Monday, December 11, 2006

Cheap, totally open Linux phone will ship next month

The genie is out of the bottle. The first totally open source mobile phone will hit the market with no carrier strings attached for a fairly astonishing $350 in January. Yes, next month.
Neo1973 OpenMoko smartphone

OK, it looks a little weird, but it sounds like developers are going to have an absolute field day with this one. Taiwanese consumer electronics giant First International Computer is doing for smartphones what Nokia did last year for Internet tablets.
  • The OS and middleware (called "OpenMoKo") are 100% open source and hackable (based on a Linux 2.6 kernel, GTK+, X Windows, Matchbox, etc.)
  • The hardware sounds sweet: big, apparently VGA touchscreen, quad band radio, GPS receiver that's wired up to the application framework, 128MB of memory (64MB available for apps)
  • The phone is unlocked GSM so you don't need anyone's permission to have your way with it: just drop in your SIM card and go.
  • The OpenMoko framework includes an "apt-get-like" application manager—only with a nice graphical user interface so that users can subscribe to the applications they like almost like subscribing to an RSS feed (see below)

OpenMoko Application Manager

The architecture diagram shows not just a Linux smartphone, but a platform that will run native X11 apps just like a desktop computer, as well as native apps that interface with the OpenMoko middleware layer. You're not going to be able to run the GIMP on this guy, but with the platform wide open you've got all the rope you need to hang yourself with whatever subset of GTK+ you dare include:

OpenMoko architecture

I don't see how this thing is going to commercialize for FIC, and it doesn't do anything to address the fragmentation problem that vexes mobile Linux, but it sure looks like a Linux hobbyist's dream smartphone. I'll be first in line when they start selling them in January.

Yeah, I know. The phone looks ridiculous, and where are the hardware buttons? That must be the part that the Chinese government designed. :-(

For more, see LinuxDevices.com and this presentation given at the Open Source in Mobile conference in Amsterdam today.

Update: The Inquirer has a piece on the OpenMoKo phone that's worth a read as well, adding some additional technical details.

Posted by cervezas at 18:56:42. Filed under: Mobile Linux

Comments

And the fun begins!!!

Posted by Legodude522 at Monday, December 11, 2006 22:13:40

"Yeah, I know. The phone looks ridiculous, and where are the hardware buttons?"

Right where I'd want them to be: not there. This phone is as clean as they can make it. Reduce the moving parts to almost zero and run everything from the touchscreen; what's not to like? (Unless they put in a sub-par touchscreen.)

Look at your Palm PDA; how many buttons? Why not even less? Many of us having been begging Palm to make a PDA-centric smartphone with a full screen (vs. the SSS). These guys are doing it. Colligan can't imagine that people don't want the keyboard simply because he does (reference: that little breakfast interview you can find over at ZDnet). Others have suggested that the keyboard on the Treo is having a negative effect on its adoption in Europe because it looks like a "business" machine. So right here is the answer.

Re: colors, I don't mind the white with color trim, although I'd much prefer a different color trim. But it's way better than that Trolltech Greenphone (http://www.linuxdevices.com...).

Posted by twrock at Tuesday, December 12, 2006 23:34:57

Ok, I found the color scheme I much prefer: http://www.openmoko.com/pix...
Now if they only had a physically larger screen, I might just be able to see it. 2.8 inches is awfully small.

Posted by twrock at Sunday, December 17, 2006 02:05:36

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