On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 2:05 AM, Mike Crash <m...@mikecrash.com> wrote: > Actually, I don't know, why everybody needs a phone. The community should aim > at simple PDA with GPS, WiFi, BT and camera. This all is without any license
Personally I don't talk on the phone a lot, but it's nice to have an "always-on" wireless network rather than having to find WiFi access points (which use encryption or require some kind of sign-in way too often anyway). I use my iPhone to google stuff a lot, even though it's only edge (pretty slow). Most of the time when I'm away from home I'd rather put up with the slow edge network than mess around with connecting to an AP, figuring out why it doesn't work, and then having it go away when I'm out of range. Of course it depends on how much you pay for your GSM and whether the limits are reasonable. But it's easy to imagine the future, that say 10 years from now the internet is mostly wireless and your devices are nearly always connected, with transparent roaming... no need to manually scan and connect to networks. That's how it needs to be for the best usability. So these comments that a PDA is good enough sound luddite to me, although they do follow the pattern than the open-source world is usually behind the curve, repeating what has been done rather than innovating. Personally I don't like carrying multiple devices either. I use an iPhone because it just works, does everything that can be done on either a PDA or a phone so far (except multitasking), and I can develop for it too. (Too bad it's so darn closed though.) Maybe the next OM device ought to be on one of the next-gen networks like WiMax or LTE. I have no idea what kind of hardware is required for that, but early on I didn't get the impression that WiMax was any more of a closed architecture than usual (e.g. there would be multiple radio suppliers, and the spec is obtainable). Or even invent a new, open network. That would be far-out (in both senses: very cool, and quite the project). GnuRadio provides a starting point. _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community