At least three Linux-based phones were shown at CES this week. WNC’s GW1 dual mode GSM/WiFi SIP phone is running a version of Trolltech’s latest Qtopia Phone edition with VoIP/SIP capabilities. Motorola showed its new Linux-based ROKR E2 feature-phone too (pics, video), but the iTunes software is now removed. This feature phone uses Motorola’s new softkey-based UI. Recently, information became known for Motorola’s A1200, which uses the older touchscreen UI, same to the one we reviewed a few months ago. Unfortunately, the SDKs of these phones won’t be released to developers at large to create native applications, as Motorola is not interested in creating a compatible Linux “platform” similar to Symbian/WinMobile/Palm platforms and instead is pushing just for generic Java apps.
Linux Heats Up in the Mobile Phone Market
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Eugenia Loli
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Allright this may be a long shot but since the new phone is linux based and will run the phone version of itunes. Doesn’t that mean that apple has ported itunes to linux to make this happen. If so why not just take it a step further with itunes on linux desktop.
Do you actually _read_ the news items before you post?
The new ROKR phone does NOT have the iTunes software in it anymore. The deal between Motorola and Apple is off because “it’s a matter of time before Apple releases its own phone”, according to the Motorola CEO a few months ago.
Besides, the phone version of iTunes is “iTunes” only in the name. There is no way to buy songs or do complicated stuff. It’s just a music player that “knows” how to play the DRM’ed purchased songs.
Additionally, iTunes for phones is just a very small Java application, not the real iTunes. It can run on any modern phone –Linux or not–, with minimal changes to the source code (if any), if Apple wanted it to.
Edited 2006-01-06 08:03
“Do you actually _read_ the news items before you post?”
Ya know you could have just said no. I didn’t really need or appreciate the smartass remark.
To be fair, your question was answered by the third sentence of the article blurb.
Don’t get me wrong; I have the A780, and I do like it. However, I don’t like that Motorola releases cool hardware with an operating system like Linux and then doesn’t let developers gain access to the fun stuff (GPS, bluetooth, etc.). Come on! Not even JSR-82?!! It’s a tease.
I will not buy another Linux phone from Motorola until they open up a little. It’s completely idiotic how they’re handling this. What good is it if their phones have Linux but can only run Java apps? I might as well be running a smaller, faster, more efficient OS on my phone.
Anybody have recommendations on smartphone based on an actual open platform?
“Anybody have recommendations on smartphone based on an actual open platform?”
I don’t know about open but Symbian (e.g. Nokia Series 60 phones like the 3230) would probably be a good start.
Symbian despite not being open source, actually DOES provide SDK, so it’s even better choice than Linux. You get example source code, tons of utilities, tons of libraries (bluetooth and others).
I don’t like to have ANY unix tools on the cell phone/PDA. I don’t care if OS is OpenSource or not. I don’t like BS about vendors leaving legacy hardware. How many % of users use legacy hardware ? 0.1% ? So screw it.
What good is it if their phones have Linux but can only run Java apps?
That your apps run on more than just one phone. Ideally, you want one API that works on any phone, no matter what OS it runs, and Java provides this. The lack of JSR-82 is a big bummer, though, I was very disappointed not seeing that on my V3 either.
And just in case someone doesn’t know it, JRS-82 is defined to standardize the set of Java APIs to allow the integration of Java enabled devices with Bluetooth.
Instead using Linux(GPLd), Motorola should try MINIX which is BSD licensed and another big advantage is that it is MicroKernel !!!
You are unmasked… Andrew Tanenbaum !
(Just kidding…)
Aside from the lack of hardware support, and the fact that minix runs signifigantly slower than Linux as everything is done in userspace. Try it out for yourself and you might be dissapointed… http://www.minix3.org
I was contemplating possibility to buy a V3 until very recently. After having the phone home I can safely say no for Motorola (again). Back to the best of best, and that’s Nokia. I don’t know if (for me) it makes a big difference having a Linux phone or not but having a baterry life for a week worth all money in my book. V3 took maximum of three days (in fact was less, but heck). I would like to see some Linux Nokia. I do believe that’s pretty much impossible atm.
Linux is making it’s way into cell phones now, so that pretty makes it applied in all types of situations now –
Big Iron Servers – check
Super high speed super computers – check
Routers – check
Firewalls – check
Mail servers – check
Web servers (most popular web server OS) – check
Desktop (great desktop distros) – check
TiVO boxes – check
Appliances – check
Sony Playstation – check
Various NASA deployments – check
Hand held wireless data collection devices – check
And now cell phones – check
Is there anything Linux isn’t good at? Not yet anyway.
No othe OS can make the same claim.
Windows is an easy, ubiquitous (if fragile and insecure) desktop OS
MacOSX is a great (if limited hardware wise) desktop OS
Solaris is a fantastic big iron server and good workstation OS
AIX and HP-UX are great big iron OSs
OS400 is a great medium range server OS for AS400 boxes
Symbian is a great cell phone OS
FreeBSD is a great medium range server and decent desktop OS
NetBSD is great for running on different platforms
OpenBSD is a great super secure small/medium range server and firewall/router OS
… all those OSs are great at certain things, in their particular niches …
But Linux is great at all of those categories, and more.
Don’t think you can call it a cellphone, but Nokia 770 is linux-based.
The interesting thing about this phone, and other phones, using Linux as operating system is that the manufacturer of these phones are required to provide their users with the exact source code of the linux kernel, with the modifications they did to it in order to make it run on their cell phones, upon request (by the way, is the GPL text included with the cellphone’s documentation? 😉 )
This means that anyone could potentially write his own operating system, or embedded application, for such cellphones. Isn’t that cool?
No is not cool, because it is a tremedous undertaking re-inventing the wheel. While the kernel code will be released, the drivers for the phone will not, neither the graphical toolkit will. In other words, having just the linux kernel and periphernalia libs released, is close to useless to help you recreate a USABLE phone functionality on these phones.
If the drivers are linked with the kernel, they oughta be released. In any case, having the source code of a kernel of a cellphone is certainly better than not having it at all, it will certainly help understading how to have the phone started up, at least. The rest may be figured out.
We’re talking about hacking here.