wahlau's online hut

if you are following the press conference of T-mobile, Google and htc now, you are definitely aware of the development of mobile internet experience. The press conference is still on at this time at here.

I notice the press conference emphasized on a few keywords - mobile internet, openness, open platform, milestone. If Google Andriod platform will be seen as openness or open system, i wonder if anyone have forgotten on various linux mobile (phones/devices) efforts since years. I would say we should not forget Maemo and Openmoko as one of the pioneers that bring such ideas to a higher level - support from large community and companies.

It is interesting to see Open Source and 3rd Party provider are put as focus of the release. Different developers and 3rd party provides were interviewed, and it will certainly encourage FOSS world to response to the call. It is of course funny to see most of them restrained from sharing their ideas :)

If the future is exactly what Google sees it, it is another sign that the FOSS can be better received by consumers in near future. The openness is promising. It is actually what the FOSS world has been trying to tell others. Of course the propietry world will claim the opposite - i even saw a site claim that FOSS systems are dangerous because malicious users can easily read the source code to exploit it. ahem. no comment.

some short notes:
1. No synchronization possibility with desktop - well, if the unit is running on google web services, i don't really need synchronization at the front end - it is back-end-sync'ed.
2. Sim-lock oh sim-lock - similar to iphone approach - it will run on t-mobile network. it is a matter of time until someone crack something. But it make sense if the opennes is only limited to the platform and software - not carrier :)
3. A consumer device - means it will not really put business people as first target group - no grabbing of users from Blackberry and those business smartphone market.
4. Real IM Presence through mobile - ok, mobile presence out of the box. for others they need 3rd party software. Useful? only if you want the world (or your small world of friends) to know where and what you are currently doing :)

The hardware availability date is set at Oct 22nd, and it is priced at 179USD for current t-mobile customers. I wonder when we will get one in Europe (specifically in Germany).

Shall update more when the press conference is over :)