The open-ezx project launches
Posted Oct 19, 2005 16:07 UTC (Wed)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (5 responses)
This situation reminds me of my Archos. As shipped, it was an utter piece of garbage. Along came the RockBox project and turned it into a fantastic MP3 player. All it took was decent firmware.
Can open source save the cell phone industry in the same way? I'll be watching this project closely.
Posted Oct 19, 2005 17:01 UTC (Wed)
by ajross (guest, #4563)
[Link] (4 responses)
My favorite UI glitch is the "recent calls" list, which shows (no
joke) only time of day for all the entries, even those made weeks ago.
But: you can get a shell on it (it's a USB CDC network device with a
telnet daemon and samba running out of the box), compile lots of
useful gadgets (ntpdate has been very helpful) and have a ton of fun,
if you're already a Linux geek.
Unfortunately you can't build Qt programs -- they have a custom
version that doesn't play well with the free downlaods. The only
mechanism for writing UI software is J2ME. Hopefully the OpenEZX
project can help to rectify this -- I joined the list, certainly.
Posted Oct 19, 2005 17:52 UTC (Wed)
by hazard (guest, #3695)
[Link]
Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:11 UTC (Thu)
by sepreece (guest, #19270)
[Link] (2 responses)
Just to clarify this a little, the Recent Calls log does have the dates of the calls, but you have to click on a call to see its date. Not saying this was a great choice, but many other phones don't include either the date or time in the top-level calls list; it's still better than that (and arguably more useful than just showing the day, at least for the most-common use cases). Even on a QVGA screen, in the normal font, there isn't room for both date and time plus an icon and a moderately long phone number if you want to use a single line (and, thereby, get more calls on a single screen).
The e-mail client may be minimal, but it's better than having none (again, most phones don't) and I found it very useful while traveling in Europe without my laptop. YMMV.
Posted Oct 20, 2005 19:23 UTC (Thu)
by ajross (guest, #4563)
[Link] (1 responses)
Nonesense. You do this by giving up precision and showing only the
higher order bits:
This takes maybe 20 lines of code, a few hours, and a little creativity on the part of the author. Quadruple the effort if you want to internationalize it. The fact that it wasn't done tells me that the phone software was written on contract to a rigid and uncreative specification, and that the "designer" was more concerned with checklist features ("recent calls" -- roger that) than working software.
Which is to say: they did it like they did all their other software, and it sucks just as much. Having a linux kernel can't save Motorola from its lack of good design sense.
Posted Oct 20, 2005 20:54 UTC (Thu)
by sepreece (guest, #19270)
[Link]
Any product designed for a wide range of users is going to satisfy some more than others. Recent Calls is, in particular, an area where studies show that different people use the lists very differently. It's also an area where different geographical regions have different existing practices There are also cognitive-complexity issues in mixing different kinds of values (dates and times) in the same column. Again, it depends on the particular use case that matters most to the way a particular individual uses the phone - how often you use it to answer different kinds of questions - which is why design teams watch how users actually use the phone and apply that knowledge to new designs.
Again, I don't speak for Motorola and I'm not defending this particular decision (I would probably prefer your design, if asked, though it wouldn't make any real difference to the way I use the phone). If you're interested in our design processes, I believe there are papers in the CHI literature and trade press; our design side has gotten a lot of media attention lately.
Posted Oct 20, 2005 22:10 UTC (Thu)
by BrucePerens (guest, #2510)
[Link] (2 responses)
Bruce
Posted May 3, 2006 9:18 UTC (Wed)
by antosimo (guest, #37505)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted May 24, 2006 13:49 UTC (Wed)
by alt.blank (guest, #37942)
[Link]
i have unsubscribed to gprs now (costs way too much to be justified as a worthwhile parttime activity!) and haven't been able to test this on my new motorola a780, though i suspect it should work.
good luck.
Some time around the millenium cell phone UIs became atrociously bad. I have tried Nokia, Moto, and Siemens and all of them are slooow to respond, have extremely poorly thought out menus, and just don't come near the utility that the hardware should allow.The open-ezx project launches
Yup, that's pretty much the deal with this phone too. The killer
application is the built-in Opera browser, which works surprisingly
well for viewing typical web pages on the 240x320 screen. Everything
else is pretty much junk. The email client is a joke (as is IMAP over
GPRS). The Qt-based UI is astonishingly slow.
The open-ezx project launches
Compared to some Symbian phones the UI is pretty fast from my experience. I do agree that email client is junk though. :)The open-ezx project launches
My favorite UI glitch is the "recent calls" list, which shows (no joke)The open-ezx project launches
only time of day for all the entries, even those made weeks ago.
The open-ezx project launches
Even on a QVGA screen, in the normal font, there isn't room for both date and time plus an icon and a moderately long phone number if you want to use a single line (and, thereby, get more calls on a single screen).
17:42 sepreece
10:23 ajross
Tues. Mom
Tues. sepreece
Mon. ajross
Sep 21 sepreece
Sep 11 ajross
Disclaimer - I work for Motorola. I should have said so in the previous note, but forgot my e-mail address wouldn't be shown. It's not my intention to be an apologist for this product; I was trying to clarify a previous posting that I felt didn't provide enough information. Anything I say here is my personal opinion; I do not speak for Motorola.The open-ezx project launches
I couldn't resist. I bought an A780 and 512M transflash. This will be fun to hack.The open-ezx project launches
I wish I were u and could hack. But I am not a geek or anything near that. However, since I too have an A780, I could do with some help, if you are so kind to come to the rescue of an ordinary human.The open-ezx project launches
When I tried to log into my gmail account I get a message that I should enable cookies in my browser. But I found nowhere anyway to get to my Opera ezx browser's settings so that I could enable cookies.
All I found in "preferences" is everything but cookies.
I tried logging in through m.gmail and also through wap.gmailwireless but with the same results. I can log in to wap.yahoo but not gmail. Apart from that, I guess this cookies enabling business could come up at other times as well, so how do I enable cookies / SSL in this Opera ezx browser? I also set up a mailbox for gmail in the email feature but it just goes "connecting....." forever......nothing happens.
I do hope that this question does not go beyond your brief...I though that if YOU have the same mobile and you are able to kack it, you must be knowing several tricks. I live in India and my internet provider is Airtel GPRS. Thanks
while i guess my reply is a few months too late for the poster, here goes: i used airtel (india) gprs a few months ago on a nokia 7710. same stuff: www.gmail.com doesn't work with the default opera browser. no way to play with gmail-specific settings and so on, so i tried accessing via "mail.google.com/gmail" and i was in. remembered my session and all that.The open-ezx project launches