iPhone 3G/2.0 or OpenMoko or Andriod

Two revolutionary phones coming out at the same time and a third that people will think is revolutionary (just kidding).

My thoughts coming from my thoughts a developer and what I know from my experience as a OSS developer and enlightened consumer myself. I’ve done lots of mobile development in the past. Limited by J2ME or Brew, horrible systems that limit my break in to the market put in my cell providers, having to get approval to run the software on my own phones or customers phones from the manufacture and the cell company using signatures and keys (killing open source efforts for the phones). It’s a nasty game.

OpenMoko

Very interesting. I defiantly will be ordering the OpenMoko Freerunner as soon as it comes out to evaluate after it comes out. I’ve been following the project and tinkering with the developer kit in the past. It’s Linux, I can do what I want, its not sold by the cell company, and so it’s mine to do what I want and it’s free for me to change it. This appeals to me as a developer and is great for customers because it brings variety and customization, cheaper software and better quality.

The Freerunners hardware could be better, but they are trying to use components with only hardware with publicly documented interfaces or using open standards or provide free drivers, so it’s hard. Only USB 1.1 USB, no camera, a limited to 256mb of internal flash hurt (with SD card support we may be able to get up to 8gb). The hardware is open as well as OpenMoko publishes the CAD designs for everything, and its packed full of interfaces to stick add on new things.

iPhone 2.0 and 3G

I was one of the first to stand in line to get the iPhone. I was one of the first to run the activation hacks and jailbreak it. I seen the potential of the platform for myself. When apple anonocced the developer program I was extreemly happen until I read all the restrictions. Feels like everything I faced before. I’ve signed up and have been rejected by the developer program, so no chance of my application running on through app store (thankfully the jailbreaking community wasn’t deterred by this program so I will continue my development plans.

I will still likely upgrade my iPhone to the 3G version though. One thing is that the iPhone chick magnet of hotness ( just kidding ).

Andriod

Its neat, but I don’t think it will get as accepted highly by the development community. It’s going to be hard to convince people to rewrite their applications since Adriod’s system pretty requires it to run since everything must run on their VM. Sure its linux and its going to open, but its like BSD open and the people selling the phones are likely to lock it down for there versions preventing modification, so no native code will not be able to be introduced. Just not doing it for me.

Syndicated 2008-07-03 22:33:57 from Zac Bowling's Blog