OpenMoko Schedule Announced 165
levell writes "The schedule for the OpenMoko, an open source, Linux-based Neo1973 smart phone was posted to the community mailing list by Sean Moss-Pultz this morning. On Feb 11, free phones will be sent to key community developers and the community websites/wiki/bug tracker will be available. Then on March 11 (the official developer launch) we'll be able to buy an OpenMoko for $350. After allowing some time for innovative, slick software to be created there will be a mass market launch at which point Sean hopes that 'your mom and dad will want one too.'"
FYI (Score:3, Informative)
First open source mobile? I think not. (Score:5, Informative)
The website states the following:
First one? I beg to differ. Should I point out Trolltech's Qtopia Greenphone [trolltech.com]? I believe it precedes OpenMoko by a considerable notch.
Re:Marketing ploy? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:First open source mobile? I think not. (Score:3, Informative)
* GPL forever: at the moment you download you choose the GPL path, you can't later decide to make your project non-GPL and pay the license fee to trolltech and go commercial; this would be a PITA to any bedroom startup; however, I wouldn't be surprised if a few stealth startuos *did* bend this rule
* payware: cough up a license fee for the SDK and support
if you don't like trolltech's licensing, go write your own gui toolkit! there are other gpl choices, such as opie2, gpe
Re:FYI (Score:3, Informative)
None of the carriers will "support" a phone you did not buy from them, recently. The general response to any configuration question translates to "go F* yourself." I have an unlocked GSM Windows phone (Voq) and have never been able to get MMS working because T-Mobile will not provide the necessary info.
On the other hand, an unlocked GSM phone like this one at least gives you a choice of carriers.
While Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile effectively account for nearly all of the GSM network coverage in the United States, you can buy access from a number of "mobile virtual network operators" (even 7-11 and Wal-Mart) and get a SIM card that will work in this phone.
For that matter, any SIM card from a non-US phone company also will work if that company offers U.S. roaming. It would be a dumb way to buy your phone service if you spend all your time in the United States, but it's possible. And if you travel internationally, you can buy a local prepaid SIM card in most countries that will pop right in for cheap local calls.
You don't get that kind of flexibility from CDMA carriers like Sprint and Verizon, which are notorious for crippling phones in order to charge extra for functionality like moving your photos from your phone to your computer, or changing ring tones.
It's actually kind of obvious... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:FYI - Wrong? (Score:2, Informative)
As a result, it should work on *any* of the GSM carriers in the US that support the frequencies it uses. Let's assume for a moment it supports at a minimum 900/1800/1900 (hopefully 850 too) - like most tri-band devices do.
Take a look here [gsmworld.com]. According to GSM world there are quite a few GSM carriers in the US. That list seems to exclude Unicel, which is actually a fairly large company in it's own right. Most of the carriers do support the 1900mhz band at a minimum though there are a few 850 only carriers.
Re:First open source mobile? I think not. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenpho
No wifi :( (Score:2, Informative)
One of the greatest advantage of having an open phone is so that you can install a SIP phone on it and use it when there's a wifi connection available which is almost everywhere these days (at work, at home, lots of public places...). When there's an open phone that comes out with wifi integrated I'll be the first to get it though.
Must have WiFi for this crowd. (Score:4, Informative)
Your average consumer might not need WiFi on their phone, but I think it is very important for the slashdot/techie/FLOSS crowd. The main reason is that we want to be able to bypass the cell network whenever possible to avoid paying. WiFi is free and plentiful for me at home, at work, and in many other places, whereas cellular bandwidth is slower and much more expensive. For syncing, downloading music, uploading pictures, and VoIP, WiFi is a requirement for my next phone.
Re:First open source mobile? I think not. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:First open source mobile? I think not. (Score:3, Informative)
$700 is not unheard of in the mobile phone world, anyway
Re:Are you sure? (Score:4, Informative)
which I think Apple has the patent on.
Apple does not have any patents on the iphone. They have applied for about 300, but none have been granted yet. Regarding the multitouch interface, if you search the internet, you'll find that research has been going on in this area since the 1980's. At best, Apple might be granted a patent on the specific technology they've used to support multitouch in their touchscreen, but there are several other ways [nyu.edu] to accomplish the same thing, some of which are already [merl.com] available.
Stop! Don't use Trolltech's non-free telephony (Score:1, Informative)
Well indeed Qtopia is free, but it's not free phone software, because the GPL edition of Greenphone specifically excludes the telephony components. So, your beloved Qtopia is emasculated by Trolltech licensing into being just a PDA framework, if you want to use free components alone. You have to abandon GPL purity and use their non-GPL telephony interface code to phone out on the device.
In contrast, OpenMoko on the FIC Neo1973 is 100% an open phone platform, with the telephony entirely under the control of your own or community code, not FIC's --- the phone is managed and programmed through AT/modem-type commands generated by any arbitrary programs you chose to run, or indeed write your own.
And of course you can run Qtopia on this phone as well
Since you are the one stressing about GPL purity, OpenMoko should be a big deal for you, whereas Greenphone and Trolltech should be on your blacklist.