The Nokia PUSH N900 program [LWN.net]

The Nokia PUSH N900 program

Posted Sep 16, 2009 15:22 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755)
Parent article: The Nokia PUSH N900 program

I'm a little frustrated with Nokia.

While Nextel cannot engineer their network's way out of a paper bag these days, PTT voice is still a very useful technology, and while Nokia has *finally* produced a handset that I could *use* to implement PTT over cellular/WiFi for my IT staff...

there doesn't appear to be a button in anthing resembling the right place to use it as a PTT button. The FreeRunner didn't have one either, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. But I'm still annoyed.

That's what my project would be; cut off at the knees by insufficiently forward-thinking hardware designers.

They didn't fix enough of the stuff that they broke going from my n800 to the 810, either. Oh, well; they have one more generation to get it "right"...

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The Nokia PUSH N900 program

Posted Sep 16, 2009 17:16 UTC (Wed) by pfavr (guest, #38205) [Link] (4 responses)

Maybe you could hack the camera button on top to work as push-to-talk:

If you keep holding the button for more than 1 second it launches the PTT app, connects, records and transmits, and hang up as soon as you release the button? The camera app would then be reserved for short clicks...

The Nokia PUSH N900 program

Posted Sep 16, 2009 18:41 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

What I would do is write a python app that emulates a button on the screen. (bonus points if it integrates with linphone or other application and you get VoIP PTT.) :)

As long as the touch technology is sufficiently advanced to tell the difference from a thumb vs a bunch of crap in your pocket then it should be good to go.

The Nokia PUSH N900 program

Posted Sep 16, 2009 20:57 UTC (Wed) by pfavr (guest, #38205) [Link] (2 responses)

(replying to my own comment)

Just realized the camera has a cover. So maybe the best solution is: if the camera cover is closed - the camera button is push-to-talk.

And it would be fun to do this app - I don't see why it shouldn't be possible :-)

The Nokia PUSH N900 program

Posted Sep 16, 2009 21:21 UTC (Wed) by pfavr (guest, #38205) [Link] (1 responses)

(replying again to my own comment)

I have just submitted the above idea "push-to-talk using camera button" to the PUSH N900 program. I should give proper credit to Baylink (subscriber #755) for sharing her/his idea with us on LWN. If "my" application gets selected I hope you'll forgive me for "stealing" the idea. Well, we might work together on this?

Looking forward to the N900 hitting the shelves - I want one.

The Nokia PUSH N900 program

Posted Sep 24, 2009 14:01 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

We will see, won't we. :-)

For my target audience, the hardware's not really ruggedized enough anyway. And, being a happy n800 owner, I think they stole too much from the 810, and not enough from the 8100.

Thanks for putting it in, though; let me know what happens.

Have I really been around here that long? :-)

The Nokia PUSH N900 program

Posted Sep 16, 2009 18:27 UTC (Wed) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

Has it got an accelerometer? You could use vigorous shaking as the PTT button. The gesture would resemble "is this thing on?". When you stop talking for a full second it would turn off the mic and go back to sleep.