[Noisebridge-discuss] what sort of phone to get, part xxx

[Jeffrey Malone]

Hey,

I'd personally recommend you look at the N900 with Maemo 5 for now.  Maemo
became a haven for all the OpenMoko refugees, and is mostly open source.

webOS was only released on two phones, both for Sprint/CDMA only in the US.
 It runs on top of a Linux kernel, but it's not so much GNU/Linux -- just a
Linux kernel, like Android. Development for it is in Javascript/HTML/CSS,
and uses their custom toolkit which appears to be closed source.  As noted,
webOS was a Palm product, but failed to get enough of a base to save the
company.  It got bought by HP, and as is my understanding, little of the
original webOS team is still there.  Waiting for a product that is just
entering the rumoured stage from a company that has yet to really enter the
mobile phone market may be a long wait, and a complete unknown of what it
will be.  Whatever HP is doing with webOS, it may not resemble what we've
seen of webOS to date -- both for good, or bad.

Maemo is GNU/Linux, and has all the standard libraries you would find on a
Linux desktop in place.  People are able to develop for it in any language
they wish, with Python, C and C++ being the more popular choices.  Standard
Linux applications can typically be recompiled to run on the device, and it
has an extensive non-commercial oriented community base much like OpenMoko
had.

That said, while the phone is mostly reliable and has the best web browser
of any mobile phone I've had (Mozilla fennec based, although Opera, Firefox,
Midori and several others are available), it predictably has some drawbacks.
 There is no free decent mapping software for the phone.  The application it
comes with is crap, and I've ended up using the Google Maps' mobile site
(which has GPS support), but it is rather tedious.  There are occasionally
weird issues, the battery lasts a mere 10-12 hours of moderate use, and for
those who object, it is a resistive touch screen.  Runs on quadband GSM and
has a dual set of UMTS/3G frequencies to work on T-Mobile US and outside of
North America (eg, Europe, but not ATT).

The Nokia N9, which is completely rumoured and theorised to come out at the
end of the year or early next, will allegedly be running MeeGo -- the
successor to Maemo and Intel's Moblin.  Much of the N9 specs are rumoured,
and there are some pics of what are allegedly prototypes floating around.
MeeGo, one of the worst names ever for a platform (and right on the heels of
Moblin) is the way things are flowing with Nokia though.  It's a bit of a
wildcard, although approaching it's 1.1 release at the end of October that
will be the first stable release with the handset profile.  It's designed to
be entirely open source -- although device drivers required for some
hardware may still remain closed, but will not be part of the MeeGo
distribution.  It'll be maintaining a base that includes many of the same
packages found on a desktop machine, with a strong push for Qt.
It's still not at all sure if MeeGo will go anywhere, especially in the
mobile phone market.

To add to the option overload, I'm told that yet another Linux mobile
platform is being worked on by Samsung that will be out within the next
year.  It'll be based on Enlightenment, which should give it a very smooth
and pretty look... but that's about as many details as are out.

Also, in the Android field, the T-Mobile G2, which appears to be a cross
between the Nexus One and T-Mobile G1 is out in a week or two with a
hardware keyboard.

For a quick summary:
There's a lot of phones coming out over the next year, and many platforms to
choose from.  If you want a new phone in the next couple weeks, look for the
Nokia N900 (Maemo) or the T-Mobile G2 (Android 2.2).
If you want to play the waiting game, your options will increase.. the Nokia
N9 may be worth your wait, or a waste of time.

Jeffrey

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Michael Shiloh <michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com
> wrote:

> my bad. a quick visit to wikipedia explained a lot.
>
> how open is webos? from the wp description it didn't look terribly open.
>
> what makes you feel that it is the os of choice?
>
> does anyone currently have a phone running webos, and what is your opinion?
>
> On 09/29/2010 03:00 PM, Michael Shiloh wrote:
> > seems very interesting. i browsed a little, but am confused:
> >
> > is webos a linux distro aimed at palm devices?
> >
> > are there any devices running webos currently?
> >
> > what is this pre stuff anyway? a phone? an os? a prefix?
> >
> > On 09/29/2010 02:47 PM, Andrew Fresh wrote:
> >> I have to add that I think webOS is the OS of choice.
> >>
> >> http://www.precentral.net/webos-android-and-hacking-which-more-open
> >>
> >> http://www.precentral.net/hp-reaffirms-support-homebrew-community
> >>
> >> But, that is with the caveat that HP hasn't announced specs or timeline
> >> on any new phones yet, but personally I expect something awesome by the
> >> end of the year.
> >>
> >> l8rZ,
> >
>
> --
> Sent from my ASR-33
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