hurt by closed Exchange servers), most people do apps reasonably well and the dev environment is okay for some, not so hot for others (Apple).
How will a Linux smart-phone distinguish itself from the pack? It's no longer enough to be as good as the rest. These phones have to be much better. Maybe the better APIs and adherence to standards will be enough. It won't win the 'cool' factor that we saw the iPhone blitz just recently, but maybe it'll be enough.
I'd like to see more sizzle to help sell the sausage.
The "Big Deal" for someone in your position is that increased Linux market share - even if in a different market - leads to awareness and interest. It's a step towards what you're asking for, even if only a small one. Wouldn't this also mean the OS is open source? It'd be significantly easier to have some "homebrew" programs to sync a phone when you have a notable chunk of the phone's code, right? Maybe only slightly easier? People can still sync a lot of locked-down Apple hardware with their Linux boxen. If the same minds give the Linux-based phones a go, you won't have long before we gotsa come and wake you.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
Well, due to the nature of openness, it doesn't really matter if they all run the same OS, as long as they all speak the same language. Now, having all devices being POSIX compatible is something I really like, but it wouldn't really bother me if my car ran BSD instead of Ubuntu.
Thank God for evolution.
The funny thing about articles like this is there are always "experts" crying about shortcomings in Linux, yet the people actually making the phones are going toward Linux. In reality their criticisms don't hold enough weight to actually discourage the Linux train from rolling. I have recently begun to make the observation that people who actually develop for and use Linux don't have the same concerns as the analysts. Analysts cry "fragmentation", however in the actual Linux community it really isn't a problem. I've yet to run into the developer that says "oh man, I'm going to have to recode so much of this app for Ubuntu from Red Hat. This is going to suck...". Or what about the user "I've used Red Hat before but this Ubuntu is so damn confusing to get used to". The people that seem to criticize the most seem to have the least amount of Linux experience and form their opinions mostly on hearsay.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
I don't want to crash your little party here, but how exactly is running Linux supposed to solve your problems? The main problem on any handheld device is usability. Not the OS it runs. Do you know why the iPhone looks so refreshing? Because Apple is attacking the usability problem. Fingers friendly interface. A fullscreen/zoom based browser, ...
You can do most of that now, My PDA's run Linux (familiar), My routers run Linux (Open Embedded), my 'stereo' runs Linux (Debian) my computers run Linux (Debian again) and my media centre runs Linux (Debian yet again). Its a really nice set up. NFS all round so file access, streaming media and internet radio (now using deezer) is possible anywhere. Best of all is that the PDA's are effectively universal remote controls, Wake on LAN means I can turn on and off any device from literally anywhere in the world (which can be fun if I want to confuse the missus or the kids). The next step is for me to get a stable VPN working properly so that I can have even more remote access (I currently use SSH via my mobile, or via my PDA + mobile). Connectivity is wired for anything non portable, WiFi for the portable kit (although one of the PDA's is blue tooth only) Mobile, generally 3G, when I am on the road (via blue tooth so no cables or having to actually look at my phone). So all I need now is a Linux phone (which I will get when my current phone breaks) to complete the set. It is interesting and extremely useful, some bizarre possibilities also become available, like using a PDA as a baby monitor, or using a web cam in our office to check if I left a document on the desk (and then grabbing a soft copy from home and printing it where ever I happen to be.
I find the following quote from the article quite misleading:
"Imagine I'm an IT manager contemplating standardising on a mobile platform. I want something rich enough to deliver applications, that's available from multiple manufacturers, offering a decent range of handsets with corporate features. Linux just falls down on all of those."
The point of "that's available from multiple manufacturers", while a very valid point, surely linux is the only one that really is available from multiple manufacturers.
With symbian or windows mobile, you may be able to get the hardware from multiple vendors, but your stuck with a single vendor for the software. With linux, as the article states, there are at least 2 groups pushing mobile linux, and multiple hardware manufacturers also rolling their own.
The freedom of being able to buy your hardware from multiple vendors doesn't is far less of an advantage if you only have one vendor to buy the software from, whereas the freedom to obtain both hardware and software from multiple vendors is a huge benefit to the purchaser.
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in 1999, they were saying that Linux would never amount to owning more than 1% of internet servers by 2005. And at that time, Linux was already one of the dominant players
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I strongly disagree. While I think phone UIs tend to be far from perfect and agree there's a lot of room for improvement, they're usable. I can start a phone call in a few seconds, sometimes a lot quicker than that.
I think the main problems with today's phones are:
- Trustworthiness. How do I know the mic isn't on and transmitting to someone? (That's not hypothetical anymore; we know it actually happens; theoretical risks are becoming reality.) Why are my conversations still unencrypted in 2007? that's ridiculous. Most of my time spent on my phone is talking with people I regularly meet in the real world. There's just no reason we shouldn't have a nice, big OTP, and PKs for fallback whenever the OTP runs out.
- Lock-in and closedness. Why do I have to pay to get a ringtone onto this thing? (Not that I want my phone to make annoying noises, but there's a principle at stake here.) Why will my phone stop working if I put another network's SIM chip into it? Why do some people have to pay to get photographs that they took, out of their own device?
- Lack of connectivity options. If I'm near a 802.11 network, I should be able to (optionally) use that (perhaps at the cost of more power) for my side of the network connection, instead of the more expensive cell networks. If I'm near the person I'm calling (e.g. "hey, where the hell in this huge building are you?") I should be able to directly link w/out going through anyone's network at all. As long as phone manufacturers and network providers have such a close relationship, we're not going to get these features, no matter how obvious and desirable they are.
Having our phones run Free Software is a really big deal. I think it matters even more on phones, than it does on desktop personal computers. We need these devices to start serving the interests of the users, instead of the network providers, governments, and who-the-fuck-knows-else.As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
So you read some Microsoft press releases and decided to drop thousands of dollars on a platform without further research? You didn't look into the availability of programs before making the switch? Your developers didn't look at a basic tutorial to .NET compact framework? You didn't read reviews on the phone to check its stability? Now that's what I call planning! By the way, I've got a bridge for sale if you want to take a look...