How Gizmo Project Will Work on the Nokia N80i
Garrett Smith questioned how good the UI will be for Gizmo Project on the Nokia N80i, given his past experience with Gizmo Project. Well, here’s a little secret for you: There is no Gizmo Project UI on the Nokia N80i. The UI that is being used is already built into the Nokia phone. It is essentially the ability to make/receive SIP calls, which the Nokia N80i (and other Nokia phones, particularly E series devices) have the capability to do.
What you download for Gizmo project is nothing more than an application that will automatically configure the SIP stack inside of the Nokia N80i based on the credentials you provide, nothing more. That means you lose out on presence information as well as the ability to use IM. However, the ability to make and receive VoIP calls is almost automatic. You select the person in your address book, and then choose to call that person over the Internet. That choice is built into the phone’s menu. Same with receiving a VoIP call. It “just happens,” assuming you are in range of WiFi.
If this sounds a bit like TruPhone, you’re absolutely right. This is almost exactly how TruPhone works. What’s different is in the provisioning. TruPhone’s provisioning process is a bit onerous and complicated. Having attempted to do my own Nokia E70 and successfully done Andy Abramson’s Nokia E61, I have experienced it first hand. Too many steps involved. Certainly not as easy as it could be.
For Gizmo Project, it’s a simple matter of using the phone’s “Download!” service to find the application, download it, enter your credentials, and you’re done. Or I suppose you could enter the magic URL in the phone’s browser and get a similar experience. Either way, it’s dirt simple and, at least according to Andy, it works.
I did say I want this phone, right?
