Mike Kelley, Senior VP of Engineering at PalmSource/Access, gave a presentation to developers at LinuxWorld this past August. The presentation covered various topics and we've focused here on a very cool-looking possible ALP flip-phone picture and information about skinning or theming ALP to customize the look and feel of the screens and controls.
Mike Kelley, Senior VP of Engineering at PalmSource/Access, gave a presentation to developers entitled "Beyond the PC: The Realization of Linux in the Mobile Device Market" at LinuxWorld this past August. This presentation, among other things, covered the following topics:
- How large the mobile linux market is
- Mobile Linux is expected to have 27% of the smartphone market by 2010
- The advantages of an open source platform
- Full technical diagrams of the details of the varios components of ALP
- Importance and approach of Theming in the smartphone market
- How ALP will allow native development, traditional Palm OS development, and Java development
- Describes the Mobile Ecosystem where wireless operators, device licensees, solution providers, partners, and standards organizations all work together
Possible ALP Phone
Kelley's presentation included some pictures of a very cool looking ALP smartphone. No details were given about the phone, but its likely a mock-up of what Access/PalmSource visualize a typical ALP smartphone might look like. It might also be some sort of prototype or reference design.
Its hard to tell much about the phone from the picture, but obviously it is a fairly traditional flip-phone style smartphone. Its also obvious because of the stylus that it will have full touch-screen support. This is one of the things that differentiates it from traditional Microsoft Windows Mobile Smartphones that do not have touch screens. Only their full pda-style phones have touch screens.
ALP is being designed to support both traditional pda-style touch screen usage as well as one-handed "soft button" and 5-way navigator style control. This is great for a fully functional smartphone because people are going to want to use the phone features one way and use the stylus for pda-type activities.
Notice how the device can be used open, like a traditional phone with the screen on the top and the keypad on the bottom and also closed with only the touch-screen showing. I can't tell for sure, but that thick cylindrical hinge looks like it might allow the screen to be twisted around like the old Sony CLIE's and modern Tablet PC's.
I can't tell from the picture, but I'm guessing that this phone also has a smaller display on the outside that is used for caller id and notifications. That second screen is pretty much a necessity for a flip-phone. Of course that also adds to the overall thickness of the device.
While no dimensions were given, nor was this phone ever placed near another object for comparison, it looks to be quite thick. Just guessing, I'd say its probably around 1" thick. Again, just guessing, the height and width look like they might be similar to a Motorola RAZR but maybe bigger than that to accomodate a larger screen.
Theming (Skinning) Access Linux Platform (ALP)
Cell phone users are accustomed to being able to "skin" or "theme" their phone to personalize it. Carriers also want to be able to "customize" the look of their phones. Access has recognized the importance of this and has built full capability for themes into the Access Linux Platform (ALP).
Let's first look at a screenshot of the contacts application in ALP, using the default theme.
Now let's take a look a the phone dialer application using the standard blue theme in ALP:
Here are several different screenshots of various themes that are included in ALP:
Notice that this is much more than just different color schemes. The themes allow for changing the whole look and feel of the screens, including how the buttons look and the fonts used.
Thanks to LinuxDevices for posting Kelley's presentation online.
