Nokia has been struggling a bit this year, but this “hack it” to get your phone unboxing is pretty interesting. Once you “root” the box it opens up and a little puff of smoke appears, along with your phone (if you’re a phone / gadget reviewer). It’s interesting to see what’s been happening on the artist/maker side of phone hacking, a couple years ago the Nokias were all used for projects – and then the iPhone came out and almost immediately the very same folks were jailbreaking and then making their own apps. There’s still not a lot of hardware interaction, but the iPhone seems to be the phone of choice for hackin’ around oddly enough.
12 thoughts on “Hack the box to get to the phone”
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The iPhone has just been the darling of the industry recently, very media friendly. As you’ve said Nokia has had a very long history of hackable devices, open source OS, lots of code repositories, hardware hacks, support from nokia directly, free development tools.
I just think its not as widely reported on, or ever really was, partially I’d say because it just wasn’t as big a hassle, since it was open to start off with, there was no need to break the security or fight with the turtlenecks, so no need to report on it.
Nokia is more of an open platform too, you can do a lot more with most of them than the iPhone, even when its jailbroken, though they are starting to level off, but for the most part, unlike Apple, Nokia doesn’t actively work against you gaining control.
They do the usual required parts to appease carriers, but you can do it all for free without jailbreaking, something Apple just doesn’t do, it’ll get harder as apple works to close the loopholes.
The internet tablets are really popular amongst hackers too, and they get pretty cheap too, since they didn’t really capture the public eye.
Bluetooth, serial, USB host, Wifi etc. With no hefty contracts, granted not cellular on the internet tablets yet, they’ve announced it, but since you can usually get host mode, then it can be added.
So help them out, do some more reporting on just how much you can do with the Nokia.
cheers
Sorry forgot to add that the N900 is cellular equipped internet tablet, and pretty powerful , but still costly.
Just look at the specs on it.
Also unfortunately they had to ditch the USB host on the N900, which was one of the better features of the tablet. Different things are blamed, usb consortium for A type certification, deadlines and complexity of getting it all to work as expected.
Rumour is they might bring it back in the future.
Here’s hoping for the N910 with OTG
I’ll be checking expansys for the inevitable price drop.
Who cares about that phone ?
The video should have dissected the BOX, show what makes it tick. Phones are lame.
“Nokia has been struggling a bit this year”
We pitch huge fits when companies don’t let us hack the devices we own, but then we don’t follow through and support companies that give us the freedom we “demand.” It may be the media attention given the iPhone as @charlie explains, but I think for the most part makers aren’t so susceptible to that. Instead, when it really comes down to it, we mess with whatever gadget is cooler (even mainstream cooler). If that device is the most closed, proprietary device known to man, so be it.
Apple makes excellent products. But still I find it sad and ironic that when a company does well by us and a real, open option exists, it doesn’t do them a lick of good. “Mental credit,” as my physics teacher used to call it, doesn’t pay the bills.
No, people like you and I pitch huge fits when companies don’t let us hack our devices, but we are also the people that DO support stuff like the rooted-out-of-box N900. Or at least I will, when it supports 3g on AT&T which is my only option.
The unwashed masses don’t want control, they want an experience such as what Apple gives them: to do (A), use product (iA). To do (B), use product (iB). They control the user experience from beginning to end, which makes it simple for the typical user.
I dig this box as much as I dig the N900. I just wish Nokia and North America cared more about each other. I love you Nokia!