Motorola Readies Music-oriented Linux Mobile Phone

An anonymous reader writes "Motorola has announced several new multimedia-enabled mobile phones supporting music and video playback, including one new device based on embedded Linux, according to LinuxDevices.com. The Linux-based Motorola E680 could see US distribution, making it the first of Motorola's Linux-based mobile phones available outside the far East. The E680 will include multimedia playback software supporting a variety of formats, including MP3 audio, MPEG4 video, and RealPlayer multimedia content." The article notes: "Motorola's previous Linux-based phones have been based on MontaVista Linux, and have used the Qt/Embedded graphical application framework."

WiFi

[Underholdning]

With built-in webbrowser and email client this would be a killer gizmo if it supported WiFi. Since the device supports SD cards, you could buy a Wifi SD card [google.com], but I'd prefer if it was integrated from start.

Phone operating systems

[gazbo]

I've had nothing but trouble with phone software due to bad design (and the fact that the testers clearly don't actually try to use the product). Perhaps if based on a solid, well documented OS like Linux it will open the door for people to hack the code and fix all those niggling bugs.

I for one am getting pissed of at the way on my phone, if I get a call when writing a text message, all my text gets deleted.

Hello Moto !

[polyp2000]

It looks like motorolla are improving with age. I've had issues motorolla's in the past and found the interfaces to be quite clunky, although one or two are quite nice design wise. So I've pretty much stuck with Nokia, (I quite like symbian). The new batch of Motorolla's are looking quite nice, I might try one out, and also I'd like to support linux on an embedded platform anyway.

Why is SD popular?

[evilviper]

Can anyone tell me why SD cards are popular? Or for that matter, why CF hasn't taken over completely... SD may be really small, but I've never heard anybody complain that their CF card was too big.

Also, CF cards have a HUGE advantage in being about half as expensive, per-capacity. Just wondering, why not CF everywhere?

GPL issues

[Pivot]

What happens when the firmware for these phones are distributed to someone, eg service technicians? Shouldn't they be allowed to redistribute? And shouldn't they be able request and receive the source to the binaries as well?

When will it hit the market actually?

[wehe]

The question with these Linux based mobile phones is: when will it reach the market eventually? Some nice mobile Linux toys have been announced in the past, but have never become available. See this survey about Linux on or with mobile cellular phones [tuxmobil.org] for details.

Better phone

[willpost]

I'm going to wait until the Motorola MPx comes out.

-horizontal or vertical alignment
-Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Tri-band GSM/GPRS
-64MB of built in RAM
-SD slot up to 1GB
-320x240 2.8 inch screen
-1.3 MP integrated camera
-QWERTY layout keyboard

It's not Linux but it looks way cool:
Phone 1 [penny-arcade.com]
Phone 2 [penny-arcade.com]
Phone 3 [penny-arcade.com]

Thanks PennyArcade [penny-arcade.com]
Bargain PDA [bargainpda.com]

Small problem with this phone

[wyeap]

How do you dial '1' with it?

http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/misc/mot-e680- bi g.jpg

Phone or a PC?

[myownkidney]

The line between handhel PCs and Mobile telephony devices is becoming ever narrower. (Read more here) My Laptop can dial out using a PCMCIA card... does that make my Laptop a Mobile Phone?

My Phone, on the other hand, is far more powerful as a PC compared to the Desktops I used merely 5 years ago. So does that make my Mobile Phone a PC?

I think as this line gets blurrier and blurrier, one shouldn't be amazed at all the cool things the latest Handsets can perform. And as more and more devices are turning out to be more Computer-like, it shouldn't be too far in the future when you can use your Washing Machine to make a phone call.

Great, so where is the source?

[andersen]

I'm happy to see Linux being used on all sorts of devices, but I am also very concerned that they fulfil their obligations for the GPL'd source in their device. So where is the source? I grow tired of getting at least 1-2 emails per week about some new router or wireless access point or whatever that is violating the GPL distributing BusyBox with no source and no offer for source. So I truly hope Motorola is behaving itself and doing what it is legally obligated to do. I've searched their site but I see nothing but press releases. Has anyone obtained one of these phones? If you have, can you confirm whether Motorola is fulfilling their obligations per the GPL?

Re:Replacement for iPod?

[Shisha]

I doubt if this will replace iPod, but I'm definitely looking forward to checking this little toy out. I was eligible for a free phone upgrade almost a year ago, but back then none of the devices really caught my attention and my old Sony CMD-J6 is still working just fine.

According to this article www.mobil.cz [idnes.cz] it should be on sale in the Czech Republic (sorry article in Czech, but this is the only intresting piece of info). So this makes me believe it should be available in Europe as well.

For me the ultimate issues will be battery life and the ability to synchronise with kde-pim tools. We'll see how it works out. The fact that it's running Linux is definitely a good start. The question is how "open" will it be, e.g. whether it'll be possible to use, say perl, to read the internal database, add the length of calls and do an accurate analysis of how much money I'm spending etc.

A question for the embedded geeks..

[irexe]

The obvious coolness of a Linux-kernel in your pocket aside, can somebody shed some light on why a phone needs a multi-user, multithreaded OS with virtual- and protected memory? I'm guessing most of these features get ripped out for embedded use, right? Isn't a linux kernel overkill on a phone then?

Note: I'm not trolling here, I'm genuinely curious. Educate me please :-)

Re:A question for the embedded geeks..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hint would be that Japan DOCOMO released new phone of 3rd geniration with dual CPU, one for vois proccesing and another for gui. Here you go. And do not forget that phones now days can brows the web, so there is a danger of script kiddies. Well you can elaborate from here.

Qt or not ?

[makapuf]

While the article said that Qt/embedded was running the preceding moto handset, is there any indication on what UI lib is running this one ? Is it still Qt/E ?

3D race is on

[S3D]

Well, with ATI annonced 3d hardware accelerator for smartphones (with OpenGL ES API) it's really interesting who will be first with 3d hardware smartphone -Linux or Simbian.(well, software 3d suck on smartphones). OpenGL is quite organic to Linux, but guess what ? Nokia annonced Symbian 8.0 with OpenGL ES API integrated onto OS. No phones itself annonced yet though...

Re:A question for the embedded geeks..

[eraserewind]

A phone doesn't make calls, or send sms, connect to the internet by magic. They run a telephony stack, and a tcp/ip or wap stack too. I doubt they would appreciate waiting for the UI to finish in order to do their thing.

Phones run many UI applications, and many 3rd party applications. They shouldn't be allowed to overwrite an important processes' memory in the middle of a call.

Phones are becoming the ultimate networked computer. You'll be able to ssh to/from your phone, or launch an X session to it, if you can't already. TCP/IP, GSM, Bluetooth, with WLAN being next. A security model and concept of user priveleges might come in handy.

Re:Great, so where is the source?

[Anonymous Coward]

I own an a760 (Moto's first Linux phone) and in the manual it says you can order a copy of the source (from a Chinese address if I remember correctly).

Don't know if this is enough to comply with the GPL - they make the source available, but only to people who manage to somehow get past the Chinese postal system :-)