Wireless Archive

The same plasticy everything-and-the-kitchen-sink-software products as always from Samsung, but it does make one thing even clearer: stock Android really needs multiwindow.

Written by one of Danger's first employees, Chris DeSalvo. Amazing detailed look at some of the revolutionary things Danger did - years before iOS and Android.

It should come as no surprise that I loved this article. I hate how everything is framed as "iOS/Android invented this" - while in fact, both of those platforms rely very, very, very heavily on those that came before, such as PalmOS and Danger.

The Verge has an interesting story up detailing the various hardware and software prototypes that could have had a future hadn't HP botched pretty much every aspect of its Palm acquisition. Both in features as well as design, the next version of webOS, codenamed 'Eel', looked quite promising, and the hardware designs certainly stand out too.

Sadly, as I stated in my detailed history of Palm, webOS was, at its core, simply not a Palm product. As I wrote:

WebOS probably looked like the bee's knees to someone used to the version of Android and iOS at the time, but having had a long history using PalmOS products, webOS was a total and utter letdown. WebOS was a badly sewn together set of compromises, unfinished parts and shortcuts - and it showed. From The Verge's article, I get the impression that Eel slapped on a new coat of paint and new user-facing features - but that the lower levels and core of the operating system were still very much the same unoptimised mess.

I'm definitely curious what LG's webOS TV is going to be like - it looks nice - but if it's anything like Palm's and HP's webOS products, it won't light any of my fires.

Jolla promised another big bugfix update before the year was over, and they delivered. Version 1.0.2.5 brings a whole boatload of bugfixes and stability improvements, but also brings in a few new features - such as one-way Google Calendar synchronization, camera support for Android applications, and a few more. Bigger new features are expected to arrive in January.

The update rollout itself was a bit of a disaster - the servers became overloaded (at least, that's what it looked like), so many people couldn't download the update, or would have the download hang halfway through. As far as I know, the update seems to be rolling out fine now, but having this process go wrong when the userbase is as small as it is means they've got some work to do on this one.

There's this one other thing about the Jolla phone that sets it apart from the competition. In marketing terms, it's called The Other Half, the backside of the phone, which can be replaced and is 3D-printable. While the two The Other Halfs shipping with the first wave of pre-order customers have tiny RFID chips in them for communication (it instructs the phone to download a matching background and sounds), the Jolla phone also has a set of electrical contacts on the back of the exposed device - I2C.

This is one of the wildcard when it comes to Jolla - there's lots of possibilities here, such as a backplate with an additional battery, or even one with an integrated sliding keyboard. One of Jolla's engineers already added wireless charging to his backplate using I2C, to illustrate what it possible.

I'm really curious what other people are going to come up with - if at all. Right now there's probably little commercial interest to create products for The Other Half, but if Jolla manages to pick up enough steam, we might see some really cool stuff coming out of this.

These men and women know what they're doing. They're not overselling, and they keep their promises. A very promising start.

The release of this phone is slated for 2014, and is supposedly "full steam ahead". I guess this will depend on how quickly Microsoft can complete the acquisition.

Unfounded speculation on my end: could this be the reason Microsoft went ahead and bought Nokia's devices division? A successful Nokia Android phone would be quite embarrassing for them, after all.

While my Jolla still hasn't shipped, the community isn't sitting still at all. Sailfish has already been ported to Jolla's spiritual predecessor - yes, the Nokia N9 can now run Sailfish OS. The beautify of it all is that you don't even need to remove Harmattan, since it can dual-boot. It's relatively complete too, since GPS, A-GPS, Bluetooth, wifi and 'Calling Functions' are already working.

In addition, Sailfish' first update, version 1.0.1.10 has been detailed in its changelog - it's mostly a bugfix and stability release. So, when the pre-order devices arrive at our doorsteps, we'll have a software update waiting

Charts like this do great in certain areas of the web, but it's too simplistic. First, it does not take into account that many core aspects of Android are updated through Google Play, such as Chrome, Gmail, Maps, the keyboard, and so on. Whereas iOS needs an entire update to fix a small bug in, say, Maps - Android does not. Many core parts that require an entire OS update for iOS are updated weekly on Android.

Second, it does not mention that even though older iPhone models get the latest version of iOS, some functionality of these latest versions is disabled due to marketing, and in some cases due to hardware constraints (if you were to believe Apple, that is).

Third and foremost, though: I'm betting each and every one of those devices has at least an Android 4.2 or 4.3 release (and some have 4.4 too, like my Find 5) from, for instance, CyanogenMod - and countless other ROM makers. Installing a custom ROM is one of the strengths of Android, and not nearly as hard or difficult as some make it out to be. If your iPhone becomes unsupported or really slow due to iOS7 - you're screwed. You have no other options. If Samsung's TouchWiz crap makes your Galaxy slow, run out and get a quality phone install a custom ROM.

I see this all the time: people ignoring core strengths of Android because they don't understand them or because they don't belong to their interests - "this is just for nerds and geeks, so it's irrelevant!" Take discussions about application on iOS and Android, for instance; those arguing in favour of iOS routinely ignore that Android has access to types of applications iOS users could only dream of. If you leave those out, it's easy to make Android's application offering look weaker. The same happens when looking at Android and updates.

All this doesn't negate the fact that updates are by far Android's weakest link, although not nearly as much of an issue as it used to be during the gingerbread days. Moving more and more parts of Android to Play will eventually all but solve the issue completely.

The N1 is available with Oppo's own skinned Android, with CyanogenMod, or with both. Interesting approach that I hope more manufacturers adopt. Too bad the N1 is such an ugly monstrosity - 5.9" (!) with rotatable camera (!) - compared to its beautiful, elegant, understated, and timeless predecessor.

Remember the curved phone from LG, the LG G Flex? There's actually truth to its name. Not only does the back cover 'heal' from scratches, the phone itself is actually, honest-to-god flexible. It bends without breaking or damaging the phone. So yes, this device may look silly - but the future is peeking into the present here. Quite amazing.

Impressive for a poorly reviewed device. I guess this is what marketing and bundling can do - then again, without bundling, flagship smartphone sales would crumble like three week old bread too.

Jolla's first smartphone, running their new SailfishOS, will be released in Finland on 27 November. It will feature Nokia HERE maps, and the Yandex Android application store.

International, non-Finnish people who preordered (like myself) will be notified via email shortly. I can't wait. I'm getting the 'other half' in red and white (I get two of them as part of my preorder package) - or perhaps, hot candy pink? Any suggestions from you guys and girls?

I've always known this, and I'm sure most of you do too, but we never really talk about it. Every smartphone or other device with mobile communications capability (e.g. 3G or LTE) actually runs not one, but two operating systems. Aside from the operating system that we as end-users see (Android, iOS, PalmOS), it also runs a small operating system that manages everything related to radio. Since this functionality is highly timing-dependent, a real-time operating system is required.

This operating system is stored in firmware, and runs on the baseband processor. As far as I know, this baseband RTOS is always entirely proprietary. For instance, the RTOS inside Qualcomm baseband processors (in this specific case, the MSM6280) is called AMSS, built upon their own proprietary REX kernel, and is made up of 69 concurrent tasks, handling everything from USB to GPS. It runs on an ARMv5 processor.