RSS FeedTue 24 Jul 2007
Why should the users of cell phones be forced to rely on their service provider to get added features, ring tones, and make other changes to their phones? I don’t think they should. Currently, the cell phone companies pretty much have consumers “over a barrel” so to speak when it comes to these add-ons for their cell phones. This problem has been further amplified by the new iPhone which is a PDA, Ipod, and cell phone all in one. Yet, with all this ability, users are not supposed to be able to add their own software.
This problem has been noticed and addressed. A company named openmoko has revealed plans to release a phone that will be similar to an iPhone except that it will be completely open source. With this phone, users are encouraged to write new programs and figure out new innovative ways to use this device. Another benefit of this “phone” is that it will not be locked down to only one network. Many of the higher end phones are sold exclusively on one particular network. While exclusivity may be good for the network, it does not do much to meet the desires of the consumers.
Checking out openmoko and the phone that they will be offering might be worthwhile, but will the cost be too prohibitive for most people? The initial offering price is rumored to be around $450. This is considerably less than the iPhone, but considerably more than the other similar phones that are available for next to nothing with a two-year contract.
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that’s pretty cool. this is going to open up an entirely new competitive market. hopefully it will spread to other industries as well
[…] This would be a good change for people interested in the phone that I talked about last week. For people who have SIM chips in their phones, this is not currently much of an issue, most of those phones can be “unlocked” and used on any network, but for those whose service providers do not use these chips (mine doesn’t) this could be a big deal. […]
[…] I recently came across this article. The article talks about some of the cool things that can be done by the Nokia N800 which is billed as an open source device that would be similar to the iPhone. In a previous post, I mentioned another open source device that would fall in to this category, but from a manufacturer that is not as well known as Nokia. […]
[…] This looks like it might be a pretty cool thing and somewhat along the lines of the openmoko phone except that instead of relying on it’s own hardware, they are working to make it compatible with many of the cell phones currently on the market. […]