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Hello, Moko!
By Corvus | November 13, 2006
Cell phones aggravate me. A lot. I carry one, of course. It’s far too convenient to do without and Ms. Knittiot and I have come to rely on the service so much that we don’t even bother with a land line. We don’t, however, tend to spend money on them… at least not a lot of money. Whenever it comes time to renew our plan, we shop around and find whichever cheap or free sign-up phone that meets our needs and accept that our phone will always be several features behind the pack.
But the entire technology and distribution model for the devices themselves make me angry. First off, phones aren’t very upgradable. The feature set on the phone when you buy it is the feature set the phone will have when it finally dies. It might not occur to you that there’s anything wrong with that model, but I feel it’s wasteful. I prefer to maximize my spending dollar by spending intelligently on something that will serve my needs for a long time, not tossing down cash because some cool new phone is out that had a feature I want. Further, some cell phone companies actually neuter features on their phones, meaning you might read an excellent review about a phone’s media capabilities, only to find that your service provider has turned those features off. There are hacks, of course, but it’s ridiculous that the cell phone culture is so anti-consumer that they dictate which features of any given piece of hardware you’re allowed to use when you’re paying a monthly fee to access their service.
Earlier this year I decided that I was going to wait and find a small computing device which would allow me to toss a wireless internet card in and use Skype for all my phone needs. I consider that a less than excellent solution as I’d have to pay for the wireless access and for Skype’s full service, but I’m so frustrated by my cell phone service that I’m prepared to consider that option. Oh, and the device has to run Linux, natch. Sadly, while many devices have come close (the Nokia 770, for example), I haven’t found one that truly fits my needs. Most of the small Linux powered devices aren’t fully open source platforms and performing non-warranty-voiding upgrades of the software isn’t an accepted practice.
Enter OpenMoko! OpenMoko is seemingly an answer to all of my complaints. A truly open source cell phone solution, OpenMoko is poised to launch in January with the release of FIC’s Neo1973 smart phone. OpenMoko (and the award for most uses of the work OpenMoko in a paragraph goes to..) is a Linux platform specifically designed for mobile communications. There’s an SDK to aid coders in writing for the platform and official channels from which to download software, but… the phone installs software using apt and will download from any repository you point it to. The default e-mail and PIM software for OpenMoko is provided by Funambol, an open source mobile software developer.
The Neo1973 itself (pictured at right) will be the first OpenMoko phone and includes a 2.8″ VGA (640×480) touch screen, a GPS, 128MB RAM, 64MB Flash (which can be upgraded via a MicroSD slot). It charges via USB, provides dial up access to a PC via USB, and is compatible with GSM850/900/1800/1900 cellular networks. Boy, toss a mobile 3D chipset in there and I’m sold! As it is, I’m not quite ready to jump on the hype train and shell out $350 for this in January, but I’m damned close. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on reviews, user accounts, problems with specific providers, and the homebrew market. It’ll be nice to see other hardware providers adopt the platform as well – a little competition to keep prices aggressive and have some feature options. Maybe, just maybe, by the middle of the year next year, I won’t be complaining about how I hate cell phones anymore!
More info can be found at the respective web sites: OpenMoko (link), FIC (link), Funambol (link).
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