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Openmoko's Open Source Phone Goes Mass-Market
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jun 25, 2008 02:03 PM
from the long-may-it-wave dept.
from the long-may-it-wave dept.
nerdyH writes "Openmoko has begun shipping its Linux-based, open source Neo Freerunner phone to five newly announced distributors, in Germany, France, and India, says the company. The Neo Freerunner features an open hardware design, and a Linux-based operating system that users are free to modify. The project originally hoped to produce a mass-market offering last October. The $400 Freerunner will remain available direct, online, too. A 2.5G GPRS/GSM phone like the original iPhone, it boasts a 500MHz processor, WiFi, 3D accelerometers, a 4.3-inch VGA touchscreen, Bluetooth, and built-in GPS."
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[+]
Canadian Firms Get Behind OpenMoko/FreeRunner 140 comments
mario writes "Now that the OpenMoko platform has stabilized enough to provide the OM2008 image (supporting the three major toolkits), things are starting to heat up. Linuxdevices is reporting on the start of a port of Devicescape's connect application. Koolu (another Canadian company) is also doing development for its W.E. phone (a branded FreeRunner). Which leads me to ask: Where are the American companies?"
[+]
No More OpenMoko Phone 219 comments
TuxMobil writes "Bad news for FreeRunner fans: development of the first Open Source smartphone will be discontinued. (English translation via Google)
OpenMoko executive director Sean Moss-Pulz said at OpenExpo in Bern (Switzerland)
that the number of staffers will be reduced to be able to stay in business. OpenMoko
had high intentions: the offspring from Taiwanese electronic manufacturer First International Computer (FIC)
wanted to produce an Open Source smartphone. Not only with Open Source software pre-installed, but with
free drivers and open specifications of the hardware components. This would give programmers as well
as users complete freedom. Up to now the manufacturer has produced two models, the first has sold 3,000 units and
the second one 10,000. Both models were targeted primarily to developers. From the beginning,
OpenMoko had to fight with different problems. The smartphones came onto the market after a huge delay. Some phones
came with construction defects. Also, changes in the team slowed down the development. Software development
for the current smartphone will be continued but with fewer resources, Moss-Pultz said. He still hopes the
community will support the FreeRunner."
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2.5G (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:2.5G (Score:5, Informative)
To do a side-by-side rundown with the iPhone (correct me if I get anything wrong):
Category: Neo FreeRunner / iPhone
Price: $400 / $200-$400 plus specific service requirements
Screen res: 640x480 / 480x320
Screen size: 4.3" / 3.5"
CPU: Samsung S3C2442 500MHz / 620 MHz ARM 1176, underclocked to 412 MHz
GPU: SMedia 3362-based 3D graphics acceleration / PowerVR MBX 3D
Ram: 128MB / 128MB
Onboard flash: 256MB / 4, 8, or 16GB
Card support: MicroSD (64MB to 8GB) / None
Bluetooth: 2.0 / 2.0
Wifi: 802.11b/g / 80211b/g
USB: 1.x / 1.x
Camera: None / 2.0 megapixel
GPS: AGPS / None
3D accelerometers: 2x / 1x
Touch: Single / Multi
Cellular: 2.5G tri-band / 2G quad band (just this month, now 3G)
Freedom: Open / Closed
Looks like a fair competitor.
Parent
Re:2.5G (Score:4, Informative)
The FreeRunner screen is actually a 2.8" VGA (640x480)[1]. It has got some serious DPI.
[1] http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/GTA02 [openmoko.org]
Parent
Re:2.5G (Score:5, Informative)
* they do a lot of legal pioneering, in name of open source (imagine how long it takes to get contracts to little things like sim-cards)
* they take it seriously
* the Moko can act as USB Master. well. I can plug my phone into the moko and download its files. who can do that!?!?
Parent
Re:2.5G (Score:5, Informative)
>>Bluetooth: 2.0 / 2.0
Just to clarify that it means nothing to have a bluetooth 2.0 in iphone as it doesn't support any useful profile except mono handsfree.
I would define it as:
Bluetooth: 2.0 / 2.0 Crippled Edition
Parent
Re:2.5G (Score:5, Interesting)
These are the things I'm under the impression that the Neo phone will support that the iPhone does not have:
A2DP (Bluetooth Stereo)
MMS
Replaceable Battery
Expandable Flash Memory
Cut and Paste
Voice Dialing
Bluetooth Tether / Modem support
Flash Support
Parent
Re:2.5G (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:2.5G (Score:5, Insightful)
Its Open-Hardware, get a 3G controller and replace the 2.5G one(when a 3G controller becomes available).
Yeah, you're comfortable hand-soldering 0.5mm pitch BGAs, right? What 2.5G controller were you talking about?
Buy it for what it is - freedom. If that's not enough, don't force it on yourself.
Parent
Re:2.5G (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:2.5G (Score:4, Informative)
Edge is technically faster than 2.5G.
Parent
Some corrections (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Some Experience (Score:4, Informative)
- old TI GSM modem, recamping once a minute(!) to the mobile station, eating battery like crazy and very unreliable. A TI engineer asked me if they (openmoko) got the chips for free, as they are so ancient - no EDGE, GPRS w/ 2KB/s. Openmoko is likely the last buyer.
- audio quailty on the headphone is lousy due to a hardware bug - as mp3 player useless
- headphone only mono. i.e. only one side works
- headphone unusable for making phone calls due to EM-interferences
- no bluetooth headset support
- no bluetooth keyboard support (dropped since last version)
- graphics sluggish and even slower than Neo 1973 despite 2D accel chip
- GPS has >10 minutes TTFF - yes, in 2008 where every cheapo GPS gets a fix in 45secs
- developer community alienated by Lauer & Co. GNOME knew why they kicked Rasterman out.
- so called ASU software is pre-alpha and reinventing the wheel once again
Unless your company pays for it, don't buy it.Parent
Re:Some Experience (Score:4, Insightful)
For me the killer feature is the openness of the platform (datasheets for almost all of the modules, the ability to completely brick it and then restore with JTAG, etc). I'll forgive a lot of flaws in order to support that philosophy.
Parent
Re:Some Experience (Score:5, Informative)
You seem to have some misunderstandings about the expected state of the software, and you're conflating software & hardware issues.
The software is absolutely not ready for production, and no one is saying it is. I do think the new architecture at freesmartphone.org is going in the right direction, and it sounds as if it already supports stable calling.
Parent
Re:Some Experience (Score:5, Informative)
"developer community alienated by Lauer & Co. GNOME knew why they kicked Rasterman out."
WTF? One thing to say here. No one kicked me out of GNOME - get your history right. Do your research. You demonstrate some serious ignorance here. I chose to not contribute anymore due to GNOME going one way, and me going another. I had plans for E and they had plans for GNOME as of course "GNOME needs no window manager. it can work with all of them!". Check your history mate.
Thanks for registering your account now for some trolling fun.
Parent
'Merica (Score:5, Funny)
I iz American. I can has OpenMoko?
translation: When is US getting sweet, sweet OpenMoko goodness?
For all the people asking why X/Y/Z is missing (Score:5, Interesting)
WIFI wouldn't have been included if they didn't find an appropriate chip (for mobile phones) with open drivers etc. or at least the possibility to write an open driver with NDA'ed docs.
3d accelerometers, gesture calls? (Score:5, Funny)
Can you set up the 3d accelerometers to do gesture-based calling? Because I can think of a few gestures I'd like to associate with some jerks I have to call on a regular basis.
Indubitably, morons (Score:4, Funny)
The linuxdevices story is wrong, see http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/GTA02
Indeed, 400MHz 2.8in screen.
Further, the linuxdevices story doesn't say they have begun shipping, it says that they have announced distributors who they will ship to. The only thing they've begun shipping is contracts and red tape.
nerdyH, you're a fucktard.
Finally a hackable phone (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm really considering buying a Neo Freerunner. At 300 euros it's reasonably priced.
Some improvements I'd like to perform to it that a normal phone does not have:
- depending on who's calling perform any of these behaviors:
* ring, vibrate or ignore the call
* answer the call with a dynamic or static message for example where i am (coordinates or city name), why i'm not answering (eating, sleeping, meeting)
* install an operator menu ("Jos is in a meeting, i'm openmoko his assistant. do you want to make an appointment for him to call you back?"
- record my accelleration and position all day (because i can)
- switch an annoying caller to a signal of strange noises or a helpfully scripted assistant or a nice song to put them on hold with
- put a filter on incoming and outgoing sounds to give them echo or change the pitch
- record every call i make
Why compare it to an iPhone? (Score:5, Informative)
Everybody see's it as an iPhone clone because it has a touch screen, accelerometers, etc.
The reality is this phone is aimed at a completely different market than the iPhone. This phone is aimed at those who value open source software / hardware, whereas the iPhone is aimed at the 'Cool' sector.
I am going to be getting one later in the year when my current 3-year contract runs out. I am tired of locked phones with disabled features for the benefit of the phone company. To me the ability to control my own phone is more important than having a few extra bells and whistles like the iphone.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Given that you've talked on the phone less than a minute a day for the past 9 years, I'd say you're probably better off just working out a schedule with the pizza guy instead of always just phoning him up and saying "the usual". Though it might be useful to have one around for 911 in case your hermit beard gets caught in the blender or something.
Parent
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Informative)
Didn't the Iphone get absolutely slammed for the lack of it
Sure, but the IPhone is a highly hyped product, so it has to be appropriately buzzword compliant. Any poor IPhone user would get the lack pointed out to them; instant put-down for the device-chic.
The OpenMoko is a different field entirely. For most prospective users there simply is no feature that carries a higher importance than freedom, nor are there many alternatives with that essential feature. I have no interest in the iPhone with or without 3g; it's even more locked than many other phones.
And no, for the more pragmatic crowd, 3g isnt something you really have to have on your phone (especially not if you have wifi). 3g is more useful as a modem for a small computer like the eee; it's nice to have when you have the UI to fully utilize more bandwidth intensive applications.
Also, can I ssh into my computer and restart my webserver,
The more interesting question is, can you ssh into your phone and restart the webserver you're running there?
Parent
Re:Wtf? 4.8" screen? 500Mhz? (Score:5, Informative)
Close, but those are the specs for the Neo1973, the free runner specs are here:
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner [openmoko.org]
(added wifi and faster cpu)
Further details here:
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner_GTA02_Hardware [openmoko.org]
I agree - the submission is bad... there's no mentioning of the phone being for sale on http://openmoko.com/ [openmoko.com] - just a "coming soon" note.
Parent