GSM Treo 650 has WiFi drivers. You just can't use them.
posted February 17th 2005 10:09AM
If you're still fuming at palmOne's refusal to release drivers so you can use an WiFi SD card with the Treo 650 (you
might also still be peeved that it doesn't have built-in WiFi in the first place), here's something to chew on: Treo
hackmaster Shadowmite, who has already figured out how to enable
Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking and
shoehorn some WiFi drivers into the 650, has discovered
that the recently released GSM version of the Treo 650 comes with WiFi drivers pre-installed. They're just disabled.
Apparently the drivers aren't listed in the phone's ROM, and he found them sitting in an unused location of the Treo
650's memory with the first character of the filenames removed. He hasn't gotten them to work yet, but he says he's on
it.
[Thanks, Markos]
Apparently the battery life with WiFi on is a paltry 90 minutes, and the card takes up the valuable SD Card slot you need to compensate for the 20megs of RAM you are left with after the OS loads. So plug in the charger you say? Now you are tethered again, so whats the point of WiFi?
Palm1 dont stop amazing me. Are they trying to re-write the book of "how to spoil a company in 6 months" or what?
Of course i want Wifi, The Treo 650 has replaceble batteries after all...
Hack this thing to bits!
From the description, I would guess the driver file had been deleted on a FAT filesystem. When you delete a file on FAT (like on a memory card or DOS disk) the first letter of the filename is removed and the index entry (in the file allocation table) for the file is removed. So, the file is still there but you can't see it. This is the basis fo those magical undelete programs for old DOS and Windows systems - they found this orphaned files with missing first letters and not file allocation table entry.
So pretty clearly what happened is someone decided to delete the driver before shipping the phone.
Is this for the Cingular/ATTWS GSM version or the unlocked GSM version.
I would hope these drivers would work with Sandisk's WiFi card. Their cards have 256 MB of storage on it, so that would solve the taking up the slot option. I know someone is coming out with a WiFi sled solution, but that sounds cumbersome.
Until all involved vendors - handset manufacturer, network provider, OS provider - release a fully integrated product/service that natively implements Wi-Fi functionality without requiring additional hardware (read SD card) or internal hacks (like here), this will continue to be a marginal concept for most smartphone users.
All told, we're still not near there in terms of platform viability. Hopefully soon, given the demand we see on this site. But I won't hold my breath.
Carmi
http://writteninc.blogspot.com
Why for, Wi-Fi? Just get EDGE, byotch! It works fine! sheesh.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
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iomatic, i dont see why this is so difficult to understand. there are plenty of people like me who spend 80% of their lives in wifi networks. why should i pay for EDGE time when i can use the neworks for nothing?
what i really want (and what so many others want) is the ability to use a device with the features it was designed to have used. i am tired of being denied use of these feature b/c the providers decided to cripple them worried that their bottom line would suffer on a niche market device.
I read a post on treocentral from Shadowmite (the hacker who is allegedly working on this)that he has given up on enabling Wi-Fi drivers for the treo 650 and is now selling the Wi-Fi card that he used for testing.
The one conclusion that he is proud to have reached however is the fact that there are WiFi drivers built in. He also stated that since he is not a driver engineer that his work in enabling these drivers will no longer continue.
You know the reason they did this is very clear... they got serious pressure form all the carriers due to wifi and the usage of Vonage Softphone / Skype. As for Bluetooth --- as people have said, its all due to the network providers not wanting it cause of mobile gurus like you and me that would use up all the spectrum by streaming p*rn... uhhh...I mean, cspan video streams.
They can't enable it on one device and not on another cause customers will get pissed at the carriers... Hope someone will find a way to hack this thing.... wifi/bluetooth for the masses baby!
CH
http://www.mobileguru.com, http://www.carbonpixel.com, http://www.etravel.info
You know the reason they did this is very clear... they got serious pressure form all the carriers due to wifi and the usage of Vonage Softphone / Skype. As for Bluetooth --- as people have said, its all due to the network providers not wanting it cause of mobile gurus like you and me that would use up all the spectrum by streaming p*rn... uhhh...I mean, cspan video streams.
They can't enable it on one device and not on another cause customers will get pissed at the carriers... Hope someone will find a way to hack this thing.... wifi/bluetooth for the masses baby!
CH
http://www.mobileguru.com, http://www.carbonpixel.com, http://www.etravel.info
The marketplace will route around this "damage" ... with increasing amounts of choice and support for ubiquitous open-standards, the walled-garden and crippleware approach will not fly for long.
has anyone noticed how Skype is taking over the world? In five years it will seem ludicrous that the carriers thought they could force consumers to pay their jacked-up long distance rates. Unfortunately the carriers are still powerful gatekeepers, and their response to free IP telephony will be to raise normal monthy rates for data. So in the end we all get to bend over and pay $80 a month to Verizon and friends. Though with WiMax around the corner and the spread of traditional WiFi, perhaps consumers will ditch cellphones altogether and conduct all voice communications through the IP networks.
Is there an echo around here? As I just commented on the whole Moto-Skype deal, what carrier is going to want a competing feature enabled on a cell phone?
What I want to know: if you enable the drivers, can palmOne bust your ass for violating the DMCA? I mean from the evidence so far it seems very unlikely you are legally licensed to use this copyrighted software.
And with the 650's support for OTA, how hard would it be for the carriers to just clip our wings if we enabled the WiFi? Sort of like cable companies re-capping cable modems?