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OpenMoko Schedule Announced
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.'"
Just FYI, at the moment only Cingular and T-Mobile will be able to support the phone in the US at this time.
The website states the following:
First one? I beg to differ. Should I point out Trolltech's Qtopia Greenphone? I believe it precedes OpenMoko by a considerable notch.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
I think you're being overly cynical, the people who are involved in this include people like Harald Welde (of the campaign to stop GPL violations. I think they genuinely believe in this, they're not just marketing weenies out to make a quick buck.
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
The OpenMoko is a GSM phone. The only primary networks using GSM in the US right at the moment are Cingular and T-Mobile. Verizon and Sprint/Nextel are CDMA...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I think that's wrong. From the specifications, it looks like it's a GSM phone (they don't specifically say it's GSM nor do they say which frequencies it's radio supports) from the fact they say it supports GPRS.
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. 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.
The only problem is that there is no wifi and probably won't be for a long time. The openmoko crew refuse to implement it cause there's no chip that comes with open driver as of today and there isn't any on the horizon.
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.
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Sounds great, shame about the WiFi.
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.
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 to accomplish the same thing, some of which are already available.
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.