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Free your mobile phone

Touchscreen mobiles are all the fuss with the iPhone finally being available.. One negative comment I hear a lot about the iPhone is that it’s not open for developers (other that webapps).

Enter the openmoko linux based operating system on the easily hackable neo1973 handset.

The handset features:

  • 2.8” VGA TFT color display (double the pixels of the iPhone)
  • Touchscreen, usable with stylus or fingers
  • 266MHz Samsung System on a Chip (SOC)
  • USB 1.1
  • Integrated AGPS
  • 2.5G GSM – quad band, voice, CSD, GPRS
  • Bluetooth 2.0
  • Micro SD slot
  • High Quality audio codec

and it even comes with a guitar pick to open it, so you can tinker with the hardware in any way you want (they hope you will!)

When you combine the openness of the hardware with that of the software, you are sure to raise a bit of a stir in the techworld. I’m sure the guys over at Make are happy with this.

SO.. basically you can build / program this handset to do whatever you want (if of course you have the skills, or if you add your suggestions to the openmoko wiki and someone picks up your idea).

I only wish they had chosen a different casing for the handset, I think it looks like a fisher-price toy. And when you are doing a revolutionary handset like this IS, why not innovate a bit on the user interface side to start with instead on making it look like every other stylus based phone / pda?

What I would like to see (just for me myself and I) is a casing design that lets the screen take up more of the space. I really don’t see the need for a lot of “empty” plastic around the screen.

But wait.. oh.. I could just get off my chair, order one and make my own casing. I could even change the whole user experience..

I have read a lot of blog posts and comments about wanting a simple phone that does text messaging, calls and a dash of calendaring and nothing else. Well here is the perfect opportunity to make that phone, in the exact way I want it.

Now where did I put my soldering iron and my programming skills?

:)


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