One of the most valuable things that that the user community can contribute to a platform is code. There are plenty of examples of code hacks that work, but would be better served by implementation directly into the firmware. Here are my three favorites - and I hope they eventually become standard maemo modules:
- Bluetooth Sound - Here's the Bluetooth ALSA hack. There are two key profiles that would be of value to the Nokia Internet Tablets. The first, Bluetooth Handsfree, would allow people to use standard Bluetooth phone headsets for VOIP calls. The second, Bluetooth Headset (A2DP) will allow people to use their Bluetooth stereo headsets to listen to music wirelessly.
- Bluetooth PAN - Here's the Bluetooth PAN hack. This has been widely discussed on this blog. I wrote a proposal for this.
- MPlayer and Flash improvements - Here's UKTube. Konttori found a way to grab a Flash stream, pipe it through mplayer, and offer it up as smooth playback. I can see no reason why a browser plugin can't be made to override Flash player and do this translation - especially with the Mozilla browser underway.
Readers: Post your comments on what you think the best hacks are that should make it into firmware. If there's a related bugzilla feature request, link it too. I'm trying to organize as much as possible to help the maemo team with user demands. Only when they know what we want can they provide it to us in updates.
4 comments:
I've also installed UKTube to my N800 lately and was very positively surprised. Since that I've been wondering why streaming video within the browser could not be changed to use the same technique to make videos play smoother. Is it only the buffer size that makes the different or what's the trick?
So I totally agree with ThoughtFix that these improvements should be part of the firmware in the future. There are already showcases for community to firmware code, let's hope that will continue and even speed up.
OT: How about a small icon for the browser UI bottom bar to make it easier to close browser windows. E.g. following the links from ITT forum opens new windows and it's not handy to close the new windows when in Full screen more?
I want to add a vote for Erminig, developed by David Hautbois, which syncs GPE calendar with Google calendar. *Very* useful, even necessary if you ask me.
To timo: In full screen mode hold the "back" button, for a second or so, to close a window.
Post a Comment