Linux/Android on CDMA Touch Pro -- Now working on Verizon! And with GPS!

[tgkdubb]

Originally Posted by hamagc

the software of the phone does not matter. they ESN number is what is locked on sprint. you can take an htc hero and put windows mobile on it and it still can't be activated on sero. likewise, you can take a touch pro and put android on it and activate it no problems.

sprint has a list of esn numbers from certain phones (hero, moment, pre, etc) that can not be activated on a sero acct.

^^ what I was trying to say in response to the SERO post. Although i was unaware of the Android/Sero restriction. Now I am even more excited about this project on the TP because my plans were to: 1. Never leave SERO and 2. Obtain an Android phone for my next phone. Looks like i'll be sticking with my TP WM/Android device for a while.

[woodz93]

Originally Posted by tgkdubb

^^ what I was trying to say in response to the SERO post. Although i was unaware of the Android/Sero restriction. Now I am even more excited about this project on the TP because my plans were to: 1. Never leave SERO and 2. Obtain an Android phone for my next phone. Looks like i'll be sticking with my TP WM/Android device for a while.

Yeah i mentioned the SERO dilemma early in this thread somewhere. The only option that I am aware of that preserves your SERO is upgrading to the TP2, which has Android development on it as well. Also, it is the phone you can get if your TP's kb bonks out one too many times (had friends with broken TP's eventually score one), which is nice since by then *hopefully* android development on it is mature. In the meantime, like you, I want to keep the TP going for as long as I can.

[makkonen]

Originally Posted by answerman

Please don't take this as a n00b post... I've been around here for the last 4 years or so (I did the 6700/6800/Touch Pro sequence like a lot of us), but I've been fairly quiet since I got my Touch Pro, just running the stock ROM. My previous two phones were tweaked/customized to within an inch of their lives though... starting with HelmiC's work on the 6700 and going right through most of DCD's ROMs, while being quite involved in the projects involving the unlocking of the GPS chip on the HTC phones.

I got my wife a Droid Eris for Christmas, and I've been pretty impressed with it. So, the idea of getting Android running on the Touch Pro definitely is interesting. I've been following this thread when I've had time, and I have a couple of questions aimed primarily at Makkonen. If these were asked earlier in the thread, please accept my apologies.

First, and most important... Makkonen, with your experience working with this project, do you see the ultimate goal of actually running Android as the native OS being a possibility? Are there hardware differences between the Touch Pro and Droid Eris (using another HTC phone as an example) that would prohibit it? I'm not as knowledgable about the phone hardware as I am with desktop CPUs, but to me a stopping point would be if the actual core OS directives were "hard coded" into the chipset. With the ability to flash the chipsets, I would think that even if this was the case it could be overcome.

Secondly, regarding the battery issues: is the battery truly being depleted at the rate Android is reporting, or is it an issue with the driver (or whatever Linux uses) reporting incorrectly? Has anyone done a test using some equivalent of ACBPowerMeter for WinMo to actually gauge the rate of battery discharge in mA per hour? Using some rough numbers, if a 1300mAH battery is being depleted in 4 hours, that means a constant drain of over 300mAH. Has anyone verified this?

Finally, regarding the touchscreen: again using my previous comparison, the Droid Eris uses a capacitive screen, while the Touch Pro uses a resistive screen. Is that a hardware difference? Meaning, are we trying to make a resistive screen "act" like a capacitive screen? That would explain a lot of the sensitivity issues.

This project looks interesting, and I learned never to say "never" a long time ago... people all said that WinMo 6 would never run on the 6700, and I was there the night that HelmiC "virtually" came into the room and unveiled his work. We've come a long way... and if there is anything I can do to assist, let me know.

I don't have much doubt that the Touch Pro will eventually have (mostly) stable, (mostly) complete native port of Android. There is nothing preventing this in the hardware; the only thing at issue is the amount of time and inspiration available to the developers to make it happen. That there are still people working hard on improving the Vogue Android port gives a good sign that the Touch Pro port will continue to come along (though it might not reach maturity until most people have left it behind).

As far as the battery, your numbers sound about right, and reasonable. I don't think there is a tool that could give us very good battery info in Android, since the underlying data that we have access to is not very good at this point. A constant drain of 300+ mA from a device with all its parts in a full-power state doesn't sound too far off. With power collapse working, that can be seriously reduced (to an average of maybe ~150mA). With power collapse working and the most offending battery drainers disabled (radio off, wifi off), I imagine the phone would probably only draw 25-50mA and would last for a day or more. Which is still less than ideal, but, again... reasonable.

Finally, a resistive touchscreen is a fundamentally different beast than a capacitive one. There is no getting around this; Touch Pro Android will never support multitouch, and will never have the effortless touch experience of a capacitive panel. That said, we're not trying to make a resisitive screen act like a capacitive one -- we're using the driver from the HTC Tattoo (the one Android device with a resisitive screen). This driver obviously has some issues with our specific panel, but that's a smaller, more tractable problem than the capacitive/resistive issue.

[peterm20]

I think I've got something broke on my unbuntu install. I downloaded the master and eclair branch and still wont boot. it for the most part boots and then there is a uncaught exception. I'll have to play with it more to see whats going on with it.

[Xian]

whooooo! Now I can mock all the fancy Droid and Hero users (and the wife's Moment)


=D

[answerman]

Originally Posted by makkonen

I don't have much doubt that the Touch Pro will eventually have (mostly) stable, (mostly) complete native port of Android. There is nothing preventing this in the hardware; the only thing at issue is the amount of time and inspiration available to the developers to make it happen. That there are still people working hard on improving the Vogue Android port gives a good sign that the Touch Pro port will continue to come along (though it might not reach maturity until most people have left it behind).

That's good to know. I'm one of those "late adopters" who doesn't give up on my phone till I've wrung most of the use out of it (or at least till the 2 year contract comes up for renewal). I expect to have my Touch Pro (I was assimilated by Verizon, but my Touch Pro is an Alltel branded phone on an Alltel plan, by the way) for at least the next year, assuming it doesn't fall apart or something, so I'll probably get more active in this project as time allows.

Originally Posted by makkonen

As far as the battery, your numbers sound about right, and reasonable. I don't think there is a tool that could give us very good battery info in Android, since the underlying data that we have access to is not very good at this point. A constant drain of 300+ mA from a device with all its parts in a full-power state doesn't sound too far off. With power collapse working, that can be seriously reduced (to an average of maybe ~150mA). With power collapse working and the most offending battery drainers disabled (radio off, wifi off), I imagine the phone would probably only draw 25-50mA and would last for a day or more. Which is still less than ideal, but, again... reasonable.

I'm thinking that you're on the right track, that the phone is not remaining "asleep". I'm running a stock Alltel ROM on my phone tweaked quite a bit for power management, and it's only drawing about 40 to 50 mA in its sleeping state (screen off, and EvDO connected but dormant), and then up to about 350 mA when in use, equaling about a 20 to 24 hour discharge. My wife's Droid Eris draws about half of that, and she gets about 2 days out of a similar sized battery, so it's not simply a product of the OS. WiFi is a battery hog, we all know that... but a dormant (on, but not actively moving data) EvDO data connection and phone radio shouldn't draw that much. Something else is going on in the background.

Originally Posted by makkonen

Finally, a resistive touchscreen is a fundamentally different beast than a capacitive one. There is no getting around this; Touch Pro Android will never support multitouch, and will never have the effortless touch experience of a capacitive panel. That said, we're not trying to make a resisitive screen act like a capacitive one -- we're using the driver from the HTC Tattoo (the one Android device with a resisitive screen). This driver obviously has some issues with our specific panel, but that's a smaller, more tractable problem than the capacitive/resistive issue.

That clears it up too. I wasn't real clear on this. I didn't realize that there was an Android device with a resistive screen out there.

I'll be diving into this project within the next few days... possibly my skillsets may if nothing else bring another point of view. This is a worthy cause, and I'll help in any way I can as time permits (I don't seem to have as much of that as I used to).

[chrialex]

Originally Posted by answerman

... but a dormant (on, but not actively moving data) EvDO data connection and phone radio shouldn't draw that much. Something else is going on in the background...

From my understanding, Android has a lot that uses the data connection. Be it Google Sync, Voice, Talk, Maps, Gmail, or any number of other Google/3rd party apps. If that is the case, then that combined with the fact that it is running off of the SD card instead of the phone itself, still having bugs smashed and code tweaked to the optimum settings could help to explain the higher power cost.

And welcome aboard!

[docnas]

Call me greedy but every time i come to this thread from the TP2 thread i get a lil bit jelous and wish the guys working on the TP were working on the TP2 instead...

[celsius0010]

Originally Posted by makkonen

we're using the driver from the HTC Tattoo (the one Android device with a resisitive screen). This driver obviously has some issues with our specific panel, but that's a smaller, more tractable problem than the capacitive/resistive issue.

The work you guys are doing is amazing. I was wondering tho, what drivers were being used before the Tattoo came out.. I had a semi functional version of android working on my Mogul when the G1 came out, I'm almost positive before the G1 came out. And I think the Vogue build was considered pretty stable before the Tatoo was even announced...

[makkonen]

I think the Vogue/Kaiser/Polaris (and before we switched, the raphael/diamond/topaz/rhodium) used an older MSM Touchscreen driver, of what provenance I do not know. It works well on the older devices, but is awful on ours.