[Asheesh]

I have had this idea for a few years now. Its to do with the usability limitations of the phone due to its hardware size and how overcoming it would make smartphones the true "personal" computers.

If you look at any of the new generation of smartphones, you can do almost all the thing you would do using a PC and more. In fact the hardware spec for a phone is much higher in terms of different tech than PCs and even laptops. For example, how many PCs, laptops do you know which come built in with camera, gps, accelerometers, etc. in addition to network connection (gsm, 3g, wifi). Also, most smartphones have applications which enable you to write emails, browse the internet, write documents, show presentations, play songs, movies, games, make audio/video calls, take photos/videos, instant messaging, the list goes on... and you can install 3rd party applications, just like PCs.

But even though we have had all these features on smartphones for some years for now, they are no replacement for PCs. We still prefer to use our desktops/laptops to for most of the above tasks and use smartphones as a backup when we are away form our desktops/laptops. I think the main reason for this is the size limitations of the screen and keypads. Now if we remove this limitations I think smartphones can start challenging the laptops/netbooks/desktops. And I don't think the way forward is to stick a bigger screen and keypad into phones, but enable them to use external screens, keyboards, mouse, etc. This has been done to a certain extent at a very simplistic level by some manufacturers by enabling the use of bigger addon keypads, but thats just too basic. Also, it not great using a bigger keypad while still staring at a tiny screen! What I am suggesting is a smartphone should at an OS level have two modes of operation - one in which it acts like a normal smartphone running within the limitations of its immediate hardware shell and second when it is connected to a "docking station", just like laptops. When it is connected to the docking station, the UI scales to make use of the higher screen resolutions (not just a dumb scaling to make things look bigger), the applications themselves might show more features to take advantage of the extra screen space. Just as on laptops, we connect mouse, bigger screens to improve their usability the same applies to smartphones. The OS should handle these new hardware devices. This would improve the usability of smartphones for non-phone use a lot. And as processing power increases make is a substitute to your PC... making it a true "personal" computer. Forget super slim notebooks, you can't beat smartphones for size. In a way making the size limitation of the smartphone its advantage.

I know some of you might say, smartphones will never replace PCs. To a certain extent that is true. But the iPhones and Nokia E71's of today are much more powerful than my 486/586 based PC I had a few years back and I could do quite a lot on those old PCs! Just ask your self what do most people use their PCs for and then check can we do that with a smartphone if it didn't have the usability limitations... the answer is going to be yes for most of the things.

I would like to see a more intelligent evolution of the smartphones, than just making them slimmer,lighter adding more memory, better camera, or trying to cram in everything in its tiny dimensions. Hopefully with Symbian opening up to open source there is a possibility for innovation like this outside the roadmap of big players.

[ltomuta]

Symbian based smartphones already support external keyboards and TV out. With features such as USB On-The-Go coming soon your dream is about to become reality.

[kamaljaiswal]

nice one Asheesh ..lot of work has gone into in ..like porting of PnP stack ,etc ..
.. but for sure won't be able to compile Symbian programs on it till now ..

[Asheesh]

Like I mentioned, you can connect an external keypad, and have TV-out, but its done in a very simplisitic way. With TV out, while you can connect to a TV/projector/screen, the phone doesn't utilise the higher screen resolution of the connected device, instead you see a BIG scaled up 320x240 image. And technically the platfrom can support different screen resolution, but right now it just cant do it dynamically. I would like to see that happen. The same applies for other things... so if the phone is connected to the docking station which in has a full key baord, when connected the OS should use it, if it has a mouse connected the OS should use it, if it has external speakers conneted the OS shoud use it, if it has a joystick connected the OS should use it, if it has a higher speed network (LAN) connected the OS should use it, if it has an external disk the OS shoudl use it... and the list goes on. Basically the same things that happens (plug-n-play) when you connect new hardware to your PC/laptop to new hardware.. as long as you have the drivers for it the OS can support it and the applications in turn can use it.

[Asheesh]

I posted the same message on the iPhone discussion forum to get some feedback.. and Apple removed it! I also posted the same message on Google Android dicussion forum and got banned!

Good to see Forum Nokia is not panaroid like the others and lets its community actually "discuss" things on a discussion forum!

BTW, I dont want to make any claim on IP for this idea. I am sure there are smarter people than me who have also thought of this.. and PnP is aleady being done on PCs I just wanted to discuss the possiblities and get some feedback.

[Asheesh]

Apparently Nokia has a project called "noBounds" which enables the phone to use high res connected screens. Have a look at http://www.internettablettalk.com/20...ounds-project/

Come on Nokia, bring it to S60!

[Sorcery-ltd]

Hi,

Actually, dynamic scalable resolution is already there. TV Out on some devices supports VGA resolution rather than just QVGA, but there's no change to the layout, so it looks the same (although you can see improved quality in the video).

There are two issues with improving this - one is hardware support, the graphics chipsets (where there is hardware acceleration even) just can't handle pushing out enough pixels fast enough... this should be fixed in next-gen hardware. The other issue is TVs - many don't actually support higher resolutions for several types of input. A lot of high-def LCD screens only support VGA resolution on their PC input for instance. Again, this is changing... you just have to wait a while, or buy the right TV.

The main issue with connecting most external devices to phones is power - the phone simply can't deliver enough power to run most external devices that are developed for PCs. USB OTG should fix that to some extent (i.e. new lower power devices should become available).

I think this is an excellent area for future innovation, but note that a smartphone, plus a Bluetooth keyboard, plus a cable for connecting up to a TV, is not really any less to carry than a netbook.

Mark

[Asheesh]

One company has done it! Well its not entierly a generic solution, but good first step. I would prefer a docking station where I can attach any PC screen, keyboard, mouse, ascessories...

http://www.celiocorp.com/

http://www.physorg.com/news152995434.html < review

We need one for S60 phone... or better still one that works across all devices. Maybe it should use an open standard for the interface to the docking station.

[vivango]

I want to develop an external "WIRED" sensor and the mobile smartphone should pull periodically the info out of the sensor.

1 - Am I allowed to do that with nokia devices?

2 - If I'm allowed where can I find interface information and requirements for external hardware device to be compliant with for example a nokia n95 device?