However, due to our recent decision to drop Halium support, this factor is no longer a constraint,” reads the announcement. “The main drawback of switching off of oFono is that it is the only option for Halium devices. On the good side of things, ModemManager proved to be much more reliable than oFono on mainlined devices like the PinePhone or OnePlus 6, but, on the bad side of things, Halium devices are no longer supported and some features are yet to be added.
Packing three months worth of improvements since the Plasma Mobile Gear 21.08 update, Plasma Mobile Gear 21.12 is the first release of the software suite to switch its telephony stack from oFono to ModemManager.Īs you may know, ModemManager integrates with the NetworkManager network management daemon, which is currently being used by many popular GNU/Linux distributions for network connectivity of all sorts, including but not limited to Wi-Fi, wired and mobile connections, as well as for telephony functions.Īccording to the KDE Project, ModemManager has a more active development and new devices are always being upstreamed. Nokia can’t afford to bet its entire future on Windows Phone and if it wants to remain the volume leader it needs to step up its efforts in the low-end smartphone segment, he said.The KDE Project released today Plasma Mobile Gear 21.12 as the latest version of their open-source and free software suite for the Plasma Mobile desktop variant for mobile devices.
“That means Nokia either needs to scale up Series 40 and make it a more robust competitor with a smart-like experience or look at alternative options, and could be one of the other options,” said Wood.
There is no question that Android is pushing the price of smartphones to levels that are considerably lower than that of smartphones based on Windows Phone in the near-term, which means that Nokia has a gap in its portfolio, according to Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight. Nokia choosing Windows Phone over Android has put the company in a tight spot when it comes to low-end smartphones. However, I can say that our Mobile Phones team has a number of exciting projects in the works that will help connect the next billion consumers to the Internet,” a spokesman said via email. “Of course, we don’t comment on future products or technologies. On the record, Nokia is keeping mum about its plans. Nokia dabbled with a Linux phone two years ago, introducing the N900 running Linux. Series 40 is the OS Nokia today uses on its feature phones, a product segment that is going away as users want smartphones.
“So if you put the two together, we can see where this would fit in,” said Milanesi.
At its Connection event in Singapore Nokia said that Qt - a Linux-compatible cross-platform application and user interface framework - would be a good fit for lower-end devices, and before that McDowell said that Nokia needs to find a replacement for Series 40, according to Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.
The company has been hinting at plans for a reboot of its low-end smartphone portfolio. The new OS is code-named “Meltemi,” and the project is being led by Mary McDowell, Nokia’s executive vice president in charge of mobile phones, according to sources familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Nokia has underlined the importance of low-cost smartphones and now it appears that the company is developing a Linux-based OS for smartphones that will cost less than US$100 without subsidies.