Comments on: OpenMoko usability review

By: aikeru

aikeru — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:18:07 +0000

DRM IS bad and that fact has nothing to do with open-source elitism or whatnot. If you think otherwise, read Cory Doctorow’s speech on it, freely available via a quick Google search.

By: tedrampart

tedrampart — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:54:57 +0000

the reviewer left out a big issue here, the fact that the openmoko contains a package manager, which allows you to install applications written and updated everyday. For example, since the keyboard is so small, you could replace the keyboard with a larger one. Perhaps he was so used to being stuck with no customization, that is the case with most (read all) apple software.

I have to point out, he's wrong about the landscape view in this. If he would have read a little more on the device (aside from the obvious poor comparison to a proprietary mass consumer device ..for a completely different market group), he would have read that the button on the top left of the device can be used to bring up a menu, where the option to switch viewing modes can be found.

I find it rather frustrating to see stuff like this. Its a development platform, meant to expand the horizons of what a device like this can do, not what Steve Jobs wants to do, and more what a community wants to do.

Also lacking in this short fail of a review, is that the device contains some valuable hardware. the VGA screen resolution makes it suitable for the PMP crowd (no it doesn't have mp3, but that doesn't mean its impossible to play). The device also contains 2d/3d accelerometers, which means developers can write apps that utilize this, beyond having to wait for a company to release it. (see here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MX50lXuJ28Q ).

The point is, stop comparing it to the iphone. I'm surprised to see such responses from a hacker community I've been reading for sometime.. sad.. just sad.. A device thats made for techno geeks with the lust for solder frown on it? a device begging for mods, solder and code, and its a "fail"? come on!!1

By: ryan

ryan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:30:17 +0000

I began following the mailing lists for this device about two years ago and just couldn’t stand watching anymore after about a year. I was so excited at the beginning because of the potential of this project. But after seeing all the setbacks and everything this project has been through, I believe it was mismanaged. I think this device has suffered from the “Too many cooks in the kitchen” syndrome as many open source projects have. And now it is left as a crippled deformed unusable pile. I wish them the best of luck with making this the best phone in the world, but I am not holding my breath.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:16:04 +0000

Every review I have seen so far of the FreeRunner tries to compare it with the iPhone. What you’re comparing is a recent consumer device born of years worth of HW development, decades worth of SW development and millions of dollars worth of investment against an essentially pre-beta version of an open-source development platform that doesn’t even pretend to be consumer-ready, with almost zero financial backing. Anyone trying to compare these two devices has no idea what they’re doing.

I could have purchased an iPhone for less than I paid for my FreeRunner and probably got it sooner too – but I didn’t, and not because it’s a better phone to use. I could also go through and list the glaring faults with the device, from the MicroSD card interferring with the GPS antenna because it sits to close, to the annoying bevel, to the shortcomings of the current software, however that would not make me a journalist. If you *must* compare the two devices then why not review them in the context of the device which the review purports to be about, and discuss things like the ability to program your own applications or the freedom to use any provider you like without being locked into ludicrous contracts?

By: Frogz

Frogz — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:34:30 +0000

without drm, hackers would get bored?
hmm, a valid use/implementation of drm…
the only thing i can think of is hardware based copy protection in video games to prevent people from playing burnt copies
but even that has it’s drawbacks, it sevearly limits the number of player deved content and effectivly makes the big companies that produce games the only 1s out there

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:40:16 +0000

This device is EPIC

__________________
http://www.FreeOpenMoko.com

By: tillin9

tillin9 — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:00:05 +0000

Yes that page is elitist, but not only is it the FSF (and to be expected), its a parady of Apple's website. None the less, they make a lot of good points.

As far as DRM being, bad. Yes, it is. There is no reason for DRM. Does DRM stop piracy? No. All DRM does it make it harder for legal users to do anything and let content providers nickel and dime us to death.

As proof that DRM doesn't stop piracy, look at any track on iTunes or any TV show / movie, etc. A simple google search for $item torrent will likely work, let alone searching P2P networks and specialty websites. However, DRM does stop me from putting .wmv/.wma files I legally purchased on an ipod or FairPlay .aacs on my ProcketPC without jumping through hoops and possibly lowering the quality even further. The worst DRM is on cell phones. $2 for a ringtone + data charges (for not even the whole song) because the provider locks out syncing with a computer? No syncing for pictures too, because they want the $0.15 / KB for wireless data transfer.

I challenge you to find one reason we need DRM besides the content providers don't want to play ball without it.

By: Jeremyp

Jeremyp — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:23:43 +0000

to kirindave:

I’ve never been to that page before, but the article you linked REEKS of open source elitism. Especially their firm stance against DRM, which isn’t a bad thing.

By: KirinDave

KirinDave — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:51:58 +0000

People saying that the iPhone to FR comparisons are unfair are absolutely correct. It does a huge disservice to the OpenMoko project to do it.

So why did the FSF open that can of worms in: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone-3g

Why would they use the OpenMoko as a reason to wait? It's at least 18 months and a few more hardware revisions from getting anywhere good. I might be more amenable to this if the hardware was great and the software was bad, but that's just not the case, and even with the planned revs they aren't going to have a great platform to base a phone on, they'll need to iterate the hardware again.

By: jwb

jwb — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:05:08 +0000

Open hardware and open software don’t necessarily make for a better user experience, especially with a bunch of hackers working on it. The point isn’t to match the slickness of apple (which cannot be matched, sorry) but rather that… it’s open. There are so many possibilities. The hardware foibles will be solved later.

By: TS

TS — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:37:36 +0000

Obviously everyone reviewing this and everyone commenting here has a huge blind spot for the multiple DEVELOPER RELEASE warnings. This isn’t meant to be even remotely close to usable, it’s a short run prototype! Apple probably has dozens of iPhone miscarriages^H^H^H^H prototypes lying around in some vault that we’ll never, ever see. This isn’t for people to play around with and write a cute python app that automatically e-mails your favorite lolcats once a day.

By: Wwhat

Wwhat — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:13:24 +0000

I don’t quite see why everybody is comparing this device to an iphone (apart from wanting to make an ad for it), should you not compare it to a more comparable device like a nokia smartphone, or a treo or something? I think the iphone had enough PR already and you can stop about the freaking thing.
As for some of the remarks in the video, they seem strange ‘you must use a stylus’ well yeah it’s meant to be more complex and precise than a device that can’t detect anything smaller than a finger, and sure the keyboard is small but how hard is that to fix on an open source platform? But I do appreciate that it has some disappointing shortcomings though, a bezel IS annoying, that’s true, and if it’s really that slow that’s saddening, but most GPS devices use the same ARM CPU don’t they? and they respond fast enough so it’s not the CPU that’s the issue.
But the rest is valid, no camera (even though the arm has an inbuilt interface for it!) But I guess you could in a pinch connect one to the USB since it’s capable to run USB device, but that’s not the same, slow cellphone network, but you can use wireless LAN/BT, GPS it can/is-meant to speed up using AGPS, and the ARM also has its own support for a lcd screen of upto 640×480 but they decided to add an accelerator for the freerunner it seems, so it’s meant to be way way faster than it now seems.
As for the bus-speed, I see that the speed and width of the bus is optional in the samsung pdf, so it doesn’t have to be as bad as it seems.
And mp3 playing should be dead simple to add, in fact it should be able to play most any audio format, FLAC/OGG/APE/MP3 even AAC if they can escape the sony lawyers’s claws.
So it does start to seem like it’s apple fanboys being afraid of competition after all, which is a bit odd since the people using either are extremely unlikely to be overlapping groups.

By: Chris Houser

Chris Houser — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 06:09:10 +0000

I think that what most people don’t realize is that the price of the Freerunner is not for the phone as a package, it’s for the platform. You’re merely getting the software as a bonus. The 400 dollars is entirely for the platform with which to build on.

By: Dylan

Dylan — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:10:15 +0000

I think that it is important to note that most people who are going to buy this phone are probably going to already be running linux. This would mean that the lack of support for mp3 is almost a non-issue due to the fact that linux has so much support for the ogg format, and most of the people I know who have been using linux for a while, myself included, have most of their music collection in an ogg format. (ogg vorbis, FLAC)
It is disappointing to see that the display is so slow, and that they chose to implement the keyboard in such a poor fashion. Due to the fact that this is an open source phone (in terms of hardware, not software) we can expect many of the software issues, especially useability issues such as the keyboard and the scroll rate to be improved at a fairly steady rate.

By: sinerasis

sinerasis — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:01:07 +0000

The concept is great, but the thing fails to impress on just about every level. Yes, it's young. Yes, it could get better.

Personally, I'd rather grab an old iphone and have an open source firmware for it to play with as the hardware is clearly already top notch.

Plus at $400, it's not exactly something cheap enough to warrant that many faults. It needs to be usable.