Slashdot Mirror
The Death of the Greenphone
phobos13013 writes "Trolltech announced this week that they will discontinue development on their Greenphone platform. The Greenphone was advertised to be the first phone with a user-modifiable environment. Trolltech CTO Benoit Schilling stated that they are not really a hardware company and so will focus their efforts on FIC's Neo 1973, now available. However, Schilling hinted at a future Wi-Fi-enabled endeavor (possibly a VOIP phone)."
TrollTech still throws me off and makes me think its fake, but the Greenphone did sound really neat.
Twitter.com/TrentonHyatt
I was pretty excited about this project after reading about it in Linux Journal a couple of months ago. Too bad that it won't see the light of day.
Maybe OpenMoko can fill the void left behind...
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Really, look at the demographics. Who buys all those pink iPods? Teen girls. The kind of people that spend all day talking and texting on their phone. Who gets a hard on over linux? Introverted geeks. The kind of people that want pizza delivery robots so they can avoid all human contact.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It might make your knee grow!
It would appear that they'e sold out of phones.
And yet they're quitting development?
DOES NOT COMPUTE!
They'll be back, I think, with something else. There's plenty of reasons for a corporate entity to want to provide customized phones to its employees, or to give them out as a promotion, or stuff like that.
It's too cool a gadget idea to throw away.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
It is a common misconception that these phones can't be economically feasible because only a small number of 'geeks' will use them. Yes, I would like a 'geek-friendly' phone, but more importantly, I want a 'developer-friendly' phone. One with a nice API to access bluetooth and wifi capabilities.
When that happens, the general non-geek population benefits due to the availability of quality software that will run on the phone.
So, step 1: make the phone easy to use
Step 2: make the phone customizable
Step 3: make the phone developer-friendly
Step 4: let me use the same API for different phones; I'm sick of recoding half of my program to make it compatible with a different phone!
- Demosthenes
cynicsreport.com
Apparently.
Modded troll for disagreeing with a furry-toothed-geeks view of Wikipedia. Pah.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Or does anyone else think this would be a great way to spy on your kid, your spouse, etc.. I wonder how many techie nerds bought this out of jealousy or fear... Why couldn't you program this open-phone to auto pickup from a certain number, disable the speaker, and transmit audio? All without a single ring, vibration, or visual cue.
I thought apples iPhone was insane at $500, and this thing is/was $200 more than that? No wonder it was a failure.
The $300 neo 1973 replacement is still a bit steep for me, but at least it's in the ballpark.
AccountKiller
nt
OpenMoko and the 1973 will fail just as the Greenphone did. There is no leadership behind the project, no vision, just a bunch of well-intentioned geeks who want to make something cool. With no cohesive plan, though, the Neo1973 will never succeed.
iPhone is still "it" for those of us who want a powerful *NIX-based cellphone -- even if we have to fight Steve Jobs tooth and nail for it.
+++ATH0
Has anyone gotten to play around with or develop for the Neo 1973?
I like the idea, but I need to play with a phone before I buy it.
I wonder how hard it would be to adapt a NEO 1973 to VOIP. It's got USB, but I don't think it could handle a USB NIC.
Why does no one understand that the Greenphone was purely a developer platform?
It was never meant for consumers, and the fact that it works as a phone is purely secondary to its main function of providing a test bed for developing mobile phone applications for Trolltech's platform. Comparing it to consumer, mass market phones doesn't make any sense.
This was never true, and is even less so now: http://kdemyths.urbanlizard.com/myth/60
http://www.copyblogger.com/5-common-mistakes-that-make-you-look-dumb/
First, cynicsreport's post above mine should have at least gotten a score of 2 or 3. Read the post from beginning to end -- giving him/her a 1 is simply mislabeling that diligence. He doesn't mention S.o.A. but is clear enough on referring to API inclusiveness which is what most programmers today understand.
My post: flamebait?? Perhaps off-topic but certainly not flame bait. Where is your rationale with calling me a flamebaiter? I am engendering communication and coordination on development issues and the ownership factors that affect them here. Everyone knows microshit has a long reach maybe they've gotten to the core beneficiaries of slashdot too.
It's not my fault that <p> paragraph breaks sometimes don't work at the beginning of HTML posts and between italics mark-up. Fix the damn code!
Is this thing available? The website says that I (the consumer) should come back in October. I guess I will check again in 5 days
but it is not looking good. My contract is up soon so I might not mind trying Neo but they sure don't look ready for business.
Yabbit, at $300 it's ugly as sin, has few features, and you have to program it yourself. Wake me when the promises are something other than vaporware and I'll listen to propaganda about replacing this iPhone I enjoy immensely.
Assuming we all had Neos with mobile broadband access and TrixBoxes(Asterisk) running at home what would the future look like? Open Source VOIP? Would we have something like email addresses instead of phone numbers? FYI, my biggest IT coup was installing asterisk at work and having it email everybody voice messages as email attachments. Best bang for your buck if you're about to ask for a raise.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
Just an observation, Perhaps they're scrapping this idea to focus on the next line of UMPC/phone/you-name-it Computers, that are getting smaller and smaller (PicoITX anyone?) as time goes on. At least this would seem, IMHO, a better direction for such future portable devices than focusing on just the phone portion of development.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Developing for mobile is a pain generally... having a phone that is easy to develop for would be a good thing for both mobile developers and consumers.
Try -1 flamebait, -1 troll, -2 stupid. Now stop whining and go back to blowing bill gates or steve jobs or whoever's nuts it is you were sucking on last.
The Farewell Tour II
Only 5.7% never has been and never will be a controlling interest. They NEVER "controlled" Trolltech, which is exactly what the original post was claiming. The truth is waiting for your apology.
The Farewell Tour II
Jesus. Get a grip and a life.
It was never meant for developers, either. For ${deity}'s sake, it only supported GPRS. Name one developer who's going to spend lots of his own, personal cash on a phone that maxes out at ~38kbit/sec for data. I don't care HOW customizable it is... a phone that only supports GPRS is a paperweight. Of course, they'll blame its failure on Linux, or the niche market, or its price, and totally overlook its REAL failure -- its lack of support for at least EDGE.
Did I hurt your feelings with simple math, or just your brain?
The Farewell Tour II
Name one developer who's going to spend lots of his own, personal cash on a phone that maxes out at ~38kbit/sec for data. I don't care HOW customizable it is... a phone that only supports GPRS is a paperweight
I think you still don't understand. Developer platform doesn't mean "phone marketed towards the developer/geek market" it means "device that developers use to test their software on". It's really only that, and the lack of EDGE is not really an issue (unless the network speed is crucial to your testing).
Of course, they'll blame its failure on Linux
Trolltech is hugely supportive of Linux (sponsoring developers to work on X, KDE, and freedesktop.org projects like harfbuzz), and the Greenphone wasn't a failure so finding a scapegoat isn't necessary.
The link to the press release on the KDE myths page is broken, so here is an alternate one:
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050524172943589
nice try
Oh good, cynicsreport got credit where credit is due: ''Score:3, Insightful''
I'm finding your obsession with yourself quite amusing.
You must be a troll ?
You don't seem to understand what the purpose of the Greenphone dev kit is.
As a development platform, the need for any network at all is not necessary.
well, if i remember correctly, they charged for the sdk. which probably killed a lot of enthusiasm from the oss crows. now, what i really hope for - that openmoko and the associated devices will be both very geek friendly and very user friendly, thus making it an ideal device to get for me and to recommend for everybody else.
Rich
it only supported GPRS. Name one developer who's going to spend lots of his own, personal cash on a phone that maxes out at ~38kbit/sec for data.
Errm, I might.
I mean, of course I want UMTS, but at the moment there are no open platforms that support it - the Neo1973 is GPRS and GSM only and I'm seriously considering getting one. To be blunt, I'm sick of crappy closed devices that aren't developer friendly (and in the case of my Symbian UIQ phone and VxWorks phone, totally unstable even when you're using them for what they were _designed_ to do).
To me, having a decent speed connection is secondary to actually being able to do useful stuff on the phone, which the current closed platforms do not let me do.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
We were considering their Qt platform for cross platform development. It had everything we needed, it is well thought out and well implemented. However it is also buggy.
Some of the team expressed concerns, so we arranged a conference call with them.
Every answer was one step departed from what we expected/wanted. We hoped for, "yeh we've fixed that one", "that one will be fixed on Monday", "well send you a new version next week". These were minor easy to fix things, some of them had been listed on their bug database for 8 months already.
Instead we got, 'this is how we prioritize bugs', 'we've assigned that one a medium priority', 'the programmer accepts it's a bug' (so the programmer drives the spec not the business???), 'we'll give you a discount for hiring our consultants for 3 days to fix the bugs' (if the bugs can be fixed in a few days why didn't they fix them in the gap between us reporting them and the conference call FFS, if it can't you're just trying to sell us consultants which we don't need).
Our assumption was that there would be a whole string of bugs we would hit, and what we expected from them was that these very trivial bugs we'd hit during evaluation would be fixed in a few days. But what we got was sales patter and evasion. I withdrew my support for Qt and it was abandoned.
They need to get their act together.
I think you don't need to say *NIX anymore. OS X Leopard 10.5 is certified UNIX, and as the iPhone is based on OSX, isn't the iPhone the first UNIX phone?
even if we have to fight Steve Jobs tooth and nail for it.I thought Apple is going to open up the platform for developers.
The Neo runs X11 on a 640x480 screen and allows multiple toolkits to run on the same screen. If TrollTech wants to run in that environment, that's good.
On the other hand, if they are going to port Qt/Embedded and try to take over the phone, like they have done on other phones, they should forget it; those attempts at monopolizing the platform are unwelcome.
Overall, I'm kind of doubtful that TrollTech has much to contribute anyway. Devices based on Qt/Embedded have had lackluster commercial success, and the platform has serious usability problems in my opinion. Maybe the company should stick to writing toolkits and leave the end user experience to people who have more experience with that.
Trolltech is exploitive of Linux. They're providing QT to the KDE community so as to promote the sales of their development platform. While many people don't see this as a problem, I personally do.
The "KDE Myths" page, should be more upfront and less marketing speak, the truth is that many people simply don't care about restrictions to closed software development. The original Qt licenses were absurd, today's is at least as legal as the GPL. Unlike Redhat, Sun, Netscape, or other FOSS-positive companies, they're not selling support and giving back to the community. They're using the GPL to create a problem which the LGPL was designed to solve, but TT charges a per-developer license fee to circumvent.
http://kdemyths.urbanlizard.com/myth/65/
"... The LGPL is a solution to a problem that Qt doesn't have. The whole point of the LGPL is to make the development of proprietary programs possible: but Qt already allows everyone to develop proprietary programs, by providing an alternative commercial license [for a fee] to those willing to do so. ..."
Given that projects like OO and Mozilla depend on dual-licenses, is it conceivable that OO might ever actually use the native KDE toolkit?
Why does no one understand that the Greenphone was purely a developer platform?
I do understand that, I just don't think it really matters. If the developer version cost $700, how much was the consumer version of whatever this thing would become going to cost? Does the developer version have a whole lot more hardware that the consumer version doesn't? Or did they just price the developer version really high to try to re-coup costs? I didn't see any target prices for the consumer level version, so I'm only left to wonder. I sure as hell wouldn't want to develop software for a phone that costs somewhere around $600-$700. It's just not mass-market enough. If they raised the price to try to re-coup costs, it seems like they really don't have enough cash to market this thing to large amounts of people.
The thing is that the price reflects a lot about what you can't see, or what you aren't told.
AccountKiller
If the developer version cost $700, how much was the consumer version of whatever this thing would become going to cost?
There were never any plans for a consumer version. As a developer, you're not buying the Greenphone to develop for some future iGreenPhone, you're buying it to develop for either your own device (before the hardware is ready) or for other open phones based on Qtopia.
Trolltech is exploitive of Linux. They're providing QT to the KDE community so as to promote the sales of their development platform. While many people don't see this as a problem, I personally do.
You're confusing mutualism with parasitism. Of course Trolltech benefits from having KDE use their toolkit. They get free testing and bug reports from hundred of OSS devs. KDE benefits as well, because they get an excellent C++ toolkit without having to waste time developing it themselves. Given the complexity of something like Qt, this is a massive advantage for KDE.
The rest of the Linux world benefits from being able to develop high quality GPL applications based on Qt, and taking advantage of the improvements to cross-desktop projects.
Given that projects like OO and Mozilla depend on dual-licenses, is it conceivable that OO might ever actually use the native KDE toolkit?
OO has their own toolkit, and will probably never migrate to either GTK or Qt. That said, OO on Linux has a KDE "wrapper" around it, which makes it fit into a KDE environment well. However, I'm not sure if the widgets are being rendered by Qt/KDE, or if they are just styled to look like them. I can't see any differences to regular Qt/KDE widgets though, so I think Qt is actually doing the rendering.
That makes a little more sense, though it still seems like a strange idea. I assumed "developer edition" meant it was for software developers, not hardware developers.
AccountKiller
ripping off potential site names, I DO grouse (privately, usually) that a topic I submit is instead posted by someone else. I am pretty sure I submitted it to slash, but someone else gets credit. I suppose Slash only wants stories by non-controversial or non-looney types.
My submission/post, at 12:36 on Thursday:
"
TrollTech's GreenPhone discontinued...
[ Edit | Delete | 0 Comments | #185749 ]
Thursday October 25, @12:36PM
User Journal
Nothing emotional or rhetorical in this story submission. But, I did not see this coming. However, according to the article:
"Despite the announcement of the discontinuation of its flagship mobile phone development platform, the company also announced that the mobile phone would be superceded by a number of new devices, including that of portable media devices and additional mobile phones, although the new models are to be distributed by third-parties."
More at:
http://linuxformat.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=613&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
"
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Signs are not looking good for opportunities for the little guy to develop applications for the iPhone. This means open-source software goes out the window -- unless we continue to hack the thing.
+++ATH0
... but in any case having to do with the cell phone industry in the United States, the overwhelmingly safe bet is always the pessimistic one when it comes to consumer rights and putting power in the hands of the consumer.
The industrial design is bad, there is no leadership and it will probably never get better. I hate it, but it's true.
+++ATH0
The Greenphone program was not a failure, it was a success. It did what it set out to do. Trolltech never was going to release this to the consumer mass market. It was developers only.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Best regards
Knut Yrvin
Community Manager Trolltech ASA
The phone came with an sdk. You could download the SDK for free, as well.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
when the phone came out, there were a lot of materials about this - a quick search reveals only comments right now, but searching more would turn up much more.
:)
from a comment :
http://lwn.net/Articles/248819/
"Too bad that quite a few components in the Greenphone SDK are proprietary. That makes it almost useless as a developer's toy."
if i remember correctly, they opensourced it when openmoko started or something - but the community desire to hack on it was seriously reduced by keeping sdk closed. imho
Rich