Nokia announces Open Source Phone Software

Big news from the land of the Finns. Nokia made two big announcements for the Open Source world today. The first is the newest release of their maemo (Internet Tablet) platform. Named Diablo, this is a big release because it is the first iteration with iterative updates. This means that you can update the tablet like you can your laptop running Debian Linux, by merely upgrading the components and without the need to re-flash the device. No more re-installing /everything/ when you flash your tablet.The second -and bigger- announcement is that Nokia will be purchasing Symbian and has plans to open source the Symbian platform. Symbian runs the majority of the world's mobile phones. This comes hot on the heels of Google's Android platform, which has been demonstrated but will not be available until 2009.

This really signifies a major shift in mobile phones. First, there was Openmoko, more of a proof-of-concept type phone, but it received quite a bit of press regarding its open platform. Then, Android and now Symbian, which will leave Windows mobile as the last really major closed source phone. (New Apple iPhone sales could make that phone a true player, but currently it is just a niche device which has made a big splash but very little impact on the actual market).To me, this shift toward open source can only mean great things for the mobile industry. We are just entering a phase where the mobile phone you carry does more than just make calls and check some e-mail here and there. The handsets are truly becoming mobile computers and this trend will continue and accelerate just as all technologies following Moore's Law. This is not to say they are a replacement for your laptop. Rather, this new mobile computing will allow you to do some (many?) of the things for which you use a traditional computer, but they will enable other technologies and uses. Think about how difficult it is to have an ad-hoc video call with your computer. If you want to use Skype or Gizmo to video talk to your family, you need to pre-arrange that. A mobile handset with video streaming capabilities will let you do that anytime. Sure, you can do this with a select few handsets, but they are limited by the software. The ones I know of require you to connect to an equally-capable device. Why? If my mom's phone can display but not send video, why can I not let her see me while I receive only sound? There is no good reason, other than that the software we currently have available does not allow this type of asynchronous video communication. That is just one example; by making the phone's software open source, Nokia (and Google) will expose thousands of new developers that will want to create exactly this type of use, and a hundred others you or I might not have thought about.

And I anticipate this will be even bigger than Linux on the desktop. It is difficult to move people from Windows or MacOS to Linux because they are very accustomed to what they have and perhaps have certain programs that simply will not run in Linux. So far, this has not happened in the world of phones. I suspect that most people that have owned multiple phones have had a different system and set of applications each time they get a new one. They are not tied to anything. I also predict that the "killer app" of this new mobile structure will be a good, easy-to-use, and seamless application delivery system. I bet that Nokia is learning its lessons from the problems us early tablet users have come across with the massive number of applications available for Maemo, with nearly as many options for installing them. This is confusing to the user, especially users not accustomed to installing new applications for their phones.

N75 Part V: Unbranding

The subsidized N75 comes branded by AT&T (or Cingular, depending upon your model). Evidently, there are some models where AT&T is capitalized and some where it is not. Mine is not and sports at&t on the cover. I do not know what the difference is, but the support people on the phone asked me each time I called to ask about the subsidy unlock code back in Part II and when I asked they said it denoted a difference in the phone. They wouldn't elaborate and to be honest I do not think they knew anything more than that it was a part of the script from which they read.

To prepare for this process, I made a full backup of the phone using the N-Series PCSuite software. On a tip from a comment, I also made a backup of only the contacts and calendar (latter not really necessary as I sync it with Google Calendar) because restoring everything to a, unbranded, upgraded phone can cause some problems.

I am not going to go into the process or instructions of unbranding, as Peter Leonard has already written a great how-to on his blog, and this is what I am using. I downloaded the Nemesis tool and during installation chose the Virtual USB device. The first time I tried to run Nemesis, it gave me an error and could not find my phone information. To fix this, I did the following:

1. Uninstalled the Nokia Nseries PC Suite
2. Uninstalled the Nokia PC Suite 6.85 I had running (probably should have done this before installing the Nseries suite anyway)
3. Uninstalled the Nokia Connectivity Cable Driver
   
4. Reboot
5. Downloaded the Nokia PC Suite 6.84
6. Installed PC Suite 6.84
7. Reboot (gotta love Windows)
8. Connect the phone in PCSuite mode
   
9. Re-ran Nemesis Suite
10. Clicked "Scan for new device"
11. Clicked the Phone Info button
12. Clicked the Scan button
13. Clicked the Read button under "Production Data Edit"
14. Clicked the Enable checkbox to the right of Product Code
    
15. Entered 0527376 into the Product Code field
16. Clicked Write
    

Nemesis Suite told me that it "Write new values...Done" and I was finished. I switched off my phone, turned it back on, and reconnected it to Nemesis one last time to ensure the changes had taken place.

The PCSuite perfectly launched the software updater and installed 20.1.172. I have no idea if I could have installed a middle version and if you do not want to, you probably do not need to go through the entire unbranding process. As soon as I unlocked the phone, the Nseries PCSuite asked me if I wanted to update the phone, and that was to the same update that I am currently running.

The update is interesting. It adds a tabbed view of the idle screen that I had never seen before. I do not think I will use this for very long, but it's interesting to play with and definitely gives the phone an updated feel. Those tabs appear to slow the phone down; moving between calls made and the text message archive takes a bit of time. I should be able to post more about the new firmware in the near future.

N75 Part IV: Annoyances

This is a quick post of some of my annoyances with the phone. Some of these were only discovered after I added an unlimited media package to my service. With this package, I use the phone far more than I had before and this has uncovered some problems that I assume result from limitations in the hardware and my pushing it past what the phone's capabilities.

1. Music player: this thing seems to be always on. If you launch the task manager (hold down the application button -the one to the left of the directional pad- for a couple seconds) you will always see the music player running. Perhaps this is so the outside music buttons can launch the music, but I do not really want this. I have had the phone in my pocket, only to stop and say "where is that music coming from" and discover that the play button had been pressed. This happens infrequently, but very often the outside screen displays a list of tracks or the next track in the queue, when I would rather see the typical status: time, message notifications, etc. Sometimes it can be difficult to exit this without playing a small snippet of the song. Annoying since the phone has such great speakers and everyone will hear it.
2. Camera speed: the camera takes a while to load, so even though you always have a decent camera with you, the start up is slow enough that you will miss some of those great impromptu moments. Also, the speed of the picture is pretty slow. Many times I have found a picture ruined because I moved the phone after I thought the picture had been fully taken. You have to give it a good couple seconds for it to actually take the picture. On the other hand, I have taken a number of stealth pictures of people and places almost all of them while simultaneously walking and snapping pictures and they turn out really well.
3. Camera at night or low light: the camera is horrible at night, inside at night, or any other low-light setting. Pictures taken in these settings have a green tint and are grainy. I have read that other cameras do this, as well, but I am very disappointed with this. Here is an example I took, and this is one of the better night-time pictures. I delete all the other ones. Pictures taken during the day are really great. Sadly, most pictures I want to take are at night or indoors.
4. Some applications that require a text entry field (Jaiku, Google Maps, Shozu, etc.) crash when entering text. I have not heard of anyone else reporting this type of problem, so I am guessing the N75 does not have enough memory to run some of these applications. However, this does not appear to be a memory-intensive operation so I am hopeful that the planned firmware upgrade will take care of this.
   

Nokia N75 Part III: Some applications

Taking a short break from the unlocking - unbranding - upgrading firmware route, I thought I would write a bit about some applications I have tried and their performance.

See, at about the same time I unlocked the phone, I sprung for a data plan with AT&T. Now, I may have some complaints about AT&T's service, but I have to admit that their data plan is very reasonable. I got unlimited data for $15/month. I don't text too much, preferring to IM, but a number of people at work prefer to text, so I added the $5/month 200 text plan. This seemed prudent as the customer service agent informed me that messages were about to bump up to $0.20/message.

Auto Profiles
The first app I started using on my phone has nothing to do with Internet access at all, instead, it has to do with automatically changing the ringing options for the phone. My older Nokia phones had the ability to time the ringing profile such that I could tell the phone to be silent until, say, 3pm. This is really handy when you have class or a meeting. S60 does not have this built in, however, SymbianGuru (not to be confused with the Symbian Guru, Ricky Cadden) has developed AutoProfiles which allows you to do all sorts of settings with your configured profiles.

Let me back up for just one second. On Nokia and s60 phones, a "profile" is a bundle of settings for things like ringtone, vibrate, message alert, keypad tones, and more. Setting up different profiles like Silent, Vibrate, and Outdoor allows one to quickly change the ringtones with the press of two or three buttons: a quick press of the power button brings up the list of profiles, scroll to choose, and then press select. You do not even have to open the flip on the phone.

AutoProfiles takes this one step further. Not only can I schedule times for an automatic switch of the profile, but I can also tell it to trigger from meetings stored in my calendar. With this, I can completely forget about the phone and know that it will not ring while in a meeting because it has automatically switched to my silent profile. In my usage of AutoProfiles, it did not switch back to my previous profile when the meeting ended. I asked the developer about that, but all I got back was a "we'll look into this" kind of answer. Still, this is really handy. $10 but there is usually a 20% discount.

Shozu
From an app that uses no Internet to one that can be a real hog on your data plan: Shozu. Shozu is an app that does a great thing: creates a link between your phone's camera and all those great web-based photo album sites out there. Shozu interfaces with sites like Flickr and Share on Ovi to either automatically or at your discretion send the pictures you take up to those sites. The Flickr aspect is a bit more mature, allowing you to read comments and subscribe to friend's feeds and such. The Ovi aspect is just a "send to the e-mail address" option which works fine, but does not have all the cool stuff. Tags and the like get translated, so that is good. I hope they add a more feature-rich Ovi to this because the actual app by Ovi will not run on the N75, which is lame.

Google Maps
This is pretty great. I have been wanting a GPS add-on for my phone so I can use things like Nokia Maps and Sports Tracker, but in the meantime, I will be using the Google Maps app for my phone. This works by determining your location based upon the mobile phone towers you are using, so there is no GPS required. I have not used it much for directions, but the Traffic overlay is amazing, giving me a quick view of the traffic on the way to work. Definitely worth the price of admission: free!

Nokia N75 Part II: Unlocking

The first step in going further with my phone is to unlock it. You see, nearly all mobile phones you would get in the U.S. are subsidized by the network carrier (i.e. At&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-mobile etc.). This is why you can go into a store and get a phone for free when signing a contract, or get a really good phone for $100 or less. In an effort to protect themselves, they lock the phone in such a way that the phone can only connect to their network and not others. Or, in other words, you can only use a SIM card that is associated with that carrier's network. You can undo this restriction by entering in a "subsidy unlock code". This is a unique number that is based on your phone's IMEI number. With some phones, you can simply get this number from a website, but for the N75, I had to go through AT&T.

I have heard from a few people and a number of websites that the way to do this is to call up the tech support as a non-new customer in good standing, and tell them you would like to use the phone during some international travels. Perhaps you want to use a pre-paid SIM while traveling in Germany to save some money on calling. Also, perhaps you want other people there to be able to call you without making an international call. These are pretty reasonable uses, and of course you will still be paying for your monthly contract.

Well, on my first day off in quite some time, a Sunday, I gave AT&T customer support a call to request this. The agent asked me a number of questions regarding the phone and how I would be using it while traveling abroad, even asking where I would be traveling. Well, I failed to provide a sufficiently out-of-the-way nation and his response was that because AT&T had international roaming agreements in all those countries, that would satisfy my needs. I reiterated the reasons I wanted to have the ability to use other SIM cards in my phone, but the agent would not open the ticket to get me an unlock code. He insisted I required International roaming and, as that department was closed for the day, said that they would give me a call on Monday to set it up. On the phone for nearly two hours and nothing to show for it.

Of course I never received a call. Four days later, I called back to start the process again. Using the same reasons, thirty minutes later the support agent had opened a ticket for me and said the unlock code would be e-mailed to me within a week. I received it the next day, followed the instructions and restarted the phone. Unlocked and can now use any network.

It never fails. No matter what the issue or question is with AT&T, I always get completely different results each time I speak with them.

Upon connecting the phone to the PC Suite, I received a notification that I could upgrade the firmware of the phone to 20.something. Now, the whole point of this is to eventually unbrand the phone, but I think the 20-something firmware will permanently brand it to AT&T. I have read that there will be no further releases from Nokia and you can only upgrade firmware, not downgrade it. So, I may end up at this version, but I want to try some interim versions first.

Nokia N75 Part I: Use and Review

Back in late November, it was time to get a new phone. I have used Nokia phones since I first got a mobile phone as well as being an avid user of the Nokia Internet Tablet, so they were my first choice. I was looking for a smartphone type phone, so some thing from the s60 was at the top of my list. At this time, AT&T ran a special on refurbished N75 for $20 with the contract.
For reference, th other phones I was looking at were a Samsung a737, Nokia 6555, and some Razr variant. On the surface, these phones are very similar, featuring camera, mp3 player, and expandable memory card slot. The difference is in the operating system, as s60 offers many more features and options due to its open development platform.

This is something of a disingenuous review. You see, I am planning on dumping my N75 for either an N82 or one of the many N95 variations. But I thought I would take the opportunity to catalogue my journey with the N75 and maybe even provide an insight into why I will be sticking with s60 and Nokia for my next phone.

As far a s aphone goes, the N75 does its job pretty well. The headphone connector is the older Nokia style one, which can be annoying, but since I had many of these accessories already, it was not a big deal. The phone has bluetooth but I do not. This is not 100% true, at Christmas my parents gave me a stereo bluetooth headset. At that time, the N75 did not support stereo bluetooth and the sound was both awful and only out of one ear.

This original handset I had was a Cingular branded refurb running firmware v 10.1.273. I installed a number of themes from some dubious sites and after installing one of them, the handset ceased to properly start, giving a "return to vendor" message upon startup and then shutting back down. This was only a couple months into using the phone, and AT&T warranty service was actually really good (after triple-checking there was no water damage) of sending me a new phone via two day delivery.

The phone I received as a replacement is the AT&T branded handset I am still using. The version of this phone is:

v 10.1.282
24-05-07
RM-128
Nokia N75 (71.04)

And this one has been working just fine. Many people complain about the battery life, but I am not a heavy phone user and am near a charger throughout most of the day, so this is not usually an issue.
More to be written soon. I am not going to go into a detailed review of the phone as those more knowledgeable than I have reviewed it. Until I return, check out Darla's or Ricky's reivews.

Until then, I will close with this: although the above reviews and my subsequent articles will likely reveal a number of shortcomings with this handset, I have enjoyed my time with it. Compare it to any of the higher-end Nseries devices and you will see a number of features on those that are not present on this phone. Despite this, however, I have been able to push this phone (in terms of features) way past any other phone I have ever had, and much further than I could have done with any of the "options" presented to me by the sales people.

Secret Agents need Bluetooth too

Although a bit old, Nydia just sent me a link to the Fossil bluetooth-enabled watches, essentially asking if something like that was really necessary. I say yes, but it doesn't look like these cut the secret agent mustard.

Basically, it just looks like a heads-up display / remote control for your phone. That could be useful in meetings and such. But where it falls short is in notifications. I guess the LEDs light up or what-not when you have an incoming call, but in addition to ring/vibrate, I'd like to see the "shock" option where it shocks your wrist when the phone rings.

If you have to ask why in the hell I'd want a watch that shocks me, I know very well that you, sir or madam, are not a secret agent. The shock option is perfect for when you are captured. At that point, the phone will ring (most likely Agent 99 calling with information that the meeting with Mr. White was a trap), the purloined watch will shock your nemesis, giving you that critical moment's distraction so you can turn the tables.

Using your own phone in switching to a pre-paid mobile phone plan

If you know me, you know that the phone is not my favored means of communication. In fact, it falls in last place behind in-person, e-mail, text messages, and using soup cans connected by a taut string or elastic band.

Current mobile phone plans, besides just being amazingly expensive for what you get, do not make sense for me. I have had months where I use 20 minutes of my plan. Part of this is that the weekend/evening minutes do not show up, and the other is I am working to migrate my voice communication to "internet phone" VOIP systems such as Gizmo.

But, I did not know much about pre-paid phone plans. Did they support text messaging? mobile internet? what was the coverage? The basic answer to these questions is that they do everything your contract-style plan can do. You can even migrate your number, if that is something you want.

The different companies each offer a myriad of options to choose from. I used about.com's handy calculator/questionairre that asks about 12 questions and then gives you the best plans to fit your needs. Mine came out to $6.75-$8.50 per month.

But none of the sites used for my research would answer this question: Can I use my own phone, or am I stuck with the cheap phone that comes in the package?

Well, I ended up making my decision by purchasing the cheapest phone possible, a $20 phone from AT&T which included $10 worth of credit. After activation, I took the SIM chip that came with the pre-paid phone and popped it into my much nicer Nokia phone, turned on the phone and it works like a charm.

So, if you are thinking of trying out a pre-paid plan but already have a phone you like, I would recommend getting the cheapest phone you can find and simply switching the SIM chip. Remember, however, that if your phone is not "unlocked", this technique will likely only work by using a pre-paid phone that is on the same network as your current phone.