Leveraging Open Source in the New Mobile Device Market

1
Leveraging Open Source in the New Mobile Device
Market

• Donn Seeley
• Senior Member Technical Staff
• Wind River

2
Agenda

• Description and comparison of smartphones and
  mobile Internet devices (MIDs)
• Open source software for MIDs
• Where the market might be headed
• Questions and answers

3
What Are Smartphones?

• Smartphones are basically a cell phone with smart
  add-ons.
• They feature everything a cell phone has and
  more
• Fancy color graphics
• PDA features
• Internet browsing and RSS
• MP3 player
• GPS
• More
• They also have some negative features of cell
  phones
• Tiny screen
• Slow speed
• More

4
What Are MIDs?

• MIDs are a PC form factor, smaller than laptops
  but bigger than (most) smartphones.
• The terminology was invented by Intel.
• Screen sizes run from 4 inches to 6 inches.
• MIDs can run a full PC-level operating system
  (such as Linux).
• They support more than Symbian or Windows Mobile.
• If it can run Emacs, it's probably a MID rather
  than a smartphone.
• MIDs have many things you don't like in a
  PC/laptop, and more.
• Short battery time
• Enormous software footprint (hence greater cost)?
• More

5
What Are the Remaining Gaps Between MIDs and
Smartphones?

• MIDs concentrate on IP connectivity rather than
  cell phone connectivity.
• 802.11 / Wi-Fi 802.16/WiMAX (forthcoming)?
• Browser bookmarks used before contact list
• Smartphones are cheaper and more portable.
• MIDs have a higher BoM (bill of materials part
  count).
• MIDs are typically sold to businesses rather than
  consumers.
• MIDs have battery lifetimes that are more similar
  to laptops.
• MIDs are faster and have more RAM and Flash.
• Smartphones often use relatively slow ARM
  processors.
• MIDs typically use laptop-capable Intel chipsets.
• MIDs have touch screens.

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How Is This Changing?

• MID and smartphone features are converging.
• Internet and Wi-Fi are moving onto phones.
• Phones are turning to IP technology (4G).
• MIDs are getting cellular telephony hardware.
• Technology to roam between VoIP/Wi-Fi/WiMAX and
  cellular networks is arriving.
• Both MIDs and smartphones are acquiring other
  consumer features such as MP3 playing, video
  streaming, PDA features, etc.
• MID and smartphone operating systems are
  converging.
• On Linux, of course
• MIDs are getting much better power management.
• MIDs will soon have battery times more like MP3
  players.
• MIDs are getting cheaper (sometime soon).

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Is the Apple iPhone a Smartphone or a MID?

• Yes
• It's an example of convergence.

8
How Does Open Source Play a Role?

• Linux MIDs are friendly to open source
  developers.
• Not only do Linux MIDs run your Linux
  applications but on Intel-based MIDs you can
  sometimes run your Linux desktop binaries.
• A lot of open source middleware and user
  interface support already runs on MIDs, making it
  easy to import new applications.
• Maemo/Hildon
• Gnome Mobile
• Ubuntu Mobile
• Moblin

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As an Example, What's in Moblin?

• Moblin is an open source project sponsored by
  Intel.
• Moblin includes a lot of bits from Maemo, Gnome
  Mobile, Ubuntu Mobile, X.org, etc.
• The goal is to have a MID operating system that
  is almost entirely open source.
• Intel's only exceptions are hardware
  coprocessorrelated features such as secure boot
  and graphics acceleration.
• Intel is also contributing a lot of its own bits.
• It runs on ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs a MID
  antecedent) and some development machines.
• It will run on Atom-chipset MIDs that are
  appearing now.
• Atom is the new Low Power on Intel Architecture
  (LPIA)?.

10
What Middleware and Applications Appear in
Moblin?

• Here is a sampling based on the Moblin 1
  specification.
• The installation is mostly based on Ubuntu
  packages.
• Middleware
• HAL Hardware abstraction layer
• D-Bus IPC between desktop applications
• Gstreamer A streaming media framework
• Telepathy A framework for instant messaging,
  IRC, voice calls, video calls
• X Desktop graphics
• GTK A GUI toolkit
• Large chunks of Gnome A desktop environment
• Python An interpreted programming language
• Avahi Zeroconf tools (Rendezvous)?

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What Middleware and Applications Appear in
Moblin (Part 2)?

• Applications
• Hildon (user interface and applets)?
• Midbrowser A mobile Web browser based on Firefox
• Carious Moblin applets Clock, chat, etc.
• Evince A document viewer
• Mousepad A text editor
• Galculator A scientific calculator
• Bits from Matchbox Virtual keyboard, window
  manager, etc.
• More
• A Moblin installation will bring in more than 700
  target packages.
• There's more cool stuff on the way in Moblin 2.

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What's Missing in the Open Source Toolset Right
Now?

• Some features are better developed in commercial
  software right now
• 3G telephony
• T9 support
• GPS/LBS UI support
• Some features are limited by IP issues
• Certain audio and video codecs
• Hardware accelerators

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What Are the Attractions for Open Source
Developers on MIDs?

• MIDs are not-quite-full-featured PCs.
• If you have a desktop or even a server
  application you can probably make it run on a
  MID.
• The main limitations are with keyboard input and
  screen size.
• There are far fewer restrictions than with
  smartphones.
• You can carry them around in your pocket.
• Work on projects anywhere

14
Where Are the Opportunities for Commercial
Developers?

• You can be the first on the scene of an
  interesting new market.
• If you can do it on a Linux laptop, you can do it
  on a MID.
• There are some big new technologies such as WiMAX
  that you can take advantage of.
• You can provide content.
• Video on demand
• GPS databases
• Music catalogs
• Location-based services
• More

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Who Is Going to Use the Converged Products?

• MID phones will be the new standard for phones.
• Prices will drop to the levels that consumers
  expect for phones.
• Products such as the iPhone have set expectations
  already.
• The higher bandwidth and higher horsepower will
  enable breakthroughs for consumers.
• Substantially higher quality video (bigger
  screens, higher bandwidth) will lead to
  better-looking YouTube, movies, and TV shows.
• Games (especially multiplayer games) could be a
  big win.
• Email, blogging, vlogging can be done anywhere.

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This Will Be Truly Ubiquitous Computing.
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