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My new phone used to be a web tablet
The Maemo team has been quietly rocking Nokia’s world for some time now. They’re off in the background building (almost pocketable) mobile computers; fine-tuning touch interfaces and small-screen UIs; becoming experts in embedded linux; and bringing top-notch open source software and modern development tools to this unique mobile platform. For years, the Nokia tablets have sat on the side-lines as niche devices for hackers; but lately, the team has been changing the game.
The Nokia 770 and N800 have always faced an up-hill battle with market adoption given their lack of GSM/CDMA support. “Is it a phone?” is one of the first questions people ask when they see me using one these devices. Saying “No, it’s a web tablet” only brings a look of confusion. Thankfully, the latest software releases, wider market recognition of UMPC’s, and the iPhone release, have had a huge impact on the perception of the N800.
The Internet Tablet OS 2007 edition 4.2007.26-8 upgrade (released earlier this month) brought Skype support to the N800. While perhaps playing second fiddle to a Flash upgrade that makes YouTube work better, adding Skype greatly improves the likelyhood of using the N800 as a portable VoIP device. However, even more significant is the recent Internet Communications Software Update for N800. This update adds SIP support to the N800 for VoIP calls — a feature that turned my N800 into my new desk-phone at work.
At Optaros, we use Asterisk to run our phone infrastructure. There are the occasional physical SIP phones in conference rooms, but in general, we use soft-phones running on our laptops to make and receive calls. The downside here is portability. Even using WIFI, a laptop doesn’t make the best cordless phone. But an N800 does. The N800 is actually quite nice as a cordless phone; and with WIFI available in the office, at home, and at nearly every business in Austin, my phone extension can now be routed to my Nokia device and be available almost everywhere.
It may take awhile for the market to notice this, but Nokia is quietly taking the top-spot in mobile linux and VoIP hardware know-how. The Nokia linux tablets aren’t quite ready for the general consumer (in terms of usability), and the marketing messages aren’t there yet either — but the R&D is, and the technology will be ready to drop-in and rock the mobile-phone world as soon as the strategy dictates.
3 Responses to “My new phone used to be a web tablet”
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A few books I'm reading now:
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Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
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Watchmen
-- graphic novel (and an upcoming movie)
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What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
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The Unwritten Laws of Business
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The Simplicity Survival Handbook: 32 Ways To Do Less And Accomplish More
A few books I'd recommend:
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Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science
by Charles Wheelan -- A fantastic overview of the field of Economics. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book.
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson -- a true tale of scientific thinking throughout history. You'll be amazed by how much we still don't know.
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Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner -- a fun read offering a somewhat different way of looking at society. Answers questions like "Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?", and what qualities in a parent matter for the success of a child later in life?
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Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen. I'm a bit of a GTD freak since reading this, but productivity == $$ (whether you can simply get more work done in a given time, or work less by focusing on the right tasks.)
October 30th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Without a doubt the N800 kicks major ass for lack of better words. If you’re an IT, networking, or programming person welcome to your replacement for a pager…or cell even. I live in the mountains and there is no cell or pager service, but plenty of wifi. I work in a city that’s well covered with wifi as well so using this device for everything from server logins to voip calls is really not without much limitation. In short, this device made sense where a cell or anything else doesn’t and a laptop might be overkill….keep that in mind if you can’t get cell or pager service where you are.
I had also been using Gizmo client and secondary SIP for VOIP services on my N800 but its not quite there yet for full and reliable functionality (in fact no new Gizmo release for the Nokia in quite some time), and you’ll also note a drawback to using Gizmo for VOIP — its annoying promiscuous redirect. Gizmo doesn’t really do an ‘honest’ SIP session, it forwards your sip traffic to a sip broker server and that’s what you actually see connected to your PBX. If you aren’t using encryption on your pbx or its extensions I’d question whether you’d want to use it if you care about security at all — but it does work and pretty well. I just doubt most would want to give the Gizmo and Googletalk folks your PBX data. I don’t think they offer the SIP hook in for any other reason than to mine data and/or broaden their footprint, otherwise they’d charge you for it like a in or outbound DID.
So kudos to you Erik for putting this info out there where I and others could easily stumble across it. Your post was quite the find today… glad I can get the Internet Communications Software Update and do a real SIP session. I had given up that Ekiga would be out anytime soon so this helps given VOIP was one of my primary reasons for going with an N800.
Love the little sucker…almost more than my laptop. If you’re reading or researching one, just go buy one… worth every penny.
December 13th, 2007 at 3:24 am
Could you describe how you configure your N800 to work with Asterisk, please?
Thanks in advance.
July 12th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Man, a pager.. I haven’t used one of those in 15 years. Quite amazing how smart phones have replaced everything.