Telephony API?

[kortsi]

Has anybody seen API for controlling the phone functionality? I was thinking if it is possible to write an app to record phone conversations...

[jsmanrique]

I suppose that an API will be released, I hope so. Some things that I would like to see on that API would be :

SMS management (create, send, access, ...)
Call management (automatic, store, ... speech to text or even text to speech?)


And of course, some easy python bindings ;-)

[kortsi]

Hear, hear

[fms]

Just google for "oFono", that should give you at least a preliminary idea of what telephony API will be.

[kortsi]

Thanks for the link! It does not seem to support audio recording functions at the moment, though.

Voice call handling

The voice call interface handles simple call creation and
termination. It also supports 3way-calling and multi-party
features.

This is only for voice control. It doesn't contain support
for the voice data path/routing.

[qgil]

oFono is not part of Fremantle, even if parts of the Fremantle telephony stack might end up in oFono some day.

There is no "Telephony API" as such and actually some of the use cases you are listing seem to belong to other components. I didn't have the time to ask today but Daniel/Soumya will look at this next week with the aim of adding some clarity in the Maemo 5 Developer Guide.

So don't quote me on this but perhaps PulseAudio and Telepathy could be the places to search for APIs related to voice calls and SMS. And then there is DBus in the very middle of many other actions that you might be relating to "Telephony".

EDIT: can someone move this thread to Development, please?

[zerojay]

Could we also please be sure that apps cannot record conversations without people on both ends knowing and agreeing to it in some way... at least a tone or something.

[fms]

Could we also please be sure that apps cannot record conversations without people on both ends knowing and agreeing to it in some way... at least a tone or something.
Why? It is not universally illegal.

[zerojay]

It may not be, but it's a damn shitty thing to do anyways.

Also, since it's a Linux computer that's always online, there's nothing stopping someone from getting into the tablet and recording your phone calls remotely without you even knowing it.

[bocaJ]

Mixed feelings on the recording issue. If I'm in customer service hell for an hour, I might like to be able to turn recording on at my whim, without drastically changing the tenor of the conversation. Anyone curious about why this might matter should google "Verizon Math".

[korbé]

The software "Phone" will not be free? (apparently we can not be add API if is not exist)

[zerojay]

The software "Phone" will not be free? (apparently we can not be add API if is not exist)

As we've said, there's a lot of unknowns right now since the phone isn't actually in our hands yet. We'll see soon, I guess.

[fms]

Also, since it's a Linux computer that's always online, there's nothing stopping someone from getting into the tablet and recording your phone calls remotely without you even knowing it.
Wrap it in tinfoil, and spare some for your head too :)

[linuxeventually]

Ah, but it IS Linux.

If it was fully closed source I could see the problem (but you face the same issue with any other phone that has the capability to run processes in the background).

Anyway the more open source the software is, the more eyes can (and will) look at the source code.

In other words, big woop. May I also remind you that your government can listen into your phone if they so should wish. Even when you aren't on a phonecall. Plus triangulation and every phone newer than like 2004 has eGPS built-in.

Of course, I see your pain. But think about this, if there were such loopholes in the wild, don't you think your passwords and general data would be stolen on the existing tablets?

I find IM logs to be extremely useful. For instance the IRC logs for #maemo are available for all. So I don't see the big deal.

It is something to think about, I agree that much.

[danielwilms]

but Daniel/Soumya will look at this next week with the aim of adding some clarity in the Maemo 5 Developer Guide.


Hi,

just to clarify a bit here:
- As Quim said there won't be "the telephony API"
- Within Telepathy there will be a way how to handle phone calls and sms
- More information and some documentation will be available with the final SDK

Cheers Daniel

[qole]

I was hoping for open source in Fremantle, but even the possibility of tapping into the voice stuff via Telepathy is better than nothing.

Will the carriers have any more access to the telephony stack than the community? i.e. will they be able to lock anything down from within the closed portion of the stack?

[ruskie]

I have Total Recall on my N95. It records calls without bleeping the hell out of the conversation. I don't have it there so I can make fun of people or so on. But it helps if I need to recall some particular conversation. So yes I second such an app.

[gerstavros]

Finally, does N900 use oFono? If not, what does it use?

[qwerty12]

Finally, does N900 use oFono? If not, what does it use?

From the 6th post, by qgil himself, of this very thread ( http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=317522&postcount=6 ):


oFono is not part of Fremantle, even if parts of the Fremantle telephony stack might end up in oFono some day.

[www.rzr.online.fr]

Btw qtopia provided some classes to manage the phone device ... will this be merged into QT too ?