Trolltech announced that Qtopia Phone Edition has been ported to the Neo1973 mobile phone from FIC and open-source software provider OpenMoko and has been GPL’ed. Now, in addition to Trolltech’s Qtopia GreenphoneT, developers have an additional reference platform and form factor for development and testing of new mobile Qtopia applications. Read on for more and a short Q&A with Benoit Schillings, CTO of Trolltech (also of BeOS fame as one of the original Be, Inc. engineers).Trolltech also continues to support Greenphone as a reference platform for mobile development within the company and through its partners. The full GPL version of Qtopia Phone Edition will also be configured to run on the Greenphone, a mobile camera phone that can be re-flashed with new and different applications.
A technology preview of Qtopia Phone Edition licensed under the GPL and running on the Neo1973 is available from Trolltech’s website. Trolltech anticipates the final release of Qtopia 4.3 to be released in late October.
1. How does Trolltech expect the opening of Qtopia Phone Edition will impact the mobile phone landscape?
Benoit Schillings: Trolltech believes in opening up mobile phone development, so this news serves to underscore our commitment. The Neo 1973 has a good amount of support and interest in the open source community, so by creating Qtopia-based applications that can work on open reference platforms like Greenphone and now, the Neo1973, developers have more choice.
Ultimately, by GPL’ing the last few components of Qtopia Phone Edition, we have given phone manufacturers and the community the possibility of creating phones with a complete open software platform.
2. Are both the touch-screen version and the normal phone versions open sourced?
Benoit Schillings: They are actually the same version. But yes, the 100% GPL version of Qtopia Phone Edition will run on both touch screens and regular. In addition, the Qtopia image we created for the Neo also includes some new user interaction tweaks that take even better advantage of a touch-screen based phone.
3. What is your opinion about the 4-5 different Linux mobile phone groups that exist and compete with each other instead of joining forces to create “killer” platform?
Benoit Schillings: I doubt that this situation will be tenable in the long run and expect to see a lot of consolidation in this area. I also think that if these initiatives were more clear regarding the layering of the work, a lot of overlap and replication could be avoided. Hopefully, this will take place and we will see that these initiatives are more focused on providing discrete components which can be reused across the board instead of trying to create a complete solution from scratch. Finally, you often do see that these initiatives slow down once the competitive aspect of the platform becomes the issue.
The stock OpenMoko software which ships with the Neo1973 is very incomplete and pretty much useless, so you cannot use the Neo1973 as a day-to-day phone with that software according to http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Developer_preview.
Now that we have Qtopia on the Neo1973, does that mean the Neo1973 is a useful phone and I can use it in the real world?
I was about to ask the same question
Just tried calling and being called as well as sending/receiving SMS – it works!!! MMS currently only via HTTP (which is not that widely supported), unless you compile Qtopia with a 3rd party WAP stack. Didn’t try browsing/VoIP yet, but they should work.
Playing asteroids with touch only is tough, though
see Haiku ported to those, but I’m biased.
It’s still great to see Free Software for those devices, as they usually don’t ship with WinCE CDs, so it’s harder get it refund as it’s less evident it’s a linked-sale…
If that’s gonna be picked up by the community it’s going to be big news for all of people considering neo purchase.
With all the respect to mobile gnome, qtopia is way more mature.
For trolltech it’s also a very smart move (unless they planned to seriousely profit their reference which would be really silly).
Trolltech was selling the Greenphone at cost, they were not making a cent on it.
Smart move by TT. They are trying to establish Qtopia as a standard on mobile phones and this is a move in that direction. They have the technology; now they need people to start using it.
This is good news.
Does running Qtopia on Neo1973 mean replacing OpenMoko, or can they live side by side?
Since both are open source, I realize that anybody could take the two and make them one. The question is rather if they, out of the box, run on a common embedded Linux distribution.
One of the exciting things of open source is that we always have choices! With open sourced qtopia PE, I can choose what to run in my neo.
I like the fact that things are moving for linux in the mobile arena, but they keep saying they are for developers only…
I wonder how far away the day is when the geeks like me who aren’t developers per se (though I do know some rudimentary Ruby through self teaching…)will be able to play with it as well and get to have some fun…
Until then, I guess I will just enjoy the pictures of the cool looking little phones…
So far it looks like this day will be Chrismas: (see “Phase 2”)
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973
This phone is actually shaping up nicely, with the Trolltech PE it could actually turn into a very usable device, fairly quickly. Only thing its missing in GPS. $450 is a bit steep for this type of device though, I hope they don’t price themselves out of the market like the Palm Folio did. You need market penetration before you can charge a premium, and at $450 this is premium pricing.
Edited 2007-09-18 15:02
Every phone you buy from a cell carrier is subsidized by the carrier and/or the device maker. (the phones are just razor handles to them
) So you won’t get that discount if you buy a third party device.
I can’t think of anything more premium at the moment than a completely open cellphone platform. Its a nice looking touchscreen phone too. I am willing to pay extra for a phone that is just UNLOCKED, so its not a leash for the often unscrupulous phone companies to control me. A phone that I could choose my own applications and content is a dream come true. The last link to mobile freedom would be the open spectrum Google was pushing for earlier this year. The freedom to REALLY choose a provider, or even BECOME a small time service provider. That would change the Rules of the game. Mobile companies would then begin to have to compete for customers, instead of simply luring them into contracts that are not in the customers interests.
Edited 2007-09-18 15:46
It does have GPS. From http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Hardware:AGPS
“he AGPS chip in the Neo1973 is called Hammerhead, and it is the same chip used in TomTom one devices…”
I think on this side are some screenshots:
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Qtopia_on_Neo_1973
Do anybody know of other screenshots?
What I don’t like on OpenMoko is, that all feels big and fat. (The icons and so on there)
It seems that the clock of Qtopia have slim hands. But the rest feels fat.
Here are other screenshots of Qtopia on other phones.
There it looks not so fat:
http://www.botch.com/~mpilone/projects/tipper/images/snapshot1.png
http://www.lucid-cake.net/osx_qpe/index_en.html
http://www.futurebytes.ch/world-of-mobilephone/qtopia-greenphone-li…
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8030785497.html
http://www.wide-eye.de/pda_sl5500.htm
> Here are other screenshots of Qtopia on other phones.
Those are mostly not phones, those are Qtopia running on the SL5500 PDA. The version of Qtopia on PDA is not the same as the version that morphed in to Greenphone.
Here the youtube videos, where Qtopia on OpenMoko is shown:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW5q8SpY7t4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOG_mtSEMgs
Is it possible to use Linux+Qtopia on regular phones like Nokia (given that it has ARM9 processor and enough RAM)?
It sure is – once you re-engineer the flashing process and the proprietary protocols :/ Qtopia has a plugin architecture. When porting to a new board, usually no changes to Qtopia are required, just a new device profile.
Damn good news.