On 1/17/07 5:17 PM, "Renaissance Man" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 18 Jan 2007, at 12:57 am, Richard Franks wrote: > >> I disagree - VoIP via WiFi is an obvious evolution rather than >> revolutionary. > > But you're looking at it from a geek's point of view instead of a > typical end-user's point of view. > > Anything that allows me to go from spending £45 plus a month on > mobile communications to effectively zero, including talking to my > parents who live on the other side of the planet, is revolutionary.
You can go out and buy a Nokia 800 or a Sony Mylo today for the price of a NEO and do VoIP right this instant. If it's changed the world, I guess I must not have been paying attention. > Killer app: "a computer program that is so useful or desirable that > it proves the value of some underlying technology" See above. Nobody's killed, or died, over a Nokia web tablet (something which can't evidently be said about Nintendo game consoles...) > I couldn't think of a better example of a killer app than sticking a > piece of software on a device that lets people speak to each other > around the world effectively for free. Ditto. > The revolution won't have people saying, oh man, I want one of those, > because it's open source. They'll be saying, oh man, I want one of > those because I can communicate with a mobile device for a pittance > (open source will simply be one way of doing it). Okay. As much as I hate to inject any sort of air of reality into these proceedings... The revolution evidently has a bunch of people who don't see that the value of half (or ninety-five one-hundredths) of a loaf exceeds that of no loaf at all. As has been noted, it's a lot easier to post an email message saying, "Just add Wifi!" as though it were some sort of syrupy substance you could pour into a tank on the device, but there's actually more to it than that. "Just adding WiFi" affects power management at a hardware level significantly, for starts--that WiFi additive stuff doesn't help your mileage a bit--not to mention complexifying your entire board layout, which is doubtless cramped to begin with. Do you understand that rerouting and retesting a board, retooling an assembly line, updating unit-level testing (you want this to _work_, right...?), etc., etc. all takes time...? It does. A bunch of time. Not to mention going back to square one on any regulatory certifications you have in the works, etc., etc., etc... So, I doubt "just adding some WiFi" would have the effect on the schedule of "just adding a month". I'd put my money on it adding four to six of 'em. Is it worth waiting for? I dunno. If you want VoIP that badly, buy the 800. I'd like to have this line of discussion officially declared "silly", please. _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
