I have to agree with everything you have said Craig, and I too get annoyed when I'm told I'm a whiner ;)
I bought the first batch of Freerunners back in July 2008. Back then they definitely did NOT have a disclaimer on the Web site or purchase page saying it didn't actually work as a phone. Back then I said give it 6 months and they'll have the bugs that make it unusable as a phone fixed. Well over 6 months later I see many shiny new interfaces with nice partially working user apps, but the core functionality as a phone is still unreliable and makes it useless as a phone. On top of that the GSM Buzz issue requires a H/W fix, and I have yet to see OM say that I can send it back and get that show stopper fixed. (I'm sorry but although I am an experienced H/W hacker, my soldering skills are not good enough to do the fix myself). To be honest I think the whole OM idea was a great one, but is starting to look like a failed experiment. I did buy the FR expecting to be able to use it as my primary phone at least within a few months of getting it, if not out of the box. The reason I say it is a failed experiment, is that the expectation was that with all the user support all these bugs would get fixed ASAP, however I don't think it takes Nokia or Motorola etc to turn out a new phone in over 6-9 months, and when they turn out a new phone, the thing works reliably as a phone (in my experience). I still "play" (play being the operative word) with my Freerunner, I have not been able to use it as a phone (I bought a cheap Nokia E62 so I had a working phone), however it has been fun to play with as an (expensive) toy. I am still hoping that either QtExtended or Android will turn out to be relatively stable sometime soon, and I will eventually be able to use my FR as a phone. However QTE seems less stable than the previous Qtopia release, and no updates since the initial one. Android also does not seem ready yet. So thats my "whining" for the day. However I do not think it is unreasonable for those of us that bought the first batch of Freerunners to whine! -- Jim Morris, http://blog.wolfman.com _______________________________________________ support mailing list support@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
