Linux phones

Can you elaborate a bit about android? I thought it was supposed to be an open source mobile phone version of linux with a custom SDK. Am I completely wrong here?

-Zorak

Yup yup! right on amdfangirl

Openmoko on the other hand is open source, open hardware, open pretty much all the way

Hey Zorak can I borrow your PCB making equipment for a while? I need to bake some Openmoko PCBs

Ok so it turns out I didn't know very much at all about the smartphone/pda space. Apparently SymbianOS is hardly a new force in that space and is currently installed on about 2/3 of all mobile devices. Symbian is supposed to become fully open source in 2010 so at that point it will be fully hackable. OpenMoko is a fully hackable system that was released for developers only at first and is now just starting to release consumer smartphones.

This just leaves android, which is based on Linux, is set to come out this year (supposedly) and is not fully hackable because it will require all programs to be written in java or a java-like language which is controlled by Google. This isn't all bad though because Linux is GPL'd software which means that if people don't like what Google is doing they can legally fork android and make it more hacker friendly. It really seems like it would only be a matter of time before this happens, too, because hackers have managed to put Linux on all sorts of systems that originally had zero linux support (think consoles here) and now Google has pretty much done most of the work for them.

The future is looking pretty exciting and competitive in the pda/smart phone arena. Hopefully they will gain a lot of ground and we can retire the ludicrous 'iPhone killer' phrase.

-Zorak

Well, the cycle will be complete (i.e. we'll know the limits of the new platforms) as soon as someone figures out how to get doom and/or quake 3 arena running on one of these things haha

-Zorak

Alright, I look forward to seeing your guide on how to set up distcc on an OpenMoko so that you can use it as part of a compile farm for Gentoo compilations

-Zorak

Awesome

Please hook us up with some $pix && $vids

*sneaks out of the shadows*
I bought an iPhone....
*fades back into the shadows*

I have an iPod.

4 or 5 of my replies went poof

And the quick reply seems to be broken


EDIT: quick reply was broken

I was a bit sketchy when I first made the choice on purchasing my iPhone, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. But all that has been pushed aside now, I can clearly say, this phone is awesome. I'm not a fan of Apple, because I hate the way everything on an Apple is like a prison, you have some freedom, but only what they want you to have.

What has probably got me the most enjoyment out of the phone are "Free" apps I've downloaded through iToons, I've picked up RDP which lets me remote to my servers at work and fix things on the fly, (No pc needed!). I use Palringo as my IM on the phone and happily chat to friends on MSN while I'm at work or travelling. I've ICETV on it to keep track of my fav shows on tv. I have iResist, a resistor calculator I use in the workshop quiet a bit to remember what resistor I have just scavanged off a circuitboard. I have SpeedBox, a GPS speedometer, usefull for my car (found my speedo was out 5km/h, (Saved me from a $150 fine and 1 demerit point). I have Car Finder, which is a GPS tracker that you set when you get out of your car and will provide you with GPS direction to find your car later. I also have a few cool games like Tap Tap Revolution (Like DDR/Guitar Hero) and some other fun games.

The iPhone in general is pretty nice, the software isn't too bad, the touch abilities are very nice, typing on this thing is reasonably fast and it's pretty good for surfing the net. There are some stupid things I don't like about it, but I'm slowly getting over them (like getting use to BSOD in windows, you just expect and accept...)

Really, the iPhone is a brilliant hardware plateform, I think all the big issues lie in the software, if we could get Ubuntu MID to run on this thing, I'd be in phone nirvana!

Last comment, battery life sucks... I charge my iPhone twice a day because I use it heavily, I'm in the process or wiring in USB ports into my Toyota MR2 AW11 so I can charge it while driving!

We have a new toy to play with....

http://www.neopwn.com/index.php

From the bumf...

and for those that like such things you can find the slashdot article here

funny thing is, on my debian release, I already have a lot of that software installed and a few helper scripts. Also, I laugh at their claim that it's optimized for finger-only operation: the menus in XFCE are neigh-impossible to use for all but those with the most bony fingers or longest, stylus-like fingernails