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Ask Slashdot: Scripting-Friendly Smartphones?

Posted by timothy on from the also-must-have-infinite-battery-life-and-candy dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I am choosing a smartphone for work, moving up from a long history of just-a-phone phones. This coincides with moving into an environment where I will have a desktop machine in my office, rather using my laptop — so I'll VPN in from home, and am looking forward to not trucking my laptop around everywhere. BUT ... this means I now won't have my laptop all the time. I have gotten used to scripting various little things that make my life easier, and would like to carry that over to the phone. For example, periodically check that a certain machine is online and backing things up the way it is supposed to; if the lab monitoring system sends me an email that the -80 freezer is up to -50, play a sound and run the vibrate system in a specific, arbitrarily chosen pattern; when I press this button, record an MP3, when I release it prep an email with it attached, that sort of thing. Does such a beast exist? Has anyone used one and if so what do you think? Bonus points if you know if I can use it with Rogers (Canadian wireless provider used by my workplace)." I've heard good things about (but never used) the payware Android app called Tasker; what other recommendations do you have for running the world from a smartphone?

3 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Your choices are... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nokia n900 would be my first choice for reasons that are obvious.

    HTC HD2 would be my second choice. Laugh if you must, but the interface HTC slapped over WM 6.5 makes it halfway decent and the APIs are open for pretty much anything you want to put on it.

    1. Re:Your choices are... by RobbieThe1st · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's as you said: Nokia N900, hands down.
      You get:
      1. Fully unlocked phone, unlocked bootloader and real Linux.
      2. Loads of "hacker" tools and apps.
      3. Busybox ash(stock) or full Bash if you want.
      4. The phone part is fully scriptable with dbus commands. There's even a dbus monitor daemon to run a script when a certain dbus signal is sent.
      5. Hardware keyboard, decent specs(CPU's a bit weak, but greatly overclockable), and good screen.
      6. Debian Chroot gives full LXDE system right on your phone if you need it.
      7. Real web-browser functionality: tablet-friendly stock microB(FF based, renders like FF 3), Firefox Mobile, Chromium(desktop version basically), Opera

      Really, it seems to be the only option.
      The N9 might also be doable, but there you have to enable developer mode, and have no hardware keyboard, screen's poorer(AMOLED vs LCD), and it's just more hassle.

  2. Android Scriptin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't forget about sl4a, it's still a legitimate project.