Weekly Edition
Return to the Announcements page
| |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5
Quim Gil's Maemo 5 hype posting (associated with the N900 phone launch) has some encouraging text: "If freedom is your concern then you dont need to 'unlock' or 'jailbreak' Maemo 5. From installing an application to getting root access, its you who decide. We trust you, and at the end its your device. Nokia also trusts the open source community in general and the Maemo community particularly helping in getting casual users through the experience path. The N900 might just be a new and successful entry point for a new wave of open source users and developers."
(Log in to post comments)
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 13:51 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
I'd love the support for free media formats instead of continuing to deliberately rip them off from GStreamer base packages...
Otherwise, congratulations for what seems like a great product. The freedom love relationship of Nokia is just still not that complete, if it comes with any risks.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link]
I guess we shouldn't be that surprised, Nokia did reportedly describe
Ogg Theora as "proprietary" to the W3C in 2007 when saying it shouldn't be made part of the HTML5 standard, as well as saying that it should be knocked back because it doesn't support DRM...
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/09/nokia-to-w3c-ogg-is....
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 30, 2009 22:33 UTC (Sun) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]
The DRM argument is totally a red herring. They are (intentionally?) mixing up a container issue and a codec issue. There is no reason whatsoever that a DRM-capable container format cannot be developed that within it contain Theora/Vorbis video/audio streams.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 14:19 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
"If freedom is your concern then you dont need to 'unlock' or 'jailbreak' Maemo 5."
<3 <3
Hugs&Kisses to you too, Nokia.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 18:05 UTC (Thu) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
In comparison, an Android-based phone might not offer root access out of the box. But one can turn the power off the phone, hold some keys to start it in recovery mode, and from there on use USB cable to feed a customized linux boot image after which you can use to mount the harddrive and do the sort of things that get you root access on the device.
It isn't made especially difficult, but of course one would prefer if the phones came with root access from shell out of the box.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 30, 2009 22:35 UTC (Sun) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]
The developer phones ("D1") do have root access. And unless Nokia manages to hook some mobile carriers up to provide subsidized devices, the N900 is not going to be cheaper either. My N810 cost over $400 when newly-launched.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 15:14 UTC (Thu) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
Very impressive! Other than the weight and the unspecified battery life, this sounds like the perfect FOSS phone. (If we all just ignore the price that this will probably cost).
Why a FM transmitter but not a receiver? (all old cheap Nokia phones had FM radio support).
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 15:22 UTC (Thu) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
>Why a FM transmitter but not a receiver? (all old cheap Nokia
>phones had FM radio support).
Possibly to output your music (and any other audio, really) to your car's speakers, or other similar devices?
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 15:38 UTC (Thu) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
I know, I know...
Perhaps I am biased (Ok, I biased... I am "car-free" and enjoy listening to the radio), but my impression is that there would be (much) more people using a FM radio _receiver_ than a _transmitter_.
This is positively a device that puts my G1/ADP to shame. I am just annoyed that it also doesn't provide a feature so useful (and cheap) as a FM receiver.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 16:57 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I like the FM transmitter more then a receiver, although both would be nice.
Why? Because essentially you can place that phone on top of any stereo or car radio and turn it into a pair of speakers. It's very convenient as you don't need any wires or connections or anything.
Anyways.. internet radio > terrestrial radio. I like Soma.fm, Jamendo, Magatune, the thousands of shoutcast streams, and so on and so forth. I even already have a Icecast stream I use for listening. I have about a 500GB of Flac and Ogg rips I've made from my CD collection and transcode all that to a 192Kb/s Vorbis stream that I can listen to on any internet connected device that supports Ogg. I use MPD --> Icecast and then I VPN back to my home network and control the stream using the excellent rmpc ncurses-based mpd client. (Blows the doors off of most GUI players. very cool stuff)
So I am all set from that stand point. And as a bonus Icecast2 supports Theora!
I expect all i'd have to do to get Theora/ogg support on this thing is to download some gstreamer plugins from Debian's repo. Or something like that. Shouldn't be too hard. No big step for a stepper.
This phone pretty much embodies everything that is right and cool with the mobile electronics in the world right now in my eyes. I know that warts and things will show up shortly*, but so far I like it a lot.
*(like the proprietary drivers required for the PowerVR OpenGL graphics)
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:20 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]
Off topic (from what was offtopic already :))
"...I like Soma.fm..."
+1. I especially like the Groove Salad and Secret Agent channels.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 18:10 UTC (Thu) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link] car-free as well, I think, the N900 has some disadvantages compared to my current N800:
It would be cool to have a N900plus, more like the N800, without toy keyboard, with only one camera for video calls, with FM receiver and with at least one full-size SD slot, so that I can check SD cards from a real camera etc. If Nokia would also give up their plan on dropping GTK+ from Maemo, I would consider the N900...
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 18:39 UTC (Thu) by macson_g (subscriber, #12717) [Link]
> If Nokia would also give up their plan on dropping GTK+ from Maemo, I would consider the N900...
I'm feeding a troll here probably, but what difference does it make if application uses one LGPL'ed toolkit or another, as long as it looks good and is usable?
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 18:57 UTC (Thu) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]
I certainly should have put a smiley in here. Sorry, my fault.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Sep 10, 2009 8:28 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]
> I'm feeding a troll here
For heaven's sake, "troll" does NOT mean "someone who posts an opinion that I don't readily comprehend without explaining it"!
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 18:54 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]
Normal SD doesn't really much sense.
Canon and Nikon uses CF for most of their dSLRs (except for their cheapest ranges), while SD is used by most compact cameras it's definitely not ubiquitous, and will be probably be slowly phased out for microSD as cameras grows even smaller.
Besides, what is the purpose of moving photos from one way too-small-screen, to another way-too-small screen for... Checking? You need a proper display for that.
An FM receiver is just waste of money for an Internet connected device, IMHO unlike a keyboard and built-in camera.
About GTK+, you have my full agreement, although it shouldn't matter too much for the consumer.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:14 UTC (Thu) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]
I spent a lot of time moving pictures to my n810 these holidays. We had a
camera with an ordinary sd card slot. A phone with ditto. The phone had bluetooth as well, the n810 had bluetooth but a silly mini-sd card slot, for which cards are no longer available. My kids had pressured me into leaving my laptop home, but the eldest kid fell sick during the holidays and wanted to see some snapshots.
So... Move each picture with bluetooth from phone to n810, and she could
And I absolutely want an n900 -- a phone with a shell -- as blissful as my
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:32 UTC (Thu) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
> An FM receiver is just waste of money for an Internet connected device, IMHO unlike a keyboard and built-in camera.
I live in The Netherlands, and travel abroad fairly often. Internet radio is ridiculously expensive, when roaming.
Even inside the Netherlands, my personal experience is that internet radio is NOT reliable enough. At least with my service provider.
Also, is not as if FM receiver would add much to the costs of the device.
(sorry for the grumpiness, BTW I also like the Secret Agent channel)
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 28, 2009 5:54 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]
You didn't even trigger my grumpiness-detector :)
Ah, roaming. The curse of any mobile Internet device, but I don't really think that one should design for situtations that (most) users are in less than 5-10% of their time.
- Of course, that only applies for "normal" consumers, I have no idea what the profile of Maemo users is.
I don't own a 3G phone myself, but I regularly use one of those 3G sticks on the train. I ALWAYS get disconnected when going into a 5 minute tunnel on the way. I never tried FM in there, but I have a feeling that it would be, at least, a noisy experience.
FM chips are cheap today, but it still needs design time, I think that it takes quite a bit of shielding and clever design to avoid noise-bombing from the 3G and GSM radios, and component costs scale with the amount of devices produced (though I don't really think that the Maemos are high-volume devices).
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 28, 2009 9:33 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
The Netherlands is a small country, and travelling to neighbouring countries is passport-free, so I imagine people there "roam" much more often than the rest of us :)
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 28, 2009 9:39 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]
Well, I'm from Denmark, an country about the same size (but with a much smaller population) with the same passport rules, and I don't think that we really travel much.
Ok, we go to Germany for cheap beer a lot, but that is just over the border for half an hour, and then back again. :)
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 28, 2009 22:07 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
And in Europe, I guess it's also quite easy to roam "by accident".
Bear in mind, in Britain, we have an "air gap" of 22 MILES between us and our nearest neighbour. But I hear horror stories reasonably regularly of people IN BRITAIN making phone calls via France Telecom without realising it, then wondering why they get billed megabucks despite going nowhere near France.
Let's take an American example I know a little about. We'll pretend you're an American living in Kansas City. The state line cuts through the middle of the city. Now imagine that if your cell-phone connects across the state line to a tower in the "wrong" state you get charged a dollar a minute surcharge on your call ... there'll be an awful lot of infuriated customers! That situation is NORMAL in Europe.
Cheers,
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 29, 2009 6:29 UTC (Sat) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]
Erm... No, it isn't.
I live in Copenhagen, around 13 miles from Malmö, Sweden, around half the distance to the border.
My uncle lives even closer.
I've never experience this "NORMAL" accidental roaming, neither has my uncle, or anyone I know. The only stories I've heard, is something like a friend's friend's younger brother's girlfriend's cousin's neighbor...
It is nowhere NEAR normal, ok?
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 31, 2009 9:04 UTC (Mon) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
Just so that you can reduce this chain of "heard of" a little bit: more than once I've noticed my mobile phone picking up foreign operators while cycling close to both the German and Belgium borders. When cycling around rural areas close to borders, it is common to come back home with multiple pairs of SMSes welcoming me to "t-mobile DE", and then back to "t-mobile NL".
In none of these cases there were cities around. I actually suspect that when close to urban areas in both sides this is least likely to happen, as coverage (from your own operator) would be good, so you will always have your own signal available.
Perhaps the flatness of the landscape has something to do with it.
As aways YMMV.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 31, 2009 9:28 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]
Ah, that makes sense. More or less all of our eastcoast is inhabited.
- But something confuses me a bit... Roaming from another provider in-country is also going to be expensive (especially for data), and the situation ought to be similar. Why is this no problem?
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 31, 2009 10:07 UTC (Mon) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
I guess that as my contract says that I have to have coverage within the whole country; if I start using the network of another Dutch provider within the NL, then it is TMobile's problem. They can't charge me extra for it.
But I think that in practice, if there is no deal between operators, then they just keep the "non-international" mobile phones from roaming into their networks.
accidental roaming Posted Sep 9, 2009 17:26 UTC (Wed) by pdundas (guest, #15203) [Link]
In border areas of Northern Ireland the UK home networks are even worse than in the rest of NI (A remote rural area of a mostly urban country, perhaps). But the Irish networks usually have very good coverage (maybe the Irish republic is proportionately less urbanised, or values inclusion more in its network planning).
The result - anywhere near the border, any signal you get is very likely to be roaming.
Particularly annoying when O2 "simplified" their roaming charges to 3x previous levels, and told everyone who complained that "you are the first person to raise that point". But that's getting off topic...
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:54 UTC (Thu) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]
> the N800 has two full-size SD slots, the N900 only one Micro-SD
According to the N900 page, it has 32 GB storage inside it. At least to
> and with at least one full-size SD slot, so that I can check SD cards
Buy mini SD cards with an adapter (that's what I use with my camera and
Btw. compared to N800, I would assume this device also to have (like N810
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 28, 2009 9:24 UTC (Fri) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]
> Buy mini SD cards with an adapter (that's what I use with my camera and
> N810).
AFAIK, the N900 has Micro-SD (11×15), not Mini-SD (21.5×20). Anyway, those are about 33% more expensive, e.g. 40 instead of 30 for 16 GB. I cannot even find 32 GB Micro-SDs.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 30, 2009 22:37 UTC (Sun) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]
They made the decision to omit FM receiver back when the N810 was designed. With radio and TV going digital, and especially now that the device has 3G always-on connectivity, the argument is even stronger this time around.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Sep 7, 2009 9:51 UTC (Mon) by jlokier (guest, #52227) [Link]
In my experience 3G and even 3.5G (HSDPA) isn't reliable enough to listen continuously to radio, even with a "7 out of 7 bars" supposedly best quality reception, and it also uses a _lot_ more power than running an FM receiver.
It's painful enough trying to use it for an SSH session to read mail: very usable sometimes, 5 seconds latency and 50% packet loss at other times. Great bandwidth at times, but packet loss and latency fluctuate wildly, and it's very sensitive to location (as in move a few metres). I've observed this on three different handsets; it's not a handset issue.
And just try using it on a train! I've never seen a 3G connection last more than 1 minute on a moving train.
Internet radio on a mobile device is a nice idea, in those places where mobile internet is good enough. It's not been good enough any of the places I've used it, yet (all in the UK).
The FM transmitter is a nice touch. I've often wanted to listen to music from my laptop on the car radio. But perhaps the lack of FM receiver is enough to put me off the N900 and wait for a next model, because that's a feature I have used on all three of my previous handsets.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Sep 8, 2009 22:10 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]
<p><i>And just try using it on a train! I've never seen a 3G connection last more than 1 minute on a moving train.</i></p>
Hmmm... I use it on a train almost every day. I see one dropout (going through a tunnel).
Most be a provider issue.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Sep 8, 2009 22:13 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] FFS. Sorry about that. I really should look at the preview... Here it is with HTML (and few fixes):
And just try using it on a train! I've never seen a 3G connection last more than 1 minute on a moving train. Hmmm... I use it on a train almost every day. I see one dropout (going through a tunnel).Must be a provider issue.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Sep 3, 2009 4:45 UTC (Thu) by aryonoco (subscriber, #55563) [Link]
There is both, a FM transmitter and a FM receiver. There is no Radio application for Maemo 5 yet though so N900 will not have FM radio out of the box, but writing applications is easy one would be coming soon.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Sep 3, 2009 12:43 UTC (Thu) by xav (subscriber, #18536) [Link]
[citation needed]
What about the carriers? Posted Aug 27, 2009 16:01 UTC (Thu) by linuxjacques (subscriber, #45768) [Link]
It's nice that Nokia trusts us, but in the US,
I'll believe it when a US carrier allows the N900 on their network
What about the carriers? Posted Aug 27, 2009 16:42 UTC (Thu) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
There's nothing to stop you buying an N900 (without a contract, i.e. unlocked) and using it on any US GSM network (AT&T or T-Mobile). Europeans and Asians do the technical equivalent all the time. It's only when the operator sells you the phone that they can impose restrictions.
What about the carriers? Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:58 UTC (Thu) by blitzkrieg3 (subscriber, #57873) [Link]
You will still have a contract with your wireless provider that will forbid you from tethering etc. Not a restriction with the hardware but still a technicality legalwise.
What about the carriers? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:05 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I don't know about other carriers but to add on tethering to your plan is something you can do online. It just costs extra, quite a bit extra I suppose depending on your perspective.
The whole tethering thing is kinda weird.
What about the carriers? Posted Aug 27, 2009 16:47 UTC (Thu) by brouhaha (subscriber, #1698) [Link]
For all the talk of US carriers not allowing devices on their networks, I've had no difficulty using non-AT&T GSM phones on AT&T's GSM network since 2004, when I bought an unlocked Palm Treo 650 direct from Palm. I've used several other non-AT&T GSM phones since, and they've never given me any trouble over it.
I expect that it will not be difficult to buy the N900 from a source other than AT&T, and then it won't be crippled. Of course, then one doesn't get any subsidy either.
What about the carriers? Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:04 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Yes.
I have not had any problems with GSM phones. I regularly swap out the SIM card on my phone for other phones and things like that.
the only problem I've seen a friend run into was swapping cards pissed of his iPhone and AT&T in some way. Of course he was trying to hack it so he could do multimedia SMS, but it did render the phone unusable for a short time.
The biggest deal for most people is that you're going to have to pay full retail price for it. The cost is big up-front, but in the long run you come out to about even. I expect this thing to be about 600-700 dollars, maybe more. If you had your subsidies then you'd get it for less then half the price from your carrier.
The downside to the subsidies, of course, is that they lock down the phone and they fill it up with wallet-rape. (like 3 bucks to download a few-seconds-long mp3 ringtone) So if you use multimedia functionality much at all and that sort of thing they you should easily come out ahead by buying full price retail.
What about the carriers? Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by brouhaha (subscriber, #1698) [Link]
When I've changed phones, I've generally called AT&T and given them the info on the new phone. I wasn't sure if they would raise flags if they suddenly saw my IMSI being used with a different IMEI. Anyhow, they never raised a fuss about it, even when the phone model was not one that AT&T offered.
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:37 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
So we have all these Linux-based devices: the Palm Pre, the various Android phones, now Nokia's new model, and I think Motorola and other manufacturers at least have something in the works.
Is there any common API at all between these phones?
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:43 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
No. In terms of userspace, Android basically isn't Linux. The Pre shares a lot of functionality with standard desktop Linux, but the standard app API is all Javascript based. Maemo is the closest to desktop Linux. Motorola have shipped custom Linux (with Java or Qt based UI) for a while, but it looks like their future products will be Android.
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Aug 28, 2009 9:57 UTC (Fri) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
It seems like such a massive waste of effort, when a reasonable 'Linux phone'
standard could be a worthy challenger to the iPhone and its mountain of apps.
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Aug 28, 2009 12:01 UTC (Fri) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]
Umm, I kinda agree, but 2 counterpoints:
1) Phones evolve faster than standards are written. The user interface of a motorola linux phone application would pixel-by-pixel tuned for 320x200 displays and stylus they had. Such application UI would simply not be usable on the high-dpi (260+) 800x480 thumb-oriented display of N900.
2) iPhone is proof that you don't need to be compatible with any standard at all to be able to gather a mountain of applications.
Still, the api/abi compatability story with nokia internet tablets has been an epic fail. Hopefully with Qt the track record will get better. The Trolls have so far managed to follow the amazingly simple rule of "if you brake the abi, you bumb the soversion".
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Aug 28, 2009 19:42 UTC (Fri) by louie (subscriber, #3285) [Link]
Not that GNOME's API/ABI track record is perfect, but I don't think GTK/GNOME are at fault for maemo's various API breakages- they are often at very low levels (well below where GNOME/GTK tread). So the switch to QT probably won't solve those.
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Sep 8, 2009 10:26 UTC (Tue) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
The iPhone is compatible with one standard: itself. You can write an iPhone app and it will work on any iPhone. You can't do that with 'Linux phones' taken as a group - there are several incompatible systems, each of which by itself has tiny market share. So while 'Linux' may have a substantial and increasing share of the mobile phone market, we don't get many network effect benefits from that because 'Linux' is not even compatible with 'Linux'.
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Aug 28, 2009 20:02 UTC (Fri) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link]
My feeling is that OpenGL is the best common API between the various phones, and if I wanted to write a cross-device app that's what I'd use. Has anyone tried to build GUI components on top of OpenGL? I bet they have...
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Aug 29, 2009 19:41 UTC (Sat) by eean (guest, #50420) [Link]
OpenGL is a bit low-level to just start writing apps with. Thats why we have GUI toolkits in the first place.
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Sep 8, 2009 10:27 UTC (Tue) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
OpenGL is just a graphics library, not a framework for writing applications.
It does nothing to define network access or user input or persistent storage or any of the other essentials.
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Sep 10, 2009 9:43 UTC (Thu) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link]
POSIX defines most of the things that you mention.
Getting user input events is the one thing that's left over, and would probably need to be done in platform-specific ways.
Fragmentation of Linux phones Posted Aug 29, 2009 23:04 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
OTOH, this is pretty standard in FOSS generally -- an area opens up, a bunch of different groups try to build what they think the best solution is ("let a thousand flowers bloom"), and then after a bit there's a die-back and people consolidate around one or a few projects. (Or, often, a second generation project comes along that cherry-picks the best parts from all the earlier innovator's experience, and ends up wiping them off the map.)
Very roughly, it's a process that tends to optimizes for the total quality of the final product, rather than time to market or efficient resource use along the way.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Aug 28, 2009 3:06 UTC (Fri) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]
Nice to see the success of another Debian-based distro.
Gil: Here comes Maemo 5 Posted Sep 4, 2009 10:35 UTC (Fri) by gb (subscriber, #58328) [Link]
Success will exist only then sales of N900 will be high. I guess voice of open-source party inside Nokia will depend on sales too.
|
|
||||||||||||