Blog von fugaL

iDissent

I never could get myself excited about the iPhone, and I began to wonder if I was becoming less of a techie. I would look at the sites, and sure enough it was darn cool. I would read about the interface, the multitouch, the accelerometers. It was all very cool, but did I want one? The answer was consistently no. Sure, if you dropped one in my lap with paid-for service, heck, I’ll take that, and be quite glad. I’ve come to realize that the reasons for my dissent were generally Apple (I guess my anti-apple blood runs thicker than I thought) and more specifically openness, or lack thereof.

I came to this realization after stumbling, nay, tripping over this, and on Yahoo! of all places. The Neo 1973 got me excited like the iPhone couldn’t dream of. I actually want to go out and spend $300 on a phone now (as I’m sure many Apple fans actually want to go out and spend whatever it is for an iPhone), even though it’s a little behind (no multitouch). Still, it has GPS, accelerometers, standard usb hookup (don’t think the iPhone has this), and the whole thing is made to be hackable. It runs on a Linux kernel with X! Oh the joy.

I predict this and other such products will dominate the mobile market the same way intel and it’s many clones did the not-so-mobile market. It will be interesting to see how prices will plummet, cool apps will be in abundance, and there will be a whole slew of Free phones. That reminds me, I love the slogan, “Free your phone.”

So if you want to get me a present (Christmas and my birthday are both coming up) now you know what I want.