HTC Dragging Feet On GPL Source Release For "Hero" Phone

Squiff writes to mention that despite being based on the Open Handset Alliance's Android platform and using several open source components, HTC are effectively refusing to release the source for the GPL parts of their "Hero" Phone code, saying that they are "waiting for their developers to provide it." It has been called an "object of lust," it's beating the iPhone for awards, and it seems to be the first Android phone that really is "the phone to have," to hear some people tell it. It has also just become available in the US after a June release in Europe.

Comments

iPhone vs PalmPre vs HTC Hero = HTC winner

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had all three phones - Had the original iPhone for 2 years and it's nice, but the plans (esp for the 3G version) are expensive - $110 USD /month. The Palm Pre I ditched after a month - damn keyboard is sooo tiny - I couldn't type on it, and made lots of more typos than on the IPhone. Palm re only had about 50 apps.
HTC Hero has around 9,000 apps vs Apples 70,000, but the HTC is much more customizable, sounds better, and it significantly cheaper $70 USD /month. HTC battery lasts about 20% less than the original iPhones. I suspect the 3G iPhone has a comparable battery life.

I'v now completely switched to the HTC Hero, and I really like it

Samsung Moment

[Damage Ctrl]

The Samsung Moment looks promising. It's coming to Sprint on Nov. 1 and has an 800 MHz processor.

Re:Waiting for the Acer A1 phone

[Ash Vince]

The Hero is nice and all but, like other Android phones, it doesn't have the processing power. The Acer A1 looks like it will be coming with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor and Android 1.6. Now if it would just be carried by someone other than T-Mobile in the states I would be happy.

ok it has low spec processor, but its a phone so who cares as it does not need to do much. I have had mine a week and its great, the lag issues other people have complained about were obviously fixed by the latest update as I have never had any complaints in this regard, not like my old Windows Mobile piece of junk, now that was laggy. The way sense ui or whatever works is great.

My only criticism is the onscreen keyboard input, but now I have got used to that. The trick seems to be completely ignoring what actual letter you hit, and just finishing the word you wanted to type anyway and letting the phone sort it out, it almost always does. It does take some time to get used to not correcting every mistyped letter but when you do you realise how good the autocorrect really is.