Loud ramblings of a Software Artisan

Zaurus, one of the first Linux based PDA, the one where everything started is gonna disappear. Apparently Sharp announced that they'll discontinue the product. I think that one of the reason the Zaurus was not that successful is that it was not easy to buy: Japan, a selection of models in the US, and that's mostly all. And it was somewhat expensive.

Nokia 770 vs N800: I have had in hands for a few minutes on of my coworker's N800. All I can say is that the design is definitely an improvement over the Nokia 770. Two SD card slot, including one that is "inside" (next to the battery), that's is definitely good. To cut all the rumors, the screen is the same size on both. Sean Luke has written an easy about the N800 as seen from a Newton user and developer. Very interesting reading, and given the openness of the Maemo platform, it is doable by third parties. I'm still dreaming of a N800 with a "foldable" keyboard.

Update: according to this comment, the iPaq running Linux predated it.

It is "CES season", and it comes with a bunch of new devices.

First of all, the N800, successor of the Nokia 770, running Maemo 3.0 (code name bora) has be released. From the information gatherer, it bump from 64 to 128MB of RAM, get more chutzpah with a more powerful OMAP processor, get 2 MicroSD instead of a RS-MMC, and has an embedded orientable camera for video chat. Otherwise it share the same form factor, no keyboard. Maemo 3.0 does not run on the Nokia 770 but Ari Jaaski discuss about the options like what are the possibilities to provide a developer image for the 770 to test applications for the new Maemo.

Second, a Linux-based media player apparently sponsored by AOL (or one of it subsidiaries) that will sell music online. It does not play open format like Ogg-Vorbis, but MP3 and WMA (with Digital Restrictions Management). Since it runs Linux, it might be possible to provide other features through a custom firmware... SmartScreen, the "framework" used for the device firmware, seems to be more smartphone oriented. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be as open as Maemo. Interestingly its SDK appear to also be running on Linux although not everything... (the whitepaper from 2004 has old screenshots with Gnome 1.4)

This show how Linux on embedded device is really growing.

Oh, and one more thing. A lot of people have noticed iPhone announced by Apple at MacWorld. It does not run Linux (but MacOS X) and does not even seem to be open to third-party development. On the other hand, its user experience, still in a demo stage, sort of raise the bar^[1] for future developments.

Update: it is actually SD card slots on the N800. That is very welcome.