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.
I got a peek at a demo (a developer’s personal issue) – it needed some work. The UI buttons were quite tight in the corners and because the screen is inset, it was hard to press them with fat fingers. At least that’s how I remember it.\r\n\r\nI’m sure they will address all of those issues before going to market.\r\n\r\nAnd yes, “Free your phone”!
26 Jul 10:56 by
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